Nic and Sue’s Euro River Cruise and some bits on the side. Autumn 2026. Prelude.

During a chat in January this year Sue asked if I’d be interested in doing a European River Cruise with her. I was in like Flynn, we went to a ‘Scenic’ information session in Pakenham a couple of days later, got the lowdown and special deals, then popped into the local Helloworld travel agent here in Moe on the way home…where we basically decided to go for it. A 15 day “Jewels of Europe” river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam was booked with Scenic – an Australian tour company.

We set about planning what else we’d like to do around the River Cruise and landed on some time in Prague, then onto Budapest for a few days pre-cruise, with some days added on the end of the cruise in Amsterdam. All in all a 27 day trip.

We had a few planning sessions over lunch and dinner at Penny Lane Wine Bar, and they too became a little invested in our trip.

As the European Summer hit, the heatwaves and drought played havoc with river levels across Europe and created problems for the many cruise lines on the rivers – Scenic included.

Sue and I kept our eyes on things and it was looking more and more like we would have to be prepared to make some hard decisions, if the rivers didn’t fill.

So more planning sessions were held to devise what turned out to be a PLAN B and a PLAN C.

12 days out from the cruise – we got our first email indicating that adjustements would need to be made to the cruise itinerary. We had options, but needed to wait till closer to departure date. This means we wouldn’tt know what exactly is on offer until we were in Europe.

With some options in mind, we set about packing and prepping for take off.

I will continue to blog, most posts will be at the conclusion of our trip.