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Even if your Christmas market river cruise does have an overnight stay in the embarkation city with tours the next day, it's still best to arrive a day early. Travel days from the United States to Europe can be unpredictable, with delays and missed connections, so you should give yourself plenty of time to get to the ship so you don't miss it. Because of the short season for Christmas market river cruises, getting a deal can prove to be a challenge.
Holiday Magic: Danube Family River Cruise
Evenings brought out the more elevated fashion; women donned cute sweaters and dresses, while men dressed in jeans and nicer tops or sweaters. Each year the town of Gengenbach, near Strasbourg, turns its town hall into a giant advent calendar. Twenty-four windows are decorated with a Christmas scene, with a new one revealed each night until Christmas Eve. Excursions to Gengenbach are offered on Basel to Amsterdam festive market sailings. Nearly every Danube River cruise stops in Budapest, often as a port of embarkation or disembarkation.
Night Cruise With 2-Nights Budapest Pre-Cruise, 3 Nights Prague Post-Cruise
Day five is exciting for nature enthusiasts as you sail through The Iron Gates, which is a series of gorges that mark the border between Serbia and Romania.
Linz, Austria
For days exploring the ports, I wore jeans and waterproof boots with long cozy socks, plus a thermal long-sleeved shirt under a sweater. Accessories like a warm hat or ear warmers, gloves and a scarf were also helpful. Book a late fall cruise along the Danube if you'd like to visit Vienna's Christmas markets.
For some river cruises, the embarkation port is just that, a place to get on the ship and leave. If you arrive the day your cruise begins, you could miss out on exploring the city. On my seven-night river cruise, I visited six ports and enjoyed a half day of scenic sailing through the Wachau Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The river cruise starts in Paris, where you can spend the day exploring the city, seeing the Christmas markets in Montmartre or Saint Germain or shopping for high-end gifts along the Champs-Élysées before the 5 p.m. Here, we list the eight best Christmas markets river cruises to take in 2024, along with tips to get the most out of each sailing and highlights not to miss. They all showed off the major church in the city center and described how the city navigated various wars. So I used the tours to help navigate to the city center, then ventured off on my own with my travel companion. We used walking directions on Google Maps as a way to get to destinations we were interested in and to get back to the ship once we were ready to warm up for a while. It's most important to choose a cruise based on which destinations you wish to visit and which travel dates and itinerary lengths work with your schedule.
Best for unique destinations: AmaWaterways' Gems of Southeast Europe
Be sure to get the town's specialty, a steaming bowl of moules frites (mussels with fries), for Christmas lunch. After three days of touring smaller towns, you'll return to Paris, where the Eiffel Tower is visible from the banks of the Seine. On my Viking cruise, we were told that some markets are starting to sell mass-produced goods from China.
What are the best things to buy at European Christmas markets?
Christmas markets are open from midmorning until between 8 and 10 p.m., but there's not enough to do at each market to fill that entire time. I usually spent about an hour at the smaller markets in places like Passau and Linz and about two to three hours at the larger markets in Vienna and Budapest. In each port, you'll want to be sure there are more activities and attractions to fill the rest of your time in port. If you're thinking about booking a Christmas market river cruise but don't know where to start, we've got you covered. Here, we've answered the most popular questions about Christmas market river cruises and shared our top tips and tricks to get the most out of the trip.
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A Viking Rhine River Cruise in Winter - Cruise Critic
A Viking Rhine River Cruise in Winter.
Posted: Thu, 01 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Every Christmas market is different in the overall vibe and what it has to offer for visitors. Do some research before you leave home to see what the highlight of each Christmas market is. I did a lot of my research on TikTok and Instagram so I could see what the person was talking about. On the Danube, you can visit destinations like Vienna, Austria and Passau and Regensburg, Germany. Alternatively, on the Rhine, destinations of interest include Amsterdam; Cologne, Germany; Mannheim, Germany; and Strasbourg, France. I was most impressed by Vienna, which had two, but the one near City Hall is the one that makes most of the viral TikTok videos and Instagram reels.
If you want to support local artisans, ask the vendor or look for stickers that say where the products were made. If you can, I suggest bringing at least two pairs of outdoor shoes in case your waterproof shoes can't handle the snow or a few days of rain in a row. I brought a pair of fleece-lined Crocs to wear off the ship in a few ports where the weather was warmer with no precipitation. The more desirable balcony and suite rooms often sell out first, followed by rooms with only upper windows.
Put the name of the city and the words "Christmas Market hours" into your preferred online search tool to get the operational hours for each market. Depending on the river cruise line you book, the onboard attire may range from casual to a little more fancy. During the day on Viking, many people wore jeans or sweatpants and a casual shirt.
For 90+ years, the Tauck family has had a passion for sailing — aboard small ships and yachts at sea, riverboats along great inland waterways, and at home on the rivers and lakes of Connecticut and New York. When we began blending our land experience with our strong passion for cruising in our first European river cruise back in 1992, we knew that no "ordinary" river cruise experience would do for our guests. We wanted them to travel Europe's rivers in the same beyond-the-ordinary Tauck style they experienced on our land trips. With that in mind, we searched to find a company to partner with that would share our values and our commitment to "do the right thing" by our guests... Together, we crafted a river cruise experience that was ahead of its time and inspired by the destinations we explore. For the longer 12-night cruise and land-based trip, guests will embark the cruise ship in Amsterdam, where they can enjoy a day of free exploration before boarding the riverboat, followed by an Amsterdam canal cruise on day two.
In Vienna, Austria, the whole city comes alive with lights and a festive spirit. One thing not to miss here is the extra-charge excursion to a local winery, where you will celebrate the year's harvest and vintage. Each ship in the Riverside Luxury Cruises fleet is all-suite and comes with butler service. Ships offer an indoor pool and a Jacuzzi to use before or after your trips ashore.
Numerous destinations on river cruises across Europe could hold the title of best European Christmas market, from Germany to Hungary and beyond. These markets typically run from mid-November right up until Christmas, and Europe's river cruises allow you to visit several holiday markets in Europe often in the space of a week or less. In every stop on your Christmas Markets cruise along the Rhine or Danube, you'll enjoy all the magic of your destination's holiday markets, each of which has taken on a distinctive character of its own over the centuries. You'll discover those local traditions… like the hot mulled wine known as glühwein, served in collectible mugs unique to each market… that have caught on to become an indispensable part of the holiday celebration. And on our Rhine Christmas Markets cruise, you'll experience some special holiday magic on an exclusive visit to the Thurn und Taxis family's Palace of St. Emmeram in Regensburg.
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