What drives you to choose when you get on a boat?

[anjuan]

For us the first consideration is usually dates we want to take a vacation. If there is a DCL cruise when we want to travel, then we first look at that and see if the price will work for my budget. For our next cruise, which is a high school graduation trip for my daughter, we wanted to go right after graduation. When I looked at the options for DCL we could do the Europe trip we already took, or one of the other Caribbean trips we have recently taken. My daughter decided that she really wanted to see Iceland, but the trips scheduled for DCL this summer don't work for us. So we're branching out to NCL for the first time on a 10 night Iceland/Norway/Belgium/Amsterdam/Southampton cruise at the end of the month on their newest ship. We'll see if we like NCL, and if so, may do other NCL cruises.

Next year we're going on the 10 night Southern Caribbean cruise because that is an itinerary we have always wanted to try out and it fits our schedule.

But in general, we really look to DCL first because we love their level of service. I'm really hoping that with the new ships coming out DCL will start to sail to more locations.

 

[Flossbolna]

Thank you both, that is an offer I definitely wish I could take you up on, but sadly we do not. It leaves from Passau and ends in Budapest. We are spending just one night in Munich before we depart. The closest I have gotten to you two would be Regensberg or Bamberg - that is such a beautiful area, you are very lucky! 20/30 years on my favorite coworker still pines for her time living in Dresden... her son missed it so much he snapped at the opportunity to migrate and work in Berlin about 5 years ago and never looked back. I can't wait for my trip - little snips are all I get!

For us, sailing in Europe just wasn't as enjoyable as I had hoped. Purely our opinion but it got annoying having to get back to the ship by a certain time rather than enjoy the long summer hours on shore, and have nice local dinners on land. What sealed the deal was turning around on the Troll road in Norway. We could have pressed on all the way to Geiranger - we were within spitting distance - but decided there was no point as we were calling there the next day. Then it got cancelled. I am still slightly bitter (at the weather, not DCL). This is my very roundabout way of adding on to my previous response that even port stops may not be a good indicator of what we look for. I guess step 1 for us truly is, would this location make sense to visit on a cruise? Then the rest comes into play... Greece or Italy might be good options as bopping around islands in the med is like bopping around the Caribbean.

I think living in Europe my point of view to cruising here is different, but I get what you say about having to get back on board and missing out on evenings. I think that's why we do a lot of land trips besides the cruising (took a break since 2016 and not just because of the pandemic).

It's a shame that you are missing out on Nuremberg, we proud us of having the oldest of them all! But if you have been to Regensburg and Bamberg you already had a large dose of the typical medieval German towns... Würzburg is a bit different because of the baroque palace and churches. So much to see here though! You could easily fill a three week itinerary with only hitting highlights within Bavaria.

Have fun in Munich! My favorite restaurant to take visitors to is this one: https://www.schneider-brauhaus.de/de Very good wheat beer and traditional food. If you are very adventurous you could even eat sweet sour veal lung (a Munich speciality and no, I have never eaten it and have no intention to ever try it!! But I know people who claim it is delicious).

 

[AquaDame]

I think living in Europe my point of view to cruising here is different, but I get what you say about having to get back on board and missing out on evenings. I think that's why we do a lot of land trips besides the cruising (took a break since 2016 and not just because of the pandemic).

It's a shame that you are missing out on Nuremberg, we proud us of having the oldest of them all! But if you have been to Regensburg and Bamberg you already had a large dose of the typical medieval German towns... Würzburg is a bit different because of the baroque palace and churches. So much to see here though! You could easily fill a three week itinerary with only hitting highlights within Bavaria.

Have fun in Munich! My favorite restaurant to take visitors to is this one: https://www.schneider-brauhaus.de/de Very good wheat beer and traditional food. If you are very adventurous you could even eat sweet sour veal lung (a Munich speciality and no, I have never eaten it and have no intention to ever try it!! But I know people who claim it is delicious).

I'd dearly love to spend more time sometime... Ive yet to even set foot in the black forest! Thank you for the food rec! This will be my fourth time to Munich and I'd definitely like to go somewhere new. I am doomed to have to go back to Augustiner-Keller for a pint again as my husband loves that celler, but we weren't planning to have dinner there.

 

[Louise97]

For us, it's a balance of price and dates. I don't imagine us ever going on a non-DCL cruise, it's an alternative to WDW/DLR really.

Our first cruise was a UK Staycation, when we couldn't get to the US. Our second cruise is coming up this month and is a Mediterranean sailing out of Barcelona. Last year's WDW trip was so expensive, and transatlantic flights ate up so much of our budget. We realised we could do the cruise plus a couple of DLP trips for the price of going to WDW or DLR again!