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A First Timer's Guide to River Cruising in Europe
Europe – arguably the most diverse of the World’s 7 continents and packed with enough tourist hot spots to last you a lifetime. So what’s the best way to see it all – and leave yourself with enough energy to enjoy the journey at the same time? Friends have told me that a river cruise can be a great way to navigate your way through Europe and save all the hassle of travelling by car or train. I was keen to try it out for myself and so booked a Rhine Cruise with APT travelling on the TravelMarvel Polaris. So – if you are looking for a first timer’s guide to taking a river cruise in Europe, you are in the right place.
Our First River Cruise - Gems of the Rhine - Nuremberg to Amsterdam
The TravelMarvel Polaris holds a maximum of 182 passengers and 45 crew – there were 152 passengers on our voyage. We joined the ship on the 20th October 2025 at Nuremberg – when it was already half way through a 2 week trip from Budapest – and sailed for 8 days along both the Main and the Rhine Rivers to the end of the journey in Amsterdam. We felt that 8 days would belong enough to give us a good feel for what river cruising was really like outside the pages of a travel brochure.
We booked our cruise through ROL Cruises who we found offered good deals compared to booking direct.
The 10 Big Pros of River Cruising
If – like us – you have never done a river cruise before and are tempted to give it a try, here are ten good reasons to turn that dream into reality:
- You don’t have to keep packing and unpacking – or haul your luggage around with you. Even if you have mastered the art of packing light, travelling with luggage can be very tiring. Taking a river cruise frees you from that hassle.
- You are always right in the centre of town. The best river cruise companies pride themselves on mooring in pole positions usually just a few steps away from the centre of towns and villages. Forget having to search for a car park space in medieval villages that would be a struggle for even a horse and cart to navigate. You can easily hop off and stroll right into the centre of the places you want to visit giving you plenty of opportunity to explore independently if you choose to.
- Excursions to tourist hot spots are usually all included. If you want to visit any major tourist attractions en route, you will usually find that the excursions included in your trip will whisk you there quickly and easily and get you back to base in good time too. There is no need to book online ages ahead of your journey as you would normally need to do in Europe. Local guides will be on hand to give you as much context and background to your visit as you like and keep you entertained as you travel too.
- Sampling local food and drink is a doddle. River cruise ships are able to stock up on local specialties much more easily than ocean going cruise liners because they moor right in the centre of town. Also, you are only ever a short hop from local restaurants, so lunch or dinner ashore is easy to arrange. The staff on board will usually have visited the area many times and be more than happy to give you recommendations and help make travel arrangements (eg book taxis) if required.
- River Cruising provides you with a great perspective. On one glorious Autumn afternoon, we sailed down the River Rhine between Mainz and Koblenz covering a distance of around 100 kilometres and getting postcard perfect views of no less than a staggering 33 famous castles along the way! Just imagine having to navigate your way between all those castles by road, finding somewhere to park your car, buying your ticket, walking up the hill to each one and down again. You would need to allow a good few weeks to see them all?
- River Cruises gives you a warm and dry place to hang out when the weather turns against you. Europe is fascinating, but visiting in Summer means crowds everywhere you go and visiting in the shoulder seasons of Spring and Autumn means the weather is completely unpredictable, We were travelling in late October and valued the warm, cosy environment of the ship greatly on the couple of cold, wet and windy days towards the end of our journey.
- River Cruises are sociable and friendly – there is always someone to talk to and have a laugh with. This is particularly valuable if you find yourself travelling solo, but even when you are a devoted couple, conversation with new people from all around the world is always energising? You always have your own space back in your cabin if you feel the need for some quiet time.
- You don’t have to worry about sea sickness on a river cruise. Unlike ocean going cruises, where the ups and downs of the sea can cause even the most robust of passengers to feel a little queasy from time to time, river cruises glide through their journey smoothly and serenely. There is absolutely no need to pack your sea sickness pills.
- River Cruises give you great views. All the cabins on our ship had huge panoramic floor to ceiling windows (French balconies) which opened half way, so you don’t miss any of the scenery if you want to stay in your cabin for a stretch. Forget sea sprayed tiny portholes or the claustrophobic misery of an inside cabin on a sea cruise – you can just put your feet up and relax on a river cruise and watch as the world drifts gently past your window.
