My wife and I just returned from a very enjoyable river cruise on the Rhine (Castles along the Rhine) aboard Uniworld's S.S. Antoinette. We did a couple of pre cruise days in Amsterdam and several post cruise days in Grindelwald, Switzerland (on our own) but I'll focus this review primarily on our river cruise. Feel free to email me with any questions on our cruise or on the pre/post cruise portion of our trip.

We have taken several cruises over the years and in fact, our last cruise was a Mediterranean cruise two summers ago on RCCL's Voyager of the Seas. However, this was our first river cruise and even after reading many online reviews, we were a little hesitant as to the possible lack of amenities and "activities" on a small passenger ship as opposed to the large cruise ships we are familiar with. It turned out that we didn't miss or lack for anything and were extremely happy with everything available on this type of cruising vessel.

6/29 -- We arrived at Amsterdam Schiphol airport, took a 20 minute train to Amsterdam's Central Station, and walked to our hotel (Renaissance Amsterdam) arriving around 11:00 AM. The hotel had a room available (we had prepaid) and we were able to check in and dump our bags. Even though a bit jet lagged, we decided to take a walk around and ended up at the Anne Frank House and Museum. The wait to enter this famous hideout was about 45 minutes but the line moved fairly fast and it turned out the wait was worth it. After touring the museum, we headed back to the hotel to combat our jet lag and then had a nice tapas meal at a nearby Spanish restaurant nearby. Read more