Cruising on the Rhine River

River cruising is one of the hottest trends in cruising and the next few blogs will be about our journey on Uniworld's S.S. Antoinette as we travel down the Rhine River from Amsterdam, through Germany and France, ending in Switzerland.

We boarded yesterday in Amsterdam, with the entire boarding process taking about 5 minutes. What a beautiful lobby/reception area! We were escorted to our stateroom, which is located Deck 3 and has a French Balcony.  The first thing I will say is...WOW!  Lavish, beautifully decorated, very functional, comfortable and plenty of amenities. Love, love, love the French Balcony...very large window on one wall that you can slide up or down with the touch of a button.  You can enjoy the fresh air and the wonderful view  from inside your room.

Had a nice buffet lunch outside on the  upper deck,  complete with complimentary beer and wine. Food was delicious! Spent a little time exploring the ship...nice lounge area, movie theatre, fitness room, pool and more. We set sail around 4:00 for our next stop in Cologne. Fabulous dinner in the dining room last night...good choices, tasty and excellent service.

My biggest observation so far about what makes river cruising so different from ocean liner cruising: Size -  both number of passengers and ship size - with an average os 150 passengers on a river cruise and smaller ship, it.makes for a much more intimate environment.

More later as we headed into Cologne.

P.s.  If you have been following on our journey for the week or so, we have been very busy, so I am a bit behind on blogging. I promise to catch up later on St. Andrews, Edinburgh and Amsterdam.