72. Encore of River Cruising is the perfect Bougie Choice for Extra AF Vacations

I'm soaking up my last week away from the podcast in style! If you are a bougie traveler like me, you need to check out a river cruise! In this encore episode, I share about the epic experience that I had on a 7-day European river cruise. Tune in to hear all about the phenomenal food, itinerary, and unique experiences that I had on this adventure last August.

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher.

Transcript

Hello there, jetsetters. It is me, Michele Schwartz, the OG memory maker of Makin' Memories Travel and the base behind at jet setting with Michele on Instagram. And as always, Michele is spelled with one l. And, of course, that link is in the show notes as well. And, in fact, I would love for you to go and follow me because I have started a brand new series where every single day I am posting a travel tidbit of something I have learned in my many, many years in the hospitality and travel industry. It's less than 2 minutes, and there's a new tip every single day. Now you may have noticed that last week, there wasn't a new episode here on at jet setting with me. Well, I'm very sorry for that.

But after 18 months of releasing an episode every single week, the streak came to an end, and that's because I've been traveling a lot myself. I've been studying at 2 different conferences. I've been studying online and getting certified. For example, I just got a brand new certification in both Viking Ocean and Viking River and Viking Expedition. So I can help you with any of those brands. I'm starting a new one right now with Ponnat, and I'm renewing my certification with Oceania. So, as you can see, I've been really busy helping clients just like you. And in August, I am going to take some much needed R and R for myself with my family.

We are going to escape the heat of Texas, and you can definitely follow along on my Instagram and daily tidbits. And in the meantime, while I'm on hiatus, I've listed some of my favorite episodes of at jet setting with me and even some under my former name of let me adjust my ears for you here that you can listen to if you miss me, and I will be back in your podcast feeds come September 5th. Until then, I'll see you real soon.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Let Me Adjust My Ears. I am so happy to be recording again… before my Europe trip, which I'm going to talk about today. I recorded the last three episodes all three weeks ago. So it's been a while since I've been on the mic and I have some new news and this is going to be very exciting. So welcome back.

Back last week, you hopefully heard the episode where we dropped some serious tea on an upcoming Europe trip for 2024 A Virgin Voyages Greek Island Glow, featuring some pretty special guests from the Sex and the City and the “and just like that” universe. If you did not get a chance to see the virtual cruise night last night, it is in the Makin’ Memories Insider Facebook Group. The whole video is there, as well as all three of the special guests and their BIOS. So if you want more information on that, you can check out the show notes for the links and also the link to get on the VIP list so that you can be one of the very first to book. The booking specials that were announced last night are still valid now to this week's episode.

So I was in Europe for almost two full weeks doing a Jewish Heritage river cruise and there is so much for me to cover about this incredible trip and how it applies to you as my favorite bougie extra AF travelers that I am breaking it into two distinct episodes. So this week we're going to talk about the actual river cruise portion of the trip, which was seven days, and then next week I will talk into the we did both a pre and post cruise, so I'll talk about the pre and the post. So this week I'm talking all about just the river cruise portion of the trip. And because I know everyone who listens to this is a Disney lover, I want to just to mention the fact that Adventures by Disney actually does do river cruising. And they do have adult itineraries as well as ones that include not quite so pint size entourage because they recommend that you be at least twelve for their river cruise. They use a different brand of river cruise than what I went on. And I'm going to tell you all about my particular river cruise and keep in mind that you don't have to do an Adventures by Disney to really have a wonderful river cruise experience.

I went 18 months ago to the American Society of Travel Advisors very first ever river cruise expo and it was in Budapest. It was actually my very first time to ever fly internationally alone and I was really terrified. And of course that was also the trip where I got stuck in Germany alone at the end of it with COVID. So don't want to mention too much about that, only to say that I went to that River Cruise Expo, knowing that I wanted to do a Jewish Heritage River Cruise group trip, which we ended up, I did it in conjunction with another travel advisor. Shout out to Sandy! 18 months ago.

