Hi Aaron, I've enjoyed your 12-day vlog. Kudo's on how smoothly you walk us through each day of your journey. We will be starting this journey three weeks from today, so excited. This will be our third Viking river cruise. 2018 = Grand European from Amsterdam to Budapest. 2019 = River of Gold Portugal & Spain with a Pre-Ext in Madrid and a Post-Ext in Santiago de Compostela. COVID years had us stick to domestic travel so we are ready to get back to Europe. For this trip we have a Pre-Ext Milan and a Post-Paris (on our own). I know that you'll be putting out a list of Top 10 -15 items to take with you on a river cruise... can't wait to see that. I do have some questions that I hope you can answer. 1) Compare your Zurich stay at the Renaissance with your stay at the Pullman-Paris Montparnasse. You provided a nice overview of Renaissance, but quickly flashed through the Pullman. Our 'on our own' ext in Paris I reserved a couple of extra nights at the Pullman. I have checked out reviews that appear to mostly favorable. Great location to nearby restaurants and metro, but will require ground transport to museums Louvre, Seine cruise, etc.. 2) What type of camera are you using? Smartphone with a Gimbal? I was thinking about purchasing a DJI Osmo 6 to pair with my Samsung. 3) During your Cochem stop you biked the Moselle, did this mean you skipped the included tour Cochem, Reichsburg & the Moselle Valley? Our tour shows that the bike ride is scheduled during the same time as the included tour. We did the E-bike ride during the Grand European while docked in Passau. We rode where from Passau across the border into Austria and back to Passau. Absolutely loved it! I'm sure that I will have more questions, before I leave so I hope that you don't mind me asking a few more. Thanks again, for sharing your adventure with us. Prost!
Well thanks so much for watching the videos! I learned a lot of lessons doing this. The first... it takes a lot longer in post production than expected. :) Hence why it took almost exactly a year to get them all done. I'll put together a video of all the videography lessons... I'll start my getting them out of my head and on to paper today. You ask the best questions! I had not thought all the way through these before. I talked to my wife and she had some excellent points. 1) When putting the video together I was quite disappointed how little video I had at the Pullman. It was a great hotel in a wonderfully walkable part of town. Most everything we wanted to do was in walking distance, cafes, gardens, entertainment... the Metro station was close too when we headed elsewhere. Totally aligns with what you read. The Renaissance was not as central to Zurich as the Pullman was to Paris. There were restaurants somewhat close but we mostly took the streetcars to go anywhere. A streetcar stop was about 2 blocks away from the hotel so it was no problem getting there. The Renaissance definitely more disconnected from the city though. The included breakfast was great at the Renaissance. That part felt very high end. The Pullman's was quite crowded and hurried, food was good just a different feel. 2) I am using a DJI Pocket 2 (~$280) This little thing has been a miracle worker for me. It is small enough to put in any pocket, and comes with a cover that completely protects it. I can get take it out of my pocket and start videoing within about 5 seconds. It can shoot 4K 60fps and writes directly to a high speed SD card. That makes editing much faster since I don't have to download vids from the phone. Usually I shoot vids in 1080 60fps. My PC's CPU and GPU choke on 4K. Someday... The negative to the Pocket 2 is how small the screen is. Pretty limited view, I just point the camera and hope (grin). A phone's screen is beautiful and you can see exactly what you are shooting. Not so much the Pocket 2. There is a new Pocket 3 ($520) out that has a bit larger screen. Not quite worth the difference IMHO. I have a few phone gimbals but they generally take so long for me to get the camera in and ready that found I just didn't use it very much. I know others have had great luck with them. 3) Yes we missed that excursion. I love these historic cities so that bothered me a bit, but well... I LOVED the bike ride so... in the end i think we made the right decision. Also, the Burgfest was happening that day so the schedule was all thrown off. That impacted the scheduled events but I don't exactly know how much since we were off on a biking adventure. :) Here is the sheet I put together to decide what excursions to take: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b566QH71YT-1ipNB5xFGeMLVxMDLSBsB499F4iJis14/edit?usp=sharing I hope that helped! -Aaron
Watching these in order. I suspect this will be our favorite excursion as well. We are taking this same cruise in August '24. What was the weather like on this excursion? Temps? Thanks! 🙂
Thank you for watching! We absolutely loved the cruise! This was our favorite excursion. Really a great experience. Our bus got behind a very slow car on one of the long back roads and very nearly missed the cogwheel train... I mean it was like 30 seconds til the train left. I was sitting in the front row, the tour guide and driver were not happy... said lots of things in a language I don't know. :) It was perfect temperature most of the days. Cool enough (55-62?) to have a light jacket when leaving in the morning and warm (75-80) when we were arriving back in the afternoon. It did rain a few days but that really helped the river levels which were low. Particularly important for these river cruises. Let me know if you have any questions. My wife remembers things better than I, thats why I am glad to be going back over these videos. Its fun to relive the moments.
