I joined a wine club November 2021 and it was the best decision I ever made.
Go to Sommelier: @samanthasommelier
Go to Travel Agent: @elevatedexperiencestravel
At the beginning of 2022, they announced international cruise trips with the club! The first was “Vineyards of the Rhine and Moselle” and it immediately caught my attention – especially the 40 castles part. There were also options for land extensions pre/post cruise in Amsterdam, Paris, and Champagne. I choose not to add those for this trip.

Budget Breakdown:
Cruise with French Balcony $4,208 per person
Airfare $977 per person
Travel Insurance $1348 per person (optional but seemed necessary given the state of the world today)

Day 1 Amsterdam: August 8th we had a redeye out of Newark that would get us in Amsterdam at 8am. Did I mention I had to work on Monday then head straight to the airport? We had about 7 hours of flight time to sleep. I did not sleep. Tuesday was full tourist mode. Once we landed, we found the AmaWaterways representative who would take us to the boat. I always wanted to be picked up by one of those people with the names on cards. It was a quick bus ride from the airport to the dock which was conveniently also by the train station. Since we got to the boat so early, we couldn’t check in our room, but we dropped out luggage off and went exploring to find breakfast. Pancakes Amsterdam had a ridiculous line so we highly recommend Dwaze Zaken as an alternative. After breakfast, we went back to the boat for naps on the sun deck couches. We met up with the rest of the group around 11am and went back exploring. We walked down the main road towards Dam Square (insert joke here) and saw all the touristy stops along the way – even stopped at a cute bar for beer. We kept walking down to the Heineken Factory for a tour and free beers. It was an experience lol.

Across the factory was a old carousel that they turned into a restaurant. The Dutch pancakes (aka crepes) were delicious! Instead of walking, we utilized the subway system to get back to the boat to check in, shower, and nap. We met up with the group again in the lounge for cocktail hour (champagne) and a welcome from the crew. After dinner, we speed walked to a sunset canal cruise which was by far my highlight of Amsterdam. Check out Friendship Cruises. It was a smaller boat and had an intimate party vibe while still explaining the sights and history of the city. Once the canal cruise was done, we obviously did the red light district.

Day 2 Amsterdam: AmaWaterways offers daily excursions to explore the stops along the river. We had to choose between the Floriade Expo (pronounced fluoride by me) and another canal cruise. We chose the cruise, because “when in Amsterdam…” This one was more focused on the history and education and probably better suited for families. It was also covered which blocked a lot of our pictures. We saw the 4 main Protestant churches – one where Rembrandt was buried, the Anne Frank house, and the 7 bridges view. I was kind of geeking out about the architecture. I was hoping to have time for an art museum, but didn’t want to miss the boat launching. Instead, we wandered and bought souvenirs. We had lunch on the boat to watch the launch from Amsterdam and the official start of the cruise. We spent the afternoon in the pool enjoying wine and cheese as we sailed. For dinner, we got to sit at the Captain’s table and have a delicious 7 course meal! Then watched the beautiful sunset and full moon from the sun deck until we crossed into Germany.

News tangent – Being 2022 and being the apocalypse, there was a drought in Europe. England was even having troubles with wildfires. This hot summer also meant the water levels on the Rhine were at a record low and presented a problem for our ship. This impacted our trip in a few ways. One, usually the ships flow downstream with the current. Unfortunately we needed the extra speed to avoid getting stuck, so they ran the engines. This made it a little harder to sleep in our room at the back of the boat. Two, we had to have some schedule adjustments. Our docking locations changed and we had to get on a smaller boat for part of Day 4. Overall, it could have been WAY worse. There was some concern especially days 4 and 5, but everything worked out and we had a great trip!
Here are two articles from the week of our cruise if you want to read more.
NPR
Maritime Executive

Day 3 Cologne: Since we had a late night with lots of wine, I stayed in bed all morning as we sailed towards Cologne. We had lunch on the boat and watched the beautiful city get closer. We docked around 3pm and immediately headed out on our 11 mile guided bike tour excursion. Now, I know how to ride a bike. I signed a waiver saying I know how to ride a bike. RIDING A BIKE IN A EUROPEAN CITY IS SCARY. I almost hit so many people, cars, random posts…It was overall fun, but a bit of an exhausting mess. The city, however, was beautiful. We started with crossing the Hohenzollern Bridge which is known for the love locks attached. Next stop was the Cologne Cathedral – one of the only structures that wasn’t destroyed in WW2. Because it is made of sandstone, the cathedral is under constant construction to prevent erosion. It also provides the cool black and white color contrast.