When I went to that River Cruise Expo, I went on every single line that was there, all their ships tasted all the food. And so I specifically chose Avalon, which is owned by Globus. And I have done Globus adventures with clients before and the brand is always very well done. I will say working with them on the back end as a travel advisor was not all that. So if you are going to book with Globus to do a ground tour or with Avalon for their river cruises, please use a travel advisor. If it's not making memories travel, make it your BFF person or your travel advisor that you use now, because you do not want to have to deal with them on reservations, their back office not great. And other people on the cruise who didn't use a travel advisor also said that they wish they had used a travel advisor to deal with Avalon. So, just saying that. But the service on the ship itself was phenomenal. Now, as I said, I went on every single line, every cruise ship. I tried Viking, AMA, at the time it was Scenic Riverside, there was one more… Amadeus. Those were the lines that I got to experience.

Now, there is also a new luxury line called Riverside, which I do wish to experience. But Avalon and Uniworld, who was also there, were the only two that actually had a Jewish heritage cruise. Itinerary so that I wouldn't have to go out and seek out all the excursions on my own. And they had access to excursions for this particular cruise that I would not have been able to gain access to. For example, they had a private concert in Vienna, which I will talk more about later. So Uniworld is actually owned by a Jewish couple and yet I still chose Avalon. And the reason that I chose Avalon is because when I went for the River Cruise Expo, Avalon is the only river cruise line that actually has a cabin configuration where the beds face the window. And so with a French balcony, you can open the windows all the way out. It kind of combines the indoor and the outdoor feel. It's just magnificent. And if you want to just be lazy and lay in bed, you can literally watch the river flow by and the geography and all the cute little towns from your cabin window. I will say that was super special.

And again, the service on the ship was phenomenal. From the wait staff and housekeeping all the way up to our cruise director, it was phenomenal. I loved it. But I will say that my whole thing about the beds really didn't end up mattering much at all. So there are other brands out there who also have phenomenal service, and the cabin configuration is different. I will say with the Avalon cabin configuration as it is, it does make your cabin feel larger than what you would feel on similar ships. However, a lot of times river cruises end up docking three ships together, and then you can't open your balcony or windows because you can reach out and touch your neighbor on another ship. Also, if it's raining or if the sun's in your eyes, you don't want to open them because weather wise so I only ended up actually laying in bed and watching the scenery go by all of once on the trip. So I will say I made that a priority. I wanted to lay in bed and watch little German towns go by, and that didn't really happen. So my imagination was better than the reality, but it was still pretty amazing the few times that happened, and it did make the cabin feel larger.

Now, I spoke about how the service was amazing, and I talked about the room configuration, but I do also want to mention and if you follow me on Instagram, you did see my mom give me a fabulous, best testimonial ever because she talked about the robe in the room. And I'm not sure I've ever given you the story of why I insist on a robe being in the room. So I want to do that. Now, I was doing some consulting for a brand I think I can say it here because I don't work for them anymore. I was doing some consulting for about ten months for Club Med on their wedding programs, and the very first time I ever went to a Club Med and mind you, we'll talk more about All Inclusives on another pad, but they're not exactly my favorite vacation product. All Inclusive. I digress.

The first time I ever visited a Club Med. Club Med has a policy that when you're there what are we called? Holy shit, I forgot what Club Med calls cast members. Gentle….GOs. Yes, Gentle…whatever the O stands for. And guests are GMs for Gentle Members. That much I remember. Okay, so Club Med has a policy that GOs stay in the lowest category of room available. Don't know why. Whenever I stayed at resorts as a Disney cast member, we got automatically upgraded because the people who work there at that front desk at other Disney resorts know what it's like to be a cast member. And so whenever I stayed at other Disney resorts, we got suites, we got upgraded. Club Med. Not so. So we always stayed in the lowest category possible, and they are not what I would call luxury or bougie is my favorite word. Accommodations.

Now, granted, when you go to their suites and their exclusive collection accommodations, they are nicer, and they do have robes in the room. But my very first trip at Club Mud, which was like, within my first two weeks of starting there, I was in the lowest accommodation, and I missed a robe in the room. I'm leaving it at that. But I came home, and my mom asked me, so how was Know brand new job? She was very excited for me. And my mom, as you also have heard in previous podcasts, loves to camp whitewater raft. She doesn't need a robe in the room, which is why her testimonial, which is on my instagram about having a robe in the room, meant so much to me. So she asked how my Club