Our Favorite River Cruise Brands

We have created a list of our favorite river cruise brands for you to consider.

We base our opinions on our personal experience, having sailed on eight river cruises to date.

Furthermore, as one of the nation’s most prominent cruise booking travel advisors, we have testimonials from thousands of our client’s personal experiences.

River cruising has become very popular over the past decade with luxury travelers. Like an ocean cruise where you only have to unpack once, a river cruise allows you to explore a region from the inside rather than skirting around it from the ocean.

River cruise ships are considerably smaller than ocean-going vessels and generally hold fewer than 200 people. The ship’s smaller draft lets them drift along the world’s great rivers while offering passengers unparalleled access to fabulous cities and highly scenic vistas as they pass by castles, vineyards, and gorgeous pastoral scenes.

And just like ocean cruise ships, river cruise ships come in various flavors and price ranges, offering excellent lodging, cuisine, and shore excursions that will satisfy the desires of casual travelers to the most discriminate of luxury travelers.

Best River Cruise Brands

• 4-star: Viking River Cruises. Carol and I have grown to become the #2 booking agents for Viking in the world. We’ve sailed with them twice and know them very well. Viking has the uncanny ability to create raving fans of its brand. Our clients come home happy and ready to book another Viking cruise with very few exceptions. Viking dominates river cruising with more ships sailing than anyone. By far! With their massive buying power, Viking’s cruise fares offer air discounts and present one of the best values in river cruising. Viking’s longships hold 190 passengers, and we’re confident that you will enjoy the experience. Further, we often have additional perks to add to your booking.
• 4.5-star: AmaWaterways. AmaWaterways is another favorite. We give them 4.5-stars as their ships hold fewer passengers on the same size ship (150 passengers). You will also find their food and beverage to be a notch up, and they offer their guests complimentary shore excursions all day instead of just a city-tour first thing in the morning. Further, the typical passenger on AmaWaterways trends a little younger and more active. Onboard, you will enjoy complimentary bicycles, a small pool and hot tub, a small gym, and even a spa to get your nails done or your hair styled.
• 5-star: Uniworld Boutique River Cruises. Uniworld is our favorite 5-star river cruise line. Everything aboard the ship is another notch up in quality. If you’re a foodie, you will love the cuisine offered by Uniworld. Furthermore, Uniworld is an entirely all-inclusive experience. You will find it challenging to spend any money on a Uniworld river cruise; their ships are floating works of art, electric bicycles for you to use, and everything is absolutely the best of the best. If you are a 5-star traveler, this is the river cruise line for you.
• 5-star: Tauck River Cruises. Tauck is one of our favorite luxury small-group land journey companies. And building on their 90-years of experience, they offer our guests nine river cruise ships with larger than normal staterooms and a fabulous experience on the ground.
• U.S. River Cruises: Viking offers U.S. river cruises on new modern ships. Furthermore, for a luxury Americana experience, American Queen Voyages offers paddlewheeler river cruises on America’s greatest rivers.

Our Convenient River Cruise Search Tool

While you are certainly welcome to click on any of the links above, our RIVER CRUISE SEARCH TOOL will make your task to find the perfect river cruise much easier.

With the simple click of your mouse, you can search across all of these brands by date, price range, destination, and more. Try it out. We think that you will find it very convenient.

How to Book RIVER Cruises and Get Our Exclusive Perks

All of these cruise lines are part of our Virtuoso Voyages program.

This means that when you book any of these cruise lines through Roaming Boomers Travel Services, you will receive exclusive complimentary amenities on select sailings that you wouldn’t get by booking directly with the company.

Additionally, you will also enjoy our hands-on expert service and care for your booking. And, the price is exactly the same booking with us or booking with the company.

For more information, please call Roaming Boomers Travel Services at (480) 550-1235 or use our convenient online information request (click here), and we’ll reach out to you.

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Roaming Boomers Travel Services is an Independent Affiliate of Cadence, a Virtuoso® member. CST#201120-40

About Virtuoso
Virtuoso® is the leading global network of agencies specializing in luxury and experiential travel, with over 20,000 advisors. We partner with over 1,800 of the world’s best companies such as hotels, cruise lines, tour operators, and more. Our advisors use their personal connections and firsthand expertise to craft bespoke trips for clients, including unique experiences, special values, complimentary perks, VIP treatment, and rare access.