- Embarkation and Disembarkation is a doddle on a river cruise. Maybe because you are so close to land all the time, river cruise ships are able to deal with embarkation and disembarkation much more easily than the average ocean going cruises liner. Checking in to our ship took just ten minutes and our bags were whisked away and delivered to our cabin within that time too!
The Inside Story - Life on Board a River Cruise
If you are still with me, then I hope I have convinced you by now that river cruising has a lot to offer. What is life really like on board though and are there any downsides I hear you ask? What follows is my honest view of the inside story after a week spent on board the TravelMarvel Polaris.
Cabins
First things first – what are the cabins like? Well, our cabin (201) was clean and comfortable and gave us enough space to store everything we needed for a week of unpredictable weather. It certainly wasn’t huge though – more compact than spacious. The shower was good with plenty of hot water whenever you needed it and room service was quietly efficient. I’d give it 9/10 overall – a bit more space and a balcony you could actually walk out onto would have improved things – and a bath would have been amazing!
Wining and Dining
There was only one restaurant on board which opened for breakfast between 7.30 and 9.30 am, lunch between 12 and 1 pm and dinner between 7 and 9 pm. That said, it was clearly expected that everyone would arrive together for dinner at 7 and that the dining room would close at 9.
It was an open table seating arrangement – you could sit wherever you liked and choose between a table for 2 (there were very few of those), 4, 6 or 8. Groups tended to form and stick to their favourite table and seats. The thing I was most pleased about was that there was no fixed table dining, so no risk of being stuck with someone incompatible and having to extricate yourself from that after a couple of nights!
The way it worked for us joining half way through the voyage was that we dined with different people every night – which kept life varied and interesting – and usually had a table to ourselves for breakfast (we are early risers).
Pastries are available for early and late risers at breakfast time and light lunches and dinners were also served in the small bar (McGreary’s named after the founder) at the other end of the ship from the restaurant. The breakfast buffet was vast and fresh omelettes cooked to order were also on offer every day. Every effort was made to include local specialties in the lunch and dinner menus. Dinner was a 4 courses affair (appetiser, soup, main and dessert) with a couple of choices for each course and vegetarian options always available.
Wine, beer and soft drinks were all included at meal times. There was no choice of wine – ie one red and one white were offered – but the wines were all local and changed each day and they were all certainly very drinkable! Your glass is continually filled until you refuse any further refills. There is a convivial Happy Hour with half price drinks in the small bar area each night and a range of cocktails, wines, spirits and soft drinks available at full price in the lounge area. If you like all inclusive cruising, then it doesn’t quite deliver that level of luxury, but we found it perfectly good and good value too: a gin and tonic at Happy Hour cost €3.45, which beats most hotel prices in Europe hands down.
Company
What about the company you can expect on board? TravelMarvel is operated by the APT Group which are an Australian company. As most of their marketing is aimed at the home market, we found ourselves in the company of 130 or so amiable Australians who we found to be reliably friendly, sociable and always looking out for each other and their fellow passengers. It made for a relaxing holiday all round. I hadn’t given much thought to that aspect of the trip beforehand, but I would say that it is definitely worth thinking about where the river cruise company you are thinking of booking with is based to make sure – as far as you can – that you are holidaying with like minded people whose company you will enjoy.
The typical river cruise passenger is aged over 60 and is probably also well travelled. There were no young people on board at all and there were several passengers who had passed the 80 milestone and were able to draw on a lifetime of travel stories to entertain fellow travellers in the evenings. If you book a river cruise hoping for younger company, then you would probably be disappointed – although multi generational cruises are growing in popularity now.
Entertainment
How about the entertainment on board? Well – it is not like sea cruising where there is an effort to entertain you every hour of the day and after dinner shows etc. Our entertainers were a talented husband and wife team who played guitar and sang beautifully. She also did the early morning stretch class – so is definitely multi talented! That was it as far as entertainment was concerned, but we found it plenty good enough.
