H and I are frequent travelers (we just returned from 2 weeks in Greece) but we've never done a river cruise (did a Royal Carribean cruise a few years back on the Western Carribean, and while I enjoyed the accessibility of basically everything on a cruise, I didn't enjoy the ports or activities in the ports, and didn't like the massive ship with thousands of people). I've always been interested in a river cruise, but don't know much more than what I've seen via Viking. We've done "middle" Europe (Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Austria, Slovenia) but never more Western Europe, where a lot of the river cruises run.
We'd probably do a Christmas-time cruise; I would like to be back by the 22nd so I can work the week of Christmas (so I can give my teams off, and frankly, Christmas week is the BEST at work because it's quiet and I can get stuff done!) H and I are 32 and 31, and I realize we'll probably be among the youngest adults on-board, but we're ok with that.
Recommendations on cruise lines? How to get a great deal? (If I wait until November to book, with the risk of not being able to, is that a bad idea?) I don't want to say money is no concern, but I don't have a set budget for this (but I probably couldn't stomach spending 8k on a week-long cruise coming to 1k per day...unless I'm getting full spa service or something like that).
@CMGragain you must have some thoughts on this!