First off, the crew of the Skadi was wonderful, all cheerful and positive. I never once encountered anybody that was not extremely professional and courteous. The food was amazing, top notch. Also, Jeffrey did an amazing job at keeping our stateroom immaculate and well stocked with towels, water, and bathing products. However, the problem lies with the excursions. Aside for the tour of the windmills, which was very informative, the rest of the tours were extremely painful to say the least. The guides were all over the place and did not maximize the time available to point out highlights. Highlights based on what we felt were important, based on our own pre-cruise research. For example: On one tour the guide asked the bus driver to make a stop so that she could point out the hospital of where her mother was born, and another stop to point out the products in a yarn store, all the time saying that we needed to rush to get to the cathedral because it closed at 1120. We got to the cathedral and were there 7 minutes before they started turning out the lights and whisking us out of there. On another tour, to the Black Forest, the ride there was almost 2 hours. Once there - it was basically a tourist trap designed to empty wallets. No real historic or tourism value. Just there to buy stuff; clocks, glassware. We spent 65 minutes there and drove back to the Skadi. Overall, if rating solely the excursions, I would give that 1 star out of 5. throughout the week, many people on the buses had commented that we should have stayed on the boat and walked into town. I agree, it would have been time better spent. I could go on complaining about the excursions, but rather than do so will end my comments with this; we will never go on a river cruise again. The time spent off of the boat was too chaotic, almost stressful. We will in the future simply pick a vacation spot and go there, exploring the surrounding areas on our own.