Emerald Waterways European River Cruises. Things you need to know before river cruising with them!!

hi I'm Gary Bainbridge I'm currently on board Emerald waterways Emerald dawn heading down the Danube on a European River cruise and in this video I thought I would share with you why emerald waterways might be the right cruise line if you're considering doing a river cruise and also give you other reasons why it's not to help you make up your mind so there's five good reasons why it could be this four reasons why it may not be and hopefully that's going to help you make up your mind if emeralds the right cruise line to do a European River cruise with one of the challenges with river cruising is many of the things that River cruise lines do are very similar so the ships are constrained by their size in terms of length total width in terms of height which eyes are moving along the river also they tend to offer very similar programs so for example they tend to be all-inclusive which means all meals and only a drinks are included and most will include excursions every single day of the trip and things like free Wi-Fi so a lot of the programs and all things that they do are very similar itineraries a very similar sort emerald of donors try to bring some innovations the ships of example they have what's known as the emerald panorama suite which tries to bring a balcony into the cabin and this is one of the cabins that I was staying in so the idea is you have floor-to-ceiling windows half of it comes down to push of a button and you effectively have a balcony lots of fresh air in your room they also have at the rear of the boat they have an indoor heated swimming pool which is a really great innovation it's not particularly large but it's certainly a big enough pool to splash around in you have great views at the back of the ship particular when you're sailing and during the evening it then closes down has a cover of it and becomes a cinema room which is a very nice touch they also have bits of technology around the ship and one of things I really like is in the lobby area they have the whole length of the wall a digital screen which shows the latest news and also has the daily program so various innovations a second possible reason for choosing Emerald is their Emerald active program so as I've already mentioned included in the fares are a daily tour which is not only a walking tour of some kind what emerald do is they have an emerald program so in every itinerary they will have things like biking tours hiking tours and also they have things like bicycles available so emerald active is another possible reason if you're looking for something a little bit more active beyond ajust walking tours so another reason is also linked to excursions so this is included within the overall excursion program but the emerald more program is a way of trying to get more into the community so the emerald more program might take you for lunch ad with a local family or get to you to go in tour a local monastery or something like that so really tries to get to sort of behind the scenes of the local community also for those particularly who've traveled to region more than once another reason that emerald may appeal is the emerald plus program so what enteral plus does is it tries to build an excursion set a little bit out of the ordinary so for example on this tour on emerald plus it took people all the way down to the Black Sea for a day a whole day trip down there so emerald plus tries to go beyond the obvious beyond the normal tools that perhaps first-time visitors want to do emerald plus tours do though have an extra charge them but there is those programs so within the excursion program you've got emerald active you've got emerald more and you got emerald plus so three reasons within the whole excursions program that provides a little bit more variety of difference to just the normal walking tours another thing that's really appealed to me was that along the river emerald seemed to be supporting local communities so to give you an example in Bulgaria we stopped a place called Silistra and we headed out into the countryside about half an hour away into a very small village community and here there was a school which basically looks after underprivileged kids and what emeral do is they head to the school they take the visitors around the kids perform and they basically put money into the school to help fund a lot of the programs they do and along the way this seems to mean other little excursions we've done into very remote or very rundown areas and basically excursion seems a lot built around helping to support the local communities so those are reasons why emerald may appeal to you let me give you a couple of reasons why it may not appeal to you and why it may not be the cruise line for you well first of all the day corps may not beat one's taste personally I really liked it it feels very contemporary it feels quite modern a lot of people that I spoke to or certainly some people that I spoke to they preferred other River cruise ships which are a little bit more ornate and a little bit more old-fashioned perhaps more are there country house style so if you like a modern contemporary design then I think emerald ships will appeal to you another reason and will may not appeal to you is the fact that they are on the premium end of river cruising so the ships are very luxurious the service is very high and they have lots of sort of extra features whether it's you know some of the innovations I spoke about whether it's things like you know turndown service chopped that's on your pillow or whether it's actually choice of three or four main courses plus you also have standards every day so of course it's more like staying at a four-star five-star hotel and that may be something that you don't want to spend as much as you want to find a more inexpensive or more value-based option so in that case emerald is probably not the right cruise line for you the other thing maybe around costs so as I mentioned most river cruise lines are all-inclusive and sitting on emerald they include the meals they include drinks with your meals they include the excursions that I've spoken about they include Wi-Fi however they do not include drinks outside of mealtimes so you can sometimes get deals where depending if you booked early enough might get drinks included where you buy drinks packages however drinks that you buy at the bar sort of non meal times you have to pay extra for so that may not appeal to you may prefer to go online where everything's all included another reason that it may not be the right foot line for you is it's an English language cruise line so everything on board is done in English so all the announcements or the documentation or the tours are in English so if you're looking for a multilingual experience it may not be the right cruise line for you so therefore of course the guests tend to be English language speaking gets they largely come from City on this cruise I was on from the UK Australia the United States Canada those kind of countries so it's that kind of client that you'll have so there's 5 good reasons why it could be there's four reasons why it may not be and hopefully that's going to help you make up your mind if emeralds the right cruise line to do a European River cruise with so a couple of things before I give you that bonus to you if you like the video love it if you give a thumbs up please also subscribe to the channel every week you'll get a new video of tips advice money-saving ideas so here is the bonus I have an e-book about river cruising with lots of tips advice answers to many questions and you can download that for free / using the link below

Channel: Tips For Travellers

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Id: xSUBJhSD9U8

Length: 7min 6sec (426 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 13 2016