I Tried a Budget River Cruise (Dangerously High Water Levels)

Normally when you're driving to the cruise port, you'll see the ship appear over the horizon and it is such an exciting feeling. That isn't what happened on my last cruise though. When we arrived at the TUI Skyler in Germany, we were in a completely different place to where we were originally meant to board the ship. It was pitch black, it was freezing cold and our flight had to be diverted to a different city to get us this far, all because the water levels on the Rhine were dangerously high. I booked this cruise because I wanted to go to the German Christmas markets and I thought that a river cruise would be the best way to do it. TUI are very much a budget river cruise line and this cruise was around half the price of the other big river cruise companies, which meant that I could give it a go. It wasn't cheap, but more about that later. I'd heard so many horror stories about river cruises and water levels where people had to spend their entire trip on a bus instead of a boat, so I was a little bit nervous. Despite the less than ideal start, I was more than excited than ever to get on board. Our transfer bus dropped us off just before 10pm and having not eaten for most of the day, I was hoping that dinner was still being served. Our cruise was on board TUI Skyler and she looked beautifully lit up. I could see the Christmas decorations on the ship through the windows. We walked into this amazing atrium and it only took us a few minutes to check in, even though there was a whole busload of us arriving at the same time. The plane that we flew in on was actually three river ships combined onto one plane. We all flew here together and then got on our different buses to the different embarkation ports. The organisation certainly was encouraging and it was a relief after all of the delays and the changes of our flight. We were told that our cabins were ready for us, which to be honest, I would hope so by 10pm. If they weren't, I would be a bit concerned, but more importantly, they told us that dinner was still being served and it would be served until 10pm. Normally dinner ended at 9, but TUI clearly knew that we had to be fed and that fed guests were happy guests. After quickly dropping off my bag in the cabin, we headed to dinner and our cabin was the closest one to the restaurant so that was very, very easy. We were taken down to an area at the back that was called the Bistro. The restaurant looked beautiful with Christmas decorations on all sides and even though TUI are on the more budget end of river cruising, this definitely didn't feel budget to me. The tables were laid out beautifully and everything was spotlessly clean. I was very keen to find out where the costs were being cut. A couple of years ago I took a cruise on this exact ship. It was the first sailing of 2021 and we did find a few issues that we hoped would be ironed out by now. We had problems with our cabin, with the air conditioning, with a few little things like the food and the drinks and of course this dreaded bathroom door. Despite those things, we still had a great time last time, but I knew that this trip would be very different. One of the things that I noticed on my first TUI river cruise was that the food portions were really quite inconsistent. Sometimes they would be a good size, sometimes they would be really small and this, this was a main. In my original video, I said it's clear that TUI are being kept on a budget with their food and I'm happy to say that the portion sizes at this first meal were great. That was a really good sign. We had three courses plus lots of bread. I suppose you could say that TUI are a budget line because the bread is just so small. That didn't bother me though. I just ate more pieces of bread and they would always come to restock this basket. Beer, wine and soft drinks were always included with lunch and dinner on TUI cruises. So we had a couple of glasses of Coke and all in all, this meal took less than an hour and a half, which was great. We were so tired by this point, but we had no idea if we would be sailing away tonight and if we would be sailing away, we didn't know where we would be going. Our cruise was meant to start in Mainz, but our flight was diverted from Frankfurt to Dusseldorf so that we could board the ship in Cologne. Cologne or Cologne, which is how it comes out in my mind when I read it, was meant to be on our itinerary, but not for a couple of days. So I didn't know if we would go and then come back. Seemed weird. It is very rare for me to go to sleep on a cruise having not explored the ship yet, but it was late and I knew that we had five days to explore. I was also more excited by our cabin than the rest of the ship. I booked something really special and I'll show you that in detail in a little bit. I booked what was technically a suite on this cruise because I booked last minute and that was the cheapest cabin available on the ship. That automatically solved the problem