The river cruise from Basel to Amsterdam: a new experience for Tim and Eileen. Fairly swank, 5 star food and service.
The boat – a prototypical Rhine River cruiser. There are many outfits plying the river, but all use the exact same boat, probably made in the same ship yard. The Rhine has a lot of locks. These boats (and every boat) have to fit inside a lock.
135m long, fairly narrow. Rooms on three levels. We were in “steerage” on the bottom. Room very tight, but functional. Level two held the lobby and the formal dining room. Level three held the bar, informal dining, and general hanging out. Level 3 also had the beloved Coffee Bar machine, a beast that ground fresh coffee and could make six different types: espresso, latte, Americano, chocolate, etc. We preferred this machine to the coffee served at table for breakfast.
The bar was “open”. No limits. We heard many a champagne bottle pop – for breakfast! The breakfast buffet was stunning. Over 30 different things to choose from. Custom omelettes. Lunch could either be semi-formal in the dining room, or a buffet at the bar. A person could stay drunk all day and eat nothing but fancy desserts if they wanted to debauch. In the wrong crowd, this could have gone wrong, but the average age was 72, and half the passengers were Canadians. There were no fist fights. Dinners were semi-formal and the food was outstanding.
We often formed up with a few couples that we sought out, but we also sat with complete strangers. Everyone was friendly, considerate, interesting. The crew was relentlessly cheerful and helpful. There were no native English speakers on the crew, from the lowest room cleaners to the boat manager and captain. I’m not even sure that any of them were from central Europe. Indonesia, the Baltics for sure. But everyone could communicate well enough.
The boat often cruised at night so that we’d be in port for daily outings. There were two, sometimes three options. Still, we often cruised at least part of the day as well, the boat going along down stream at ~11mph. There was something addicting about watching the scenery drift by.