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What are the main differences between a European canal hotel barge cruise and a river cruise? I think there are 8 key things you need to know that makes a canal cruise different to a river cruise. By understanding how they differ you can better decide is a river cruise or canal hotel barge cruise is best for your next European river cruising vacation
Note: I travelled as a guest of CroisiEurope on a 6-night hotel barge cruise in France before making this video Croisieurope had no input into the opinions or content of this video.
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Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 60+ cruises.
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0:00
you're about to discover the important
0:02
differences you need to know between a
0:04
European river cruise and a European
0:06
barge hotel cruise
0:08
I'm Gary Bainbridge this is another of
0:11
my tips for travelers I'm just back from
0:13
a barge cruise through the waterways of
0:16
France and I thought would be a great
0:17
opportunity to talk about the
0:19
differences between going on a river
0:21
cruise in Europe or going on a barge
0:23
cruise through Europe the first key
0:27
difference is around the type of
0:28
waterways and the range of options
0:31
available to you so barge cruises 95 %
0:34
of barge cruises actually go on man-made
0:37
canals rather than rivers so these are
0:39
canals that were built largely in the
0:41
18th century before railways were pretty
0:43
widespread to move goods around a
0:46
country so most of the barge cruises
0:48
that you look at in Europe will go on
0:49
canals now some of them do go on rivers
0:51
so for example I was on the cross he
0:53
Europe Deborah bite on the yawn and the
0:56
Seine River because the water levels
0:58
were too low in the canal so we actually
0:59
did more of a barge river cruise but
1:02
you'll normally find that 95% of the
1:04
cruises on a barge will be on canals the
1:09
barges will travel much less distance so
1:12
under river cruise you could go through
1:14
four or five countries you could travel
1:15
hundreds of miles a barge is very
1:18
different it will only travel around 50
1:21
to 70 miles of example we did about 76
1:23
miles on our trip over six nights barges
1:27
go much slower they cover much less
1:29
ground unlike a river cruise where you
1:31
can go through multiple countries in the
1:33
space of a week the range of places you
1:37
can go to is much more limited than on a
1:39
river crew so river cruise of course
1:40
pretty much every single River of any
1:42
note in Europe you'll normally find a
1:44
river cruise barges largely go where
1:46
their canal so you'll find them much
1:47
less places you can go to so you'll find
1:49
for example there's a lot of them in
1:51
France you will find them in England in
1:53
Scotland in Ireland
1:55
you'll also find some more limited ones
1:56
in other parts of Europe like Holland
1:58
and Belgium
2:00
the second key difference between a
2:02
barge and a river cruise in Europe is
2:04
the amount of options and choice on a
2:07
river cruise you have a huge amount of
2:10
cruise lines ranging from very premium
2:12
to more valley
2:13
you you have a huge amount of rivers you
2:16
can choose from and there are loads of
2:19
permutations of itineraries however when
2:22
it comes to barges you're going to have
2:23
much less choice there's very few
2:25
operators of barge cruisers in Europe so
2:29
I went on for example crossing Europe
2:31
there's probably only two or three other
2:33
real players if you want to go on a
2:35
barge cruise
2:36
so unlike wherever there's much less
2:37
choice a river cruise offers you a huge
2:41
option of different lines lots of
2:44
different rivers lots of different
2:46
itineraries and multiple countries you
2:47
can go to if you choose to go on a barge
2:49
cruise you're going to have much less
2:51
choice of both lines and countries that
2:55
you can go to on a barge cruise versus a
2:57
river the third and probably one of the
3:01
biggest differences between a river and
3:04
a barge cruise in Europe is the pace a
3:06
river cruise can be pretty frantic and
3:08
certainly one things I discover when I
3:09
started river cruising is it's a much
3:11
more full-on trip because you get up
3:14
early you have breakfast you got an
3:15
excursions you come back you might
3:16
cruise a little bit they'll have another
3:18
excursion you'll have dinner you'll have
3:20
some entertainment you'll have briefing
3:21
and it is pretty full on a barge
3:23
however slows that down completely and
3:26
that's for a couple of reasons first of
3:28
all the bar just generally go much
3:30
slower and they cover much less distance
3:32
but importantly barges do not cruise at
3:35
night so they only cruise during the
3:37
daylight hours so what normally happens
3:39
is you'll have half a day of excursions
3:42
and half a day of cruising and then
3:45
you'll be docked somewhere at night so
3:46
straight away the whole pace slows down
3:49
because half of the day you will spend
3:51
on the barge just relaxing as you sail
3:54
through the territory and the land the
3:57
landscape that you're going through and
3:59
the barges themselves do go much slower
4:01
for me the next one is probably the most
4:04
obvious of all of them and that's about
4:07
the size of the ship a river cruise can
4:10
hold often between 120 up to 200 guests
4:14
barges are much much smaller so for
4:16
example the Deborah barge that I was on
4:18
had a maximum of 22 guests so it's
4:21
dramatically smaller you have six crew
4:24
on board so
4:26
had the captain we had sort of like a
4:28
first mate which helps the captain we
4:31
had sort of a cruise director
4:32
we had waitress we had a chef and we had
4:36
a housekeeper so the crew - passenger
4:39
ratio is very high on a barge but the
4:41
ship's of course much much smaller and
4:43
you have much less facilities than you
4:45
would have even on a river cruise which
4:47
again is pretty limited so on the barge
4:50
for example what you have is you
4:52
normally have the cabins on the lower
4:54
level so ten of the eleven cabins on
4:56
Deborah were on the lower level on the
