Fred Olsen river cruises

The point I was making silverlining was that,given this fact,it would have been preferable to be docked in a large port where the churches at least would have been open.Also,I did not appreciate that Halloween was a bank holiday in Germany.

I agree with dizzyblonde. Viking are VG. Well organised, lovely riverboats, good tours. All in all a good quality experience and worth the price.

I think the OP is considering a sea/ river cruise sailing from Liverpool to France and taking in some of the larger navigable rivers.
So the ship will be as jeanio described it.
Remember to consider extra costs such as drinks and excursions, which may not be included in the price.
I prefer to fly/cruise as British waters can be a bit rough.

Greenfinch sorry you were disappointed but in my experience most countries in Europe keep to Sunday and bank holiday closing. It’s just us that have changed to open all hours.

Fred Olsen apparently have a river cruise ship now’ I think it’s called the Brabant which does the Danube etc.
When we went we did Nuremberg to Budapest and visited some lovely places Melk Abbey and Vienna amongst others. I would probably advise going with someone like Viking who are experienced river cruise companies. We went with scenic who are fantastic but expensive. I do think they are worth it though as we did not spend a single euro over the eight days which was very refreshing.

We did the German Waterways on the Braemar last year and loved the cruising but were disappointed in the venues. They pride themselves on visiting smaller places that the bigger cruise ships can't reach but some of these places are characterless. We docked at Flensburg on a Sunday afternoon but everything was closed bar one church. The visit to Bremen was cancelled because it could not be reached due to a potential storm in the North Sea and so we spent two days in Kiel which was OK but there again everything was closed for the day because of Halloween. I would advise going on a traditional river cruise if you want to visit more interesting places

I've looked and can only find the Braemar and the Black Watch doing French coastal rivers.
The river cruises seem to be in Germany and leasing boats from another company. (OK I'm bored waiting for school to be out and DGCs arrival so time to Google!)

Fred Olsen have started doing river cruises, I haven’t been on one of theirs but I have been on one with another company which was wonderful.

I've done a cruise to the Norwegian Fjords with Fred Olsen from Liverpool on the Black Watch, a smaller ocean ship but never a river cruise. The whole experience from beginning to end was first class, ease of boarding from Liverpool, onboard staff, food and entertainment. I wasn't so impressed with the ship itself, maybe this was because I had only cruised with larger ocean going ships before but it didn't spoil our holiday.

I don't think Fred Olsen do river cruises. Is it one of their smaller ocean ships? I know they do a cruise on French coast that goes a little into one of the larger river outlets. We looked into this but thought we'd go on a river boat eg a Viking one.