To celebrate our 35th anniversary, we decided on something different by booking a journey up the Rhine, something we'd decided to do several years ago. We started off by flying in to Amsterdam three days early and traveling around the city on our own, as we do when we travel. We stayed at the Hotel Okura, booked through Viking, and couldn't have been happier with our reception at the airport, the hotel and again when we were transported to the ship.

The stops in Kinderdijk and along the Rhine were very interesting, as were the tours (we've always arranged our own itineraries and consult various guidebooks). The trip is really a set of reasonably vigorous waking events at some spectacular sites with some interesting people. While never being big on guided tours, we really enjoyed these. We got to see parts of the Continent that we would never had visited had we not been on this trip.

The accommodations were top notch on the boat, the food very good, the wine unlimited and our dinner companions fantastic. The crew were excellent, friendly and exceedingly attentive and flexible. On the last day, the captain even sat down with us as we all had breakfast--something no ocean cruise ship captain would do! Read more