Best Of

We have enjoyed all of our river cruises but loved the Douro with Madrid and Lisbon anchor cities and Savoring France. The former was very relaxing while the latter offered some of the best excursions we have ever experienced. We also loved the Yuletide Holiday cruise for all the festivities and cultural activities. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them. Do you wish to return to a country you have been to or try something new?

Very excited to see that Tauck has now posted details related to the new 2026 Hidden Greece Land Tour. Details sound promising. Only disadvantage I see is that the tour neither begins nor ends in Athens. This makes flights to/from US a challenge --- mostly because my DH still works and tries to conserve his leave. Hope we can figure something out :-)

We're coming up on our 7th river cruise so we've done all Tauck's rivers except the Soane. They were all good. The ships are pretty much the same - same decor, same cabin types to chose from, same excellent service and food. It sort of depends on what you're looking for. The Danube I think is the most scenic especially in terms of castles, quaint towns, docking close or in the action, etc. The Rhone (our first) has France especially Provence going for it. Lots of Van Gogh sights. The Seine includes Paris and iconic locations like the Dday beaches and Giverny's wonderful house/garden. The Douro is lovely but some don't care for it because it's a lovely, sleepy river full of vineyards but doesn't have excursions to major sights compared to other rivers. We did the longer version with Lisbon and Madrid plus added some time on our own in Barcelona so it didn't bother us that the river portion was kind of sleepy. The Rhine isn't very scenic except for the upper middle Rhine with a slew of castles to cruise by. The Moselle was similar to the Douro (small and lots of vineyards) but does have more interesting stops.

If you are looking for pleasant sundeck cruising opt for a summer cruise (June is ideal) as it can be chilly as the ship moves. If you want some relaxing daytime cruising, you'll see more of that on the longer cruises. We prefer longer cruises to maximize our airfare expense. For a first cruise, I'd recommend either Amsterdam to Budapest (Rhine, Main & Danube) or one of the longer Rhone cruises. But it really depends on what sights you want to see and what cities you want to start/end the cruise in.

We do a lot of river boats and small boat tours, but we have also done six land tours. I think the TDs do a lot more work on land tours. I have done riverboat tours where I have barely known who the TDs were. The tour ‘guides’ are mostly the local people. But, I have also done tours where the TDs on the small ships and riverboats were great. I also know that Tauck wants the tipping of TDs to be a personal thing that is a reflection of the quality of the service. If you include the tips as part of the salary and part of the cost of the trip the incentive for an over the top performance and experience has been removed. The carrot will have been removed. I was mugged once in Chicago while flying for American (my ID was actually found in Dallas by some coincidence), and my wife was once mugged in Barcelona near the Ramblas when we were traveling to the airport by bus. The most valuable thing they got was her Coach purse. They apparently cut the strap with a razor and she did not even know it was gone. That being said, I will reveal my system. When out and about, no jewelry. I use a room card holder as a wallet. I carry one credit card and thirty dollars and thirty euros. Everything else is in the safe in the hotel. We travel with one hundred ones, twenty fives, ten tens, and five twenties. That’s four hundred bucks for two of us. In an emergency that would cover some medical expense, perhaps a hotel room, and a meal or two. I consider this a minimum travel stash. This is separate from the TDs tip which is already in an envelope. We have traveled rather extensively aside from Tauck, and I have used the cash.