On Board Facilities
What about the facilities on board? There is one lounge, a small bar and a gym, but that is about it. There is a large sun deck which was thankfully open on the day we sailed down the magnificent Rhine Gorge. For most of the time, it was shut because we passed through many locks and low bridges on our journey. By the time we had sailed down the Rhine, the weather had turned cold and wet and there was no real appetite to sit outside on a sun deck anyway. On a Summer cruise though, I think this would be a great place to hang out and give a bit more variety to life on board.
Itinerary Highlights
This post is aimed at giving you a flavour of what river cruising is like, so I will include a few photos from the trip which I hope might inspire you to make your own journey when I am sure you will take many more photos (as I did!). Here is a small selection of some of the trip highlights:
Foodie Firsts
Every trip to a new destination brings an opportunity to try out new flavours and tastes and this trip was no exception. Here are a few of the “foodie firsts” we were able to sample on our trip:
Smoked beer from the Schlenkeria Brewery in the UNESCO World Heritage village of Bamberg. I’m glad I tried it, but I didn’t finish mine. Beer that tastes of bacon just doesn’t do it for me?!
Black Slate Beer in Miltenberg. We did a culinary tour down the length of the High Street in the pretty village of Miltenberg and sampled Faust Schwarzviertler Beer. Faust Schwarzviertler is a dark lager, brewed by the Brauhaus Faust brewery in Miltenberg, Germany. Deliciously dark chocolatey brown in colour, this king of beers has everything you could wish for in a beer – a “good for you” malty taste, the sweetness of chocolate and caramel and just a hint of smoke. For me, this was the real deal for a good beer.
Rűdesheim Liqueur Coffee – definitely one to try at home. It is rather like an Irish Coffee, but the theatrical flambėeing of the alcohol at the table is a fun experience.
The atmospheric Art Café on the High Street of the historic town of Rüdesheim am Rhein is a great place to try one – it is one of their signature creations. Heated Asbach and three sugar cubes are poured into the original Rüdesheimer coffee cup, ignited, and gently stirred until the sugar is fully caramelized. The signature confection is then completed with the addition of hot, aromatic coffee and topped with an indulgent swirl of fresh whipped cream, finished with fine chocolate shavings.
It is certainly a lovely warming brew on a cold Autumn day – the sort of real treat that good holiday memories are made of. Well worth the €9.80 a cup in my view.
Sausages – there are so many varieties available – Well over 1200. After a while, they all began to taste a bit the same to me?! Sampling a few of them with a beer on the sun deck of the TravelMarvel Polaris on a fine Autumn morning was a memorable experience though.
Tips for Future Travellers
- Consider booking pre and post tours. One of the downsides of cruising is that you don’t get that long in each port of call. For the little towns and villages along the Main and the Rhine, two or three hours is all you need to explore fully, but for big cities like Budapest and Amsterdam, it is well worth staying a few days, especially if you are making the long journey from outside of Europe. If you are looking for ideas of how to spend your time in either Budapest or Amsterdam, there are links to previous posts in both cities at the end of this post.
- If you do want to spend more time in big European cities, be aware that tickets for most of the major tourist attractions need to be bought well in advance on line. We would have liked to visit the Farina Perfume Factory in Cologne, but tours were all booked up on the day we arrived.
- Low water levels can be a real issue for river cruises. TravelMarvel changed the ship we were sailing on because of difficulties navigating low water levels. The passengers who had been sailing from Budapest had to change ships mid voyage which caused quite a bit of disruption for them. Some ships have even had to turn the whole cruise into a coach trip – now that’s what I would call a ruined holiday. Disruption due to low water levels is most likely to happen in hot dry Summers and Early Autumn, so a Spring cruise might be a good choice to give yourself the best chance of avoiding them.
Glad I Packed
I always find packing lists helpful – it is never my favourite part of preparing for a trip. Packing for a river cruise is really easy though. You definitely don’t need anything for dressing up at night – the dress code is very relaxed and casual. The cabins are not huge either, so packing light is definitely the way to go. Keep your bag down to a size that can easily be pushed under the bed so that you are left with the maximum amount of cabin space. The absolute essentials I would say you need for a river cruise in Europe are:
- Comfortable waterproof walking shoes
- A sturdy fold up umbrella
- A windproof waterproof coat
- A European 2 pin plug adapter
I was also glad I packed my latest embroidery project and a good book. It is good to have something to do as you are sailing along.
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