that we had last time with the bathroom doors and it was worth the upgrade just to get a solid bathroom door this time. I laid in bed, read through the welcome on board paperwork, which was very helpful, and I logged on to TUI's app, which really is just a web page. The Wi-Fi is free on board, as it is on most river cruises, and on here I found a page that was called itinerary. I thought to myself, aha, I have found a clue. I didn't know if it would be right of course, but I figured it was worth a look. Clicking on it, I saw that we had a place called Andana on the schedule for tomorrow. This wasn't where we were meant to go, but I was happy that we would be visiting anywhere. The crew had told us that this itinerary could change at any time, it could change last minute, and that is just one of the risks of river cruising in winter. Well, just river cruising really, in general, any time. Later on we would see the realities of the high water levels and it blew my mind a little bit, they were not kidding. Waking up in this cabin was fantastic, this really was my Christmas present to myself. I almost didn't book this cruise when I saw that this was the only cabin available, but there was a discount on TUI's website that actually made this suite cheaper than the standard balcony cabin that I had last time. There are three types of cabin on this ship, there are the ocean view cabins that are kind of under the water, my parents had that one last time, there's the standard balcony cabins with the see-through bathroom doors, and there are these suites which are basically large balcony cabins with the bathroom tucked around the corner. I say balcony, none of these cabins have actual outside space, it's just big windows, but that is pretty common on river ships. I could not believe how much storage space we had in this cabin, we were only on board for a few days, and there was far more storage in this room than in my entire house. I do use packing cubes too, so that made unpacking really easy, under 5 minutes I'm sure for the entire thing. Most of my unpacking was literally just this, it was 1, 2, 3 and done. I bought my first Miatui packing cubes way back in 2017 I think, and I never cruise without them now. We had a kettle, a fridge, a safe, and the bed was so comfortable. I did use our mascot Captain Hudson to measure the bathroom, and I think that this shower area is bigger than some entire bathrooms that I've had on other cruise ships in the past. There was a lot of storage and mirrors that went on forever, by the end of this cruise I knew what I looked like from every single angle, which to be honest I don't think I really needed to know. This cabin made me so excited to get out and to explore the rest of the ship. Heading down the corridor from our room we found a coffee machine with cookies. Cookies so close to my cabin did seem a bit risky, but it was something that I did manage to get used to. There were a few seats here too, and people would often just sit here and read or they would chat. The big staircase in the middle went down to the reception area, and down there there was also the cruise director's desk and a little spa. We decided to head out to see what this place had to offer, and I thought I'll save the rest of the exploring for later, I've got to pace myself with this ship. It was here that I saw the first evidence of how high the water levels were, and they were not kidding. There were paths and trees underwater that normally wouldn't be, and although I didn't find anything particularly Christmassy here, it was a nice place to wander around. I really do love Germany, it's one of my favourite places to visit. Heading back to the ship we went to the big lounge which was decorated beautifully. There was a fake fireplace at one end, with Christmas trees and decorations on all of the windows. This ship is actually over 10 years old, but she was refurbished by TUI in 2020, and I think they did a really good job with it. I did have a look at some of the videos before the refit, before they took her over, and I definitely prefer what it looks like now. I loved all the colours and the flooring, it felt very homely, and that is your Britishism of the week. Here in the UK, homely means like home, it means nice, it means comfortable, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in North America it means unattractive, so that could not be more different. Having a look on the app, I saw that there would be live music in here later in the day, and that there would be some Christmas activities like crafts and Christmas movies playing. This space really was the heart of the ship, and it would get busier than I expected in the evenings. When I took my last TUI cruise in 2021, the ship was still at reduced capacity due to Covid, and I hope that being full wouldn't make this ship feel overwhelming. It's not much fun when you can't get a seat anywhere, and I'm not a massive fan of table showing in restaurants, so honestly I would rather not. We would come back