European River Cruise

[stemmie]

My mom, an 85 year old widow, wants to do this.

Has anyone done one of these? She's concerned about being "odd woman out" if other passengers are all couples celebrating anniversaries. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[tacokick]

Is she going solo?

[stemmie]

tacokick, I am thinking I'll go with her. She's never traveled beyond the Caribbean/Mexico and she's pretty frail.

[tacokick]

Jan 16, 2023 7:21:20 GMT -5 stemmie said:

tacokick, I am thinking I'll go with her. She's never traveled beyond the Caribbean/Mexico and she's pretty frail.

Then I don’t think she would be the odd one out! She’d have you! I don’t think most people are celebrating anything on cruises TBH, people just like that vacation style.

[egishere]

She will be fine! It would probably be nice for you to go with her though. My widowed father has done a couple European cruises solo. He always meets people there solo as well.

[wanderingback]

I don’t have direct experience, but my friends mom was planning a European cruise but then unfortunately her husband died unexpectedly. My friend ended up going on the cruise with her mom. She said it was fun and a mix of older people, not all couples, so I think your mom would be fine solo and not feel too odd.

I go on vacation by myself and I love it! Highly recommend so I hope your mom has a great time.

[mrsukyankee]

The only thing I will say is that my parents tried to go on one and it got cancelled twice due to not having enough water in the river, so look at that ahead of planning. (they gave up)

[tacokick]

I think that if you didn’t go and your mom is already nervous about being alone or feeling left out, a smaller cruise might not be the best idea.

I’ve done a lot of solo travel but I don’t think I’d want to cruise alone unless I was truly ok with being alone and seeing other people there with other people. It’s a lot of time to fill with limited options. You might get lucky and there are a lot of other singles on board or friendly couples/groups but on a smaller cruise you might not. It’s not like regular travel where you can just get up and leave and find a better spot or move on when you are bored.

[mrsd2006]

I definitely would not let her go alone. There were a lot of issues with river cruises in Europe last year not having enough water. I followed Viking in particular, and there were several times the ship would dock, passengers would have to unload with all their stuff and take a bus to the next port and get on a different ship.

[scout8]

My advice is to avoid Vantage Cruises. My parents cancelled a cruise with them and are due a full refund. Despite Vantage confirming they owe my parents the refund, a year later and my parents still haven't received it. There are complaints all over the place about Vantage not refunding money that is owed. I'm pretty sure they are in financial trouble so I would stay away.