Why do I have to choose between Salzburg and Cesky Krumlov?
Are you forced to reduce tourists in both cities by splitting up your cruise passengers? Why not extend the river cruise one day and do both?
I will never be back and I will miss one of these two cities. Should my wife and I split up that day so we can cover both?
0
Comments
We did this tour a couple of years ago, it a great tour. Regarding Chesky Krumlov vs Salzburg...we went to CZ and saw a big castle and had a nice lunch. We spoke to people who went to Salzburg and I think that would have been a better choice as .
we had seen other castles on this trip. Just our personal preference.
River cruises are, well, cruises, you cruise down a river and take small glimpses of various countries and famous sites. For a little more chance of seeing things, chose a land tour, where you might be in one location for two or three days and take different routes each day to see the sites around. Alan S will tell you how he managed to see CK on his own before his river cruise began. All the boats on the river have to stick to a particular pace and route to make room for each other on these very busy rivers....well during this coming year, most river cruises won’t be going so you will have lots of time to plan. Right now, I’d like to see any town or river that isn’t one I can walk to, social distanced and safe.
I saw both on my own . Cesky Krumlov is a small town outside Prague , about and hour or so... small town with a Castle as main attraction and the orig. Theater... other than that sure there is a main square, a Church and some rest. and the river that serpentines the town . It is beautiful but not to spend more than 2-3 hours top.
Salzburg is bigger and more to see, even a stroll around town it's worth it. The castle (Fortress) is nice.. more than anything the view you get from the top is great.. the bldg. inside doesn't have much to see, you can visit the fascinating Opera house( tours avail.) the main Cathedral , which it's huge and it looks like a cake inside , behind the Cathedral there is a small and very particular cemetery and also the funicular is right there.. the Maribell Palace & gardens, the Mozart Residence, all the Mozart balls shops, St,Peter's Abbey and walk by the river or the main Street. Getreidegasse, great little stores... and last but not least..... A coffee shop a block down from the Cathedral, has the amazing Sacher Torte with a delish Austrian cows latte. YUMMM
I would pick Salzburg and if you go a day earlier than you tour the book a 1/2 day trip to Cesky.
We don't like to choose between options (we want to see it all!), but it seems to be the nature of the beast for river and small ship cruising. We'll have to make choices for our upcoming Treasures of the Aegean trip.
We love Salzburg- my wife loved it the first time she visited during her HS German trip- just a "few" years ago
and again when we did Ultimate Alps. We wanted to see it again during the Blue Danube (eastbound) cruise three years ago, but . . . . we also wanted to see Cesky Krumlov- so we arrived in Prague a day and a half early. Due to our flight arriving in Prague early we were were able to take a locally guided tour of the Jewish quarter (so we could take a different walking tour with Tauck on Day 2) and then on the next day we (there were 7 of us) went with the same guide/company (PragueWalker recommended by Rick Steves- guide was fantastic!!!) to Cesky Krumlov. It is a long drive (decent road but not a super highway) so we had to leave Prague early in the morning. It made for a long day (10 hrs?), but was worth it. We ran into a group of Tauck people there from the westbound cruise- they left much earlier that we did (a TD friend said we spent more time there than Tauck does.) We got back about an hour before the welcome dinner. Then, on the appropriate day, we went with Tauck to Salzburg.
You didn't mention what cruise you are looking at. A lot depends on which cruise and which direction as to what you can do, but you'll either need to go a few days early or stay later.
I understand your frustration. While Tauck and other tour companies try to please the most people most of the time, there are often things that you might wish to see that they don't include and things you do see that you couldn't care less about. That's just the nature of buying a packaged tour.
On the other hand, be thankful you have a choice. In the early days of river cruising the choices were take it or leave it. You would have gone to either Chesky Krumlov or Salzburg without any option. It is only in recent years, due to competition, that more and more options have been included. So look at the choice as an opportunity rather than a burden.
As to adding an extra day to include both, others have noted that scheduling is complicated. The itineraries are typically set so that they see the same things on the same day of the week, so as to avoid closure days for the sights. Add to that the difficulties of scheduling river traffic (especially lock transit times) and making even a small change can cause big scheduling problems.
If it were me, I'd go to Chesky Krumlov and follow up with the Ultimate Alps and Dolomites tour in future. That would get you Salzburg without much overlap (maybe Munich).
Tauck trekker, welcome. Since you are new here, you may not be aware that this is a non-Tauck-moderated user forum, so you will rarely get answers to your questions from a Tauck person. If you have a question about Tauck's policies or procedures, you will need to give them a call. However, there are many experienced Tauck travelers who frequent the forum who can provide suggestions on any number of topics, including how to deal with the options issues.
And no it's not because of a limit on how many tourists at a particular city though Tauck sometimes will work to arrange timing.
On our last day on the Rhone there were 3 sites to visit. You signed up the day before which order you'd see them in. One was a cooking school demo that could only handle about 25 at a time. Everyone saw everything just in a different sequence.
I like that there are more options. Our last cruise had several you were supposed to select well before the cruise but it turned out once we arrived we could change out minds. It's mostly so they can arrange the right number of buses, tour guides, bicyles, etc. Amazing amount of logistics involved.
There are plusses and minuses to offering options. Seeing all the options just in a different sequence is a who cares, no real hard decision to make. On the Iceland tour, there are 2 or 3 options on several days. Most days, at least to me, it seems like there is a clear choice, but on one day I have to decide between two options that on any other day of the tour would both be number one selections. This appears to be the same case as trying to choose between Chesky Krumlov and Salzburg. Like Alan says
In terms of splitting up, in order to cover both, it depends. Is the goal to simply obtain pictures of the places, in which case absolutely split up. Or is the goal to experience something together with your wife, as well as to get pictures to document that shared experience, then you have to make a choice. If the missed item is truly THAT IMPORTANT, then you will find another way, like Ken from Vegas suggests, to see the missed item.
The annoying thing about Iceland was that you do your choice and then return to the ship for lunch and there you stay when it would have been so easy to go to the other option in the afternoon. We asked about it but they only budget for one site see a day. There is little entertainment on the ship. I read several books, unheard of on a Tauck tour.