We didn't go on the Worms Tour it was sold out during our cruise. I have to say that Speyer was very enjoyable. That Tek Museum was completely unique and surprising. So from what I know I'd have done the same thing if I had the option.
Makes sense to do a Hop-on Hop-off tour in Paris. You can control a lot more of your experience that way. The video I am working on now is when we were in Paris and went through the Palace of Versailles. It was truly amazing... but very busy. Controlling your tours is a good idea right now, especially with the Olympics, never know what is changed/closed or completely new.
Have fun! Are you on the cruise now? I am just getting back to commenting and I see this comment was 2 weeks ago! I hope you love the relaxing river currents, so peaceful.
Im doing that same cruise that you did this coming August. Thanks for the information and guidance. Your videos have helped us plan things to do during our cruise. AgaIn thank you Aaron!
Glad it was helpful! What was funny about this cruise is how much my wife was against cruises... hated the thought of being on a boat locked in with a bunch of people we don't know. Now? She says it was the best vacation we've ever taken, loved the ship, the staff, the food, the people (with a few exceptions(grin)), and the locations. Enjoy your trip! Can't wait to hear how it goes for you.
Thank you so much for the video! I have been looking for one about the Swiss Alps excursion. It looks to be a long ride there and back. Are there many stops along the way? Hoping it's not just a long bus ride. Thanks again!
Hello Denise! I loved that excursion, probably my favorite. There were a couple stops along the way. They were in spots I found to be absolutely gorgeous... like quintessentially Switzerland type gorgeous. We got in the front seats (by getting to the bus very early) so we could capture some of the most interesting parts of the bus ride.
I’m sad……I want to see more! Thank you for your eye. I love that you capture the beauty and the people ( little girl riding a bike). Please travel more and take us with you!
It's not clear in most of my videos how alive the cities are. Little clips like playful bike ride that show just the tiniest bit. Thank you so much for noticing. I need to keep my eye out for these moments. :)
Thanks for taking us on your journey, we’re on the same cruise next June. What month did you go? Book any other excursions from the cruise you would recommend?
You will love it! We went late July through early August. It certainly rained some days but was really perfect temps throughout, high 50's to high 70's. I'd say my favorite excursions were Highlights of the Alps and Biking the Moselle.
We heard the Zermatt Extension was awesome, the Blackforest Excursion... not so good. We went on all of the included excursions when we didn't have another one scheduled, really glad we did. The Montemorte Hill one was sold out, so we went on the Palace of Versailles one, it was very crowded... but glad we went on it. Can't wait to make that video, such good video from that place.
Last comment.. :) We loved that Tek Museum in Speyer, so eclectic... so unexpected. So glad we went on the gondola ride over the river in Koblenz too, very cheap but had amazing views.