4:59
main level you have a dining room you
5:02
have a seating area sort of a lounge
5:05
which has a little bar then out you have
5:08
an open deck which on Deborah actually
5:10
had a hot tub many of the barges do have
5:12
things like a hot tub
5:13
you also have an upper level now often
5:16
the upper level is closed when you're
5:18
cruising along canals the reason for
5:20
that is the the bridges do tend to be
5:23
pretty low on many of the canals around
5:26
Europe so the facilities are much less
5:30
you're not gonna have a choice of dining
5:31
you're gonna have a fitness center
5:32
you're gonna have a spa some river
5:34
cruise both have swimming pools you're
5:36
not gonna find any of that on a barge
5:37
not surprisingly because of the nature
5:39
of the waterways that barges cruise on
5:42
it's a much smaller vessel the next key
5:46
difference is linked then let's talking
5:48
about the cabins themselves now on a
5:49
river cruise many river cruise ships
5:51
will give you a huge choice you know
5:53
often get suites you can get balcony
5:56
cabins and then you can have cabins
5:58
which you only have water views which
6:00
normally tend to be slightly below the
6:01
water level so you have a big range of
6:03
cabins and some of the cabins you know
6:05
store on river cruise boats are quite
6:07
small but they still quite spacious
6:08
however on a barge your bedroom really
6:11
is a place to sleep and get ready so the
6:14
cabins are pretty small so again we'll
6:16
just take an example of the one we had
6:17
on Deborah there were two single beds
6:19
there was lots of storage space very
6:21
cleverly put in above the bed there was
6:24
a little seating area sort of a dressing
6:25
table area and there was a bathroom the
6:29
bathroom was a shower room so that the
6:31
cabins are pretty small it's not the
6:33
place that you're really gonna want to
6:34
necessary spend all of time and that's
6:35
also very important because if you spend
6:37
half the day cruising the cabins
6:39
themselves are
6:40
actually below the water level so it's
6:42
sort of 2/3 or 3/4 of them are below the
6:45
water level so when you are 'shy
6:45
cruising along they can be relatively
6:48
noisy in my view so it's not sort of
6:51
place you're likely to want to spend a
6:52
lot of time so certainly one of the key
6:54
differences you can have cabins that you
6:57
might want to relax and spend time in on
6:58
a river cruise but on a barge it's a
7:00
much more practical sleeping getting
7:02
ready space the next key difference is
7:06
around food and drink on river cruises
7:09
you have incredible food you have big
7:11
menus sums you have choice of dining
7:13
venues and lots and lots of choice it's
7:15
very different on a barge cruise the
7:17
food on a barge cruise is pretty
7:19
impressive so it's very gourmet like and
7:22
the meals are big and quite long and
7:25
really they do go to town so let me give
7:27
an example of what we had on the cross
7:30
Europe Deborah which is pretty typical
7:31
of other barge cruises that you could go
7:35
on so breakfast would be the most
7:37
informal of all the meals and that would
7:39
be a buffet breakfast so you'd have you
7:41
know your pastries cereal yogurt fruit
7:44
that kind of thing and then normally
7:45
there'd be an egg of the day so you
7:46
could have scrambled eggs one day
7:47
omelets but it was a buffet style
7:49
breakfast lunch was probably the main
7:51
meal of the day and a lot was made of
7:53
lunch it would be a four-course meal you
7:56
know the starter you'd have a main
7:58
course then being France you would then
8:00
have a cheese course and every day two
8:02
different cheeses were introduced we'd
8:04
be told the story of the cheese's and
8:06
have the cheese's and then there'd be a
8:07
dessert in the evening it would be a
8:09
three-course meal starter main course
8:12
and dessert an important thing to note
8:14
is this is a set menu there are not
8:16
choices and options if you have dietary
8:20
issues so you're vegetarian vegan you
8:22
need gluten-free whatever it is very
8:24
importantly when you make the booking
8:26
that you work with the company you're
8:28
going with to ensure that they know that
8:30
you have dietary issues and when you get
8:31
on board make sure that the chef knows
8:33
now the chef can be pretty flexible
8:34
because they do buy a lot of stuff along
8:37
the way but you're not going to have a
8:39
big choice of menu on River Cruises
8:40
you'll have choices started choice of
8:42
main courses choice of desserts normally
8:45
that's not the case on a barge cruise
8:47
food quality though is very high
8:49
what's very importantly on barges is
8:51
your drink is included
8:53
quality very high set menu and all of
8:56
your drink is included on a barge cruise
9:00
the next key difference is around fares
9:03
river cruise and barge fares are largely
9:07
all-inclusive on river cruises lines it
9:10
differs a little bit about what and is
9:11
and isn't included let me talk a little
9:13
bit about what a barge cruise will
9:15
normally include so if I take the
9:17
example again of the cruise I was on
9:19
transfers tuned from Paris were included
9:21
to the barge so transfers are normally
9:24
included your accommodation your food
9:26
and your drink as I've already discussed
9:28
are all included Wi-Fi is included
9:32
excursions are included and depending on
9:35
the cruise line you are gratuities are
9:36
either included or not included so on
9:39
crossing europe deborah gratuities were
9:40
not included so the only extra expense
9:42
during that whole week that I was on
9:45
were the gratuities everything else was
9:47
included my first barge cruise was a
9:51
great experience and those differences
9:53
are found quite intriguing between that
9:55
and river cruising definitely river
9:57
cruising is fantastic definitely barge
9:59
cruising is fantastic hope you found
10:04
those differences between River and
10:06
barge cruising helpful interesting if
10:08
you want to find out much more I have
10:09
loads of videos about cruising river
10:11
cruising and barge cruising so why don't
10:13
you watch another one of them right now
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