later to see how the lounge was when it was being properly used. Heading to lunch, we walked through this other little lounge at the back. I think this is a nice tradition, as it isn't uncommon for river ships to just have one big lounge. At this point, I still hadn't explored the top deck, but I wasn't expecting to find any sort of lounge out there, that's for sure. Maybe in the sunshine, but we didn't have a lot of that during this cruise. Some river cruise ships do have swimming pools, either on the top or inside, but TUI ships don't have any. They do have a nice little spa area, which is very cute, but that is about it. It's differences like this that do make TUI a budget river cruise line. Swimming pools take up a lot of space, but it's not just the space, it's also the upkeep, it's the crew you need to look after it, and by not having them, they can fit more people on the ship, they can keep the prices lower, and that suits me fine. It wasn't swimming weather on this cruise. If that means they can keep it cheaper, I'm all for it personally, and I'll tell you how much I paid later in the video. In the restaurant, we were asked if we wanted to do the normal sit down lunch menu, or if we wanted to go to the bistro buffet at the back. We decided to do the bistro today, and figured we would do the sit down tomorrow. The food was good at both restaurants, and one thing that I loved is that we would often see the head chef just out and about, chatting to people if they had intolerances or any dietary requirements. It is so much easier for them to do that on a river ship that has 150 passengers, rather than an ocean ship where there may be 4, 5, 6 thousand people. The chef then prepared special menus and meals based on the things that those people actually liked, or didn't like. For some reason, each table only gets one menu, which I do think is a bit odd, but if that's what makes a TUI river cruise half the price of the others, then to be honest I think that's a good trade. Half the price, but half the number of menus. It would have been good if the menus were inside the app, but I think that's more of an ocean cruising thing. I made myself an odd combination of sandwiches and fruit for lunch, and I was very happy with my choices. The food wasn't really focused on the destinations, but I hoped that we would be out and about, we would be eating in the Christmas markets, if we found any of course. Lunch was usually open 12.30 till 2, and dinner was open 7 till 9. There were no fixed dining times, you just come anytime within that, and you just sit wherever you would like. Normally we would be there as soon as the restaurant opened at 7, personally I would prefer to eat at 5, but one day we did go to the restaurant a little later, and the waiter asked us if we would mind table sharing. I didn't want to, I didn't say no, I just stared blankly, and he got the message and he said, or we could sit you in the bistro, and that's what we did. It was no problem at all, and we had a table for two for every meal. Outside of these dining times, and breakfast of course, there wasn't any other food available, apart from I guess these cookies, and sometimes there would be fruit here, but that is the wonderful thing about river cruises, you can just wander off, and if you want to go to Lidl and you want to fill up your bag with Pepsi, you can do exactly that. At this point I hadn't seen any Christmas markets, and I had no idea where we would be going next, I also hadn't had any problems with the air conditioning or the toilets, but I didn't know if they had fixed those things, or if I just hadn't encountered problems with them yet. On river cruise ships there is no security, there's no bag searches, there's no terminals, no queuing, it is so unbelievably easy and I love it. Sometimes you do have to walk over or through another ship, like we did later in the cruise, but that is about it. This is how easy it is to walk on and off a river ship, this is literally it. You do have to take a little card with you so that they know who's on land, and don't ever forget to do that, or they might assume that you're on the ship, and they do sometimes leave early, they do sail away early if they think that they have everybody on board, so do not risk that, don't forget. If you've watched my videos for a while you'll notice that I've used the same brand of bags for at least 7 years I would say, in every single cruise photo, every video, if it's a handbag, a backpack, a sidebag, it is from the brand Miyatui, and that is just because they are the best. They look cool I think, they're almost indestructible, and they make cruising so much easier because of all of the clever pockets and the features. I asked Miyatui if they would sponsor this video so that I could bring you discounts and bundles, and I'm very happy to say that they did say yes, so code EMMACRUISES will get you 15% off every bag you've ever seen me had in any video on this channel, plus all of the packing cubes, the toiletry