From there, I believe we continued west to the local parks. The biking here was easier for me. We saw the Colonius telecommunications tower and continued south to the Industrial district. There happened to be a wine festival going on that caused us having to bike through a crowd. The tour guide pointed out some apartments that belong to German celebrities, but said we wouldn’t know any of them. Without missing a beat, I said Heidi Klum and she said yes. So I got to see one of Heidi Klum’s apartments lol. We didn’t have time to visit the chocolate museum, but we rode passed the Lindt factory. After over 2 hours, we made it back to the boat. Now, what I didn’t mention was I was having a bit of a rough day already. I dropped a heavy table on my big toe and lost one of my favorite scrunchies on the bike ride (first world problems – I know). We only had a limited time in the city, but I needed to shower and rest before heading out again. We ended up at Gilden im Zims for traditional German dinner and I got stung by a bee. I thought bees were going extinct? Turns out they’re all in Germany…Anyway I had stuffed cabbage and Mom had the marinated beef. Both were delicious! We were running out of time, but wanted to find a souvenir store. Found one, but he didn’t take cards and we disagreed with the amount of cash he was asking for. Moral of the story: Carry cash and know the conversion rate, because we were right and refused to pay what he was asking for. After that ordeal, we had to walk fast back to the boat. It left at 10:15pm. We ran into Cruise Director (and new best friend) Nickie, who was out searching for us. We were escorted back on board just in time at 10:10pm.

Day 4 Rudesheim: We docked at Andernach which I believe was a new port because of the water level. After dinner, we loaded up on a bus that would drive us 90 minutes to Rudesheim. I wish we spent more time here. We chose the Gondola ride and wine tasting excursion (obviously).

The gondola provided a gorgeous view of the Rhine, the town, and the vineyards. We went straight to the wine tasting which I remember being chaotic. It was a large group and the tasting felt rushed. I don’t even remember liking the wine, but I drank it. We had a brief amount of free time and I needed food. After aimlessly wandering around, we found the perfect wine bar that had Backer Dries gourmet pretzels. The shop was local and women owned. We really enjoyed the heavy pours of rose and bacon/cheese pretzels. I spent too long trying to find the name, but here’s a picture of what the front door looks like.

Around lunch time, we boarded a smaller boat with the passengers of another cruise so we could still see the Rhine Gorge. The boat provided cafeteria quality schnitzel and other German food. The line was long so I went upstairs to see the 40 castles and listen to the history tied to each one. I was upstairs for 5 minutes and went back down because it was HOT. This was one of the highlights of the trip, but the combination of wine and heat were not agreeing with me. After the scenic cruise, we took a 1 hour bus ride back to our main boat in Andernach. We had some time before dinner, so I went to the sun deck to swim since it was hot. We continued our tradition of wine and cheese on the deck after dinner. The crew lowered the shade covers and other structures for a low bridge. Naturally, I reached up to touch it as it passed.

Day 5 Lahnstein: Boat arrived in Treis-Karden for the day which I believe was also an unplanned port. I compared the map to the daily logs from the cruise and I’m a little confused, but I think this is when we crossed into the Moselle River. We had a full day of two castles and enjoyed both! We took an early morning bus ride to Burg Eltz. This medieval castle is still owned by a branch of the Eltz family that lived there in the 12th century, thirty-three generations ago. According to Wikipedia, The Eltz Castle (in game name Elzbach Palace) is the Defensive Imperial Age Landmark of the Holy Roman Empire Civilization in Age of Empires IV (WHAAAT). It was exactly the view I was hoping for. I ended up bringing a costume for picture with the plan of changing at the end of the tour. Well it turns out the best view is at the beginning (and less crowds!) so I quickly threw it on for some quick photos before the tour. There was some communication problems with our German tour guide when we got separated from the group and I’m still recovering from being scolded. BUT GOT TO DO IT FOR THE GRAM.