A mutual friend, Candi Hibbits, let me know about our mutual interest, travel. Nice work with your video. I spent a day in Geneva with my son a couple of years ago and did some skiing in the French Alps. Switzerland is a beautiful country!
Indeed! Just a couple days in Zurich made me want to go back! Spent a week in Geneva recently, cemented my love for Switzerland. Thanks for watching! Any other cities you recommend?
@@OwnRareTravel I've only been to Europe twice and raced around trying to see everything while doing nothing justice. Most of the places I went are well-known, but one that wasn't was Helsinki, Finland. Almost everyone spoke English. It's clean and very easy to navigate. Also pretty much everywhere in the Netherlands is easy to train, bike, or walk. I'm anxious to watch more of your work.
Fantastic! We loved it! What excursions are you going on? Highly recommend going on the gondola over the river in Koblez if you have time. Also, the Speyer Tek Museum was so much fun.
It was much less tiring to ride the eBikes that's for sure. However, they did take a bit of getting used to... you know... without going into the water. :)
The excursion looks amazing. How much walking/hiking was there to get to the top and then back down? We are trying to decide between this trip and the Rhine Getaway. I'm curious how much of the 10 hour excursion is spent hiking uphill.
Yes that was an absolutely fantastic excursion. There was some walking but not a lot. We did walk around Brienz for about 30 minutes, no major grades. On the highest part of the mountain we walked to the restaurant and to the train station, no more that 10 minutes or so. Up there you could choose to walk up some pretty steep areas if desired.
Ooh! I was just there a few weeks ago and we took a tour of the lake…lovely! A special treat we had on a different walking tour was to taste cookies made in a bakery established for special needs workers. The cookies were delicious and I loved the concept!
That is fantastic! I find that exact thing the most exciting about just randomly walking a city, you never know what you will find. Lake Geneva was so majestic and beautiful, wish I could have spend another 3 hours just walking around it.
Indeed! What a beautiful place to just walk and explore. Have you been to Switzerland? What cities do you recommend? بالفعل! يا له من مكان جميل للمشي والاستكشاف. هل زرت سويسرا؟ ما هي المدن التي تنصح بها؟
Thanks for your wonderful videos, we are scheduled for this cruise later this year. What time of year did you go. It looks somewhat cool and rainy. I'm just wondering, we are going in the beginning of August. Thanks for your time
Hello! Ours was the beginning of August as well. From what I understand it is normally warmer during that time so yours should be better. Have a great trip!
Thank for watching! I am getting them out much slower than I expected to. I'll get them all completed. I loved that trip! I get to re-live all the moments by editing each piece of footage. It has been awesome... and tedious. :)
Totally agree! I should have mentioned that. Most of us walked down to the Burg Eltz, however they had a shuttle that would take anyone all the way down if they wanted to ride.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions for what to cover in future videos. Also, everyone please comment about your favorite cruises or cities!
Hope you enjoy the video! Highlights of our stop in Speyer, including the included walking tour excursion. Best part? The technik museum is RIGHT THERE and walked a short couple of minutes. Don’t miss this opportunity. Great museum where you can walk on the wings of a 747.
Excellent video. My wife and I have been looking into doing this exact cruise, including the alps excursion. Is there anything you would do differently, or do you have any tips that you might offer? Did you happen to use Viking air? Thanks for the great video and info.
Fantastic trip, highly recommend! We did take Viking Air, for us it worked out perfectly. We were in room 104 in the duck view and had no issues. We did bring a white noise maker so that even if there was additional noise we would not be impacted by it. For us, we spent every moment out in the ship social areas that the room didn’t matter to us. I wish we would have done the Alps Extension. I heard that was amazing from the people on board that took it. My wife and I ate most dinners in the Aquivite Lounge rather than the large dining room. Worked well for us, just get there a little early when you want a private table for 2.
Wow I am so incredibly lucky to have a dad with such an ability to see the beauty of the world around you. I thought that the sound effects you allowed to come in through the music were a nice touch
