Sometimes the best decisions in life are the ones you don’t think too hard or too long about. For instance, we have been thinking about what we want to do next year for vacation. As we were watching television, we saw a commercial for a river cruise and said: “What about something like that?” Fifteen minutes later, we were browsing online to see what was available. The next afternoon, we booked a Danube River Cruise.

Yes, it really happened that fast! While we were in Chablis, we had been looking at something completely different for next fall and that’s still on the table. A week without a future adventure was more than my system could take.

If you know me, you probably know of my reluctance to get near a cruise ship. I don’t know what terrible thing happened in a prior life, but me and the water usually take completely different paths. As I grow older, I realize that my irrational fear is something that I need to conquer. What better way than on a boat sailing on the beautiful Danube River ?

I’m counting this as an ‘80%’ tour: 80% structured tour/ 20% freeform. That is something that I typically tend to avoid. I love to do the research when planning a trip, so this will be different in many ways. However, I do get to plan out our time in Munich.

Enough about me. Here’s what we booked:

We will be sailing with AmaWaterways on a 7 night cruise called “Melodies of the Danube“. We added 2 nights pre-cruise in Budapest, Hungary to have some exploration time. We are also adding four extra days at the end of the cruise to explore Munich, Germany.

There will only be a total of 156 passengers, plus another 51 crew members. Meals are all included and AmaWaterways is a member of the “La Chaîne des Rôtisseurs”, so the food is supposed to be very good. I can only go by what we’ve read, so it will be interesting to see what it’s really like.

We found flights that are to our liking, although we couldn’t find any direct flights to Budapest. Coming home, we were able to fly direct from Munich, so that added to our reasoning to stay and explore for a few extra days. We were able to find a great hotel in the heart of the Munich Old Town. It’s called the Platzl Hotel and it is perfect for walking around and sightseeing.

Port of calls within the voyage are visits to three countries we’ve not been to before – Hungary, Slovakia and Germany. My globe is going to fall over soon…we’re gonna need to go somewhere besides Europe.

We’re starting to get communications with additional details, so I’m sure there will be at least one update before we go.

To anyone who has been on a river cruise: feel free to send along suggestions or tips. This is a totally new experience and we are willing to learn.