The castle interior was just as beautiful, but I was overheating and dehydrated. At the end, there was more time for pictures, so we grabbed some from the courtyard and bridge. We had a bus ride back to the boat for lunch and some rest, before heading out for castle number 2. We took the afternoon bus to Burg Lahneck which was a smaller castle, but also great for pictures.

The only note I have for this castle is “The guide pronounced ‘moat’ like ‘moot’ and it made my day” (yes, I just quoted my own journal). According to Wikipedia, this 13-century medieval castle is famous for a 17-year old girl being accidently trapped in the tower and dying. So that’s cool. *Insert smooth transition here*. It also happened to be a huge local holiday called Rhine in Flames, but we had to continue on our journey and missed the firework show. Instead, we had a guest performer on the boat and we had a crazy, fun dance party.

Day 6 Cochem: Slept in all morning as the boat continued towards Cochem. Our afternoon excursion was the Cochem walking tour and Reichsburg castle. The town and the castle were so gorgeous and picturesque. This is a 12th century medieval castle, but was destroyed in 1689 in the Nine Years’ War. In 1868, it was bought and restructured in the Gothic Revival style (source: Wikipedia).

Rabbit hole: Nick Cage’s mother was from Cochem?? We had free time after the tours to get wine, cheese, ice cream and the local famous mustard. Unfortunately, we had dinner plans on the boat so we couldn’t stay long. Cocktail hour was a crew appreciation with a local string instrument performance followed by the farewell dinner.

Day 7 Bernkastel: I know I keep saying this, but I loved this town! We had an early morning excursion for a Bernkastel walking tour and wine tasting. We did a tour of the city while the locals were still sleeping, so the streets were empty. Our guide was a pure joy and made it so delightful. We learned about the famous local Doctor wine that has a “healing” reputation. The 14th-century Archbishop Boemund II was miraculously cured of illness not by his physicians, but by a good dose of wine from this site. He was so grateful he then conferred the name Doctor on the vineyard. The wine tasting was in a local cellar and it was good! You can even find Thanisch Bernkasteler Doctor at Total Wines. We had some free time to explore after so we got some pastries for a morning snack and found a cute wine bar for more tasting.

Fortunately for the drought, it started raining so we bunkered inside until it passed. The boat happened to be leaving at 12:30pm and we cut the timing close again. We had lunch on the boat and enjoyed the rainy views. The Captain told us earlier that it’s usually the best view of the trip. Instead, we stayed in the lounge and played Yahtzee and drank espresso martinis. During cocktail hour, there was a photo slide show of the trip and it was fun to see all the fun we just had lol. It was our last night on the boat and we didn’t want it to end, but exhaustion was setting in.

Day 8 Luxembourg to Brussels: We were not quite ready to leave first thing in the morning. We got kicked out of our rooms at 9am, but were allowed to stay in the lounge until we needed to leave. I initially planned our trip and knew all of the details. However, I had gotten very used to the travel agent and the cruise director planning stuff for me. That morning I was exhausted, in a foreign country, and not prepared. After taking some time after breakfast, I realized the train we needed to catch ran every hour and was conveniently located across the street from where we docked. I also realized it was a 5 hour trip from Wasserbillig to Brussels so we needed to catch the 10am train. We had a 1 hour ride to Luxembourg before we had to transfer trains. We got comfortable and didn’t realize we had a second transfer at Liege-Guillemins. We missed our transfer, but it worked out that we had an hour to get lunch and enjoy some Wi-Fi.

We finally arrived to Brussels at 4pm which worked with our AirBnB check-in. I ended up finding a studio apartment in the historic Grand Place (Link for Room). The view was everything and I was honestly impressed with the apartment itself. The Grand Place is central square of the City of Brussels and is surrounded by the guild houses, the City Hall and the Maison du Roi. We laid down for a quick rest before seeing the sights and finding dinner. We saw the Galaries Royales Saint-Hubret which is basically a really pretty shopping mall. We had Belgian cuisine at Le Roy d’Espagne and watched the street performers in the Plaza. Unfortunately did not have time for the 3 things on my bucket list: Belgian chocolate, Belgian waffles, and Brussel sprouts lol.

Day 9 Brussels to Newark: August 17th we had a 10am flight home and landed 8 hours later at 12pm. I love time travel.