bags, everything. Every day on the schedule in the main lounge there would be a port talk about where we were going the next day, I was very happy to learn that we would be spending the entire next day in Cologne, and then Dusseldorf where some of the best Christmas markets are. We would be docking way before I got up and sailing away around 11pm, which is really important when you're at the Christmas markets, because of course you want to see them in the evening. Some of my personal favourite lights I saw on this cruise were the ones that I watched from my bed as we sailed away. There's something so relaxing about river cruising because you can hear the water below you, you can see the view, you can see the lights, you can see the shapes, they just come and go as you're falling asleep, and it is the best. The bed that faced the window of course really helped with this, but if you're somebody who is worried about seasickness on ocean ships, river cruises are a really good option. There are no waves in the river, you do occasionally feel a bit of movement if a big ship goes by, or as you're sailing away, but it is so smooth. You do not need to worry about being seasick. You're not on the sea, for a start. Unfortunately there is a group of people who I can't recommend river cruising to as much as I'd like to, and that is people that need a wheelchair. There are no lifts or elevators on this ship at all, there's no disabled cabins, and it's quite normal to have to go across or through other ships to get to land. We discovered this when we were in Koblenz, and we were docked right next to a Uniworld ship. We had to go through their ship to get off ours. When this happened on my last TUI river cruise, I had a cabin right against my cabin, and I did see a lady, completely naked in this situation. She didn't see me, thank goodness. This time though, the ship was on the other side, and that meant I got to walk through the Uniworld ship. Uniworld are a very luxurious river cruise line, and it did make me laugh how they had put a little path through their ship for us. I'm sure it was just so that we didn't traipse mud through their lovely cruise ship, but it definitely felt like, to me, it was like TUI river cruisers, you stay on that path, and don't touch our ship with your budget river cruise hands. I did manage to take this photo, and I do have a Uniworld cruise book for next year, which I cannot wait to show you, so please just check that you're subscribed so that you don't miss that. Cologne and Dusseldorf were both beautiful, often very rainy, and the trickiest part was not getting hit in the eyes with other people's umbrellas. There were stalls and stalls selling food and crafts, and in Cologne alone, there are six Christmas markets, with this one having over 100 stalls. I like that, Cologne alone is like home alone. Christmas markets are seriously big business in Germany, and most people are huddled around these heaters, drinking beer or mulled wine. My top tip for markets like this would be to always bring coins with you, because a lot of the public toilets cost 50 cents or a euro, and you don't want to be caught short after drinking too much beer or wine or Pepsi. There are free toilets around too, but why risk it? Just keep some coins in your pocket. Or you could always just pop back to your ship, because the ships often dock right in the middle of the city, and then you have your own private floating toilet right there. I'm happy to say we never encountered any of the problems with the toilets like we had last time. On my first TUI river cruise, we did have a haunted door that kept opening too, but that didn't happen this time. One thing that was still a little bit broken was the air conditioning. It was running, but it was kind of just pathetic. It was like an old man kind of breathing into the corner of the room. That didn't matter really on this cruise, because of course it was very cold. But in summer, I imagine it would be a bit more annoying. When I cruise on the ocean, I like to stick to a £100 per person per night budget. That's around $130. But that isn't really realistic for river cruising. River cruising is usually around three or four times the price of ocean cruising. So if I can get a river cruise for under £200 per person per night, I'm considering that a bargain. In total for this cruise, including the flights, the transfers, the drinks with meals and this very fancy cabin, I paid £899, which is $1,146, which is well under that budget. I was very happy with that price and I booked this cruise just a few weeks before the sailing. That price is based on two people sharing the cabin. It's more expensive if you cruise solo, but that was what I paid for this cruise. As much as I love budget river cruising, there is something really nice about something more luxurious. Of course there is. Watch this video next to find out how my river cruise with Emerald went and this swimming pool turns into a cinema. You're going to have to watch this. I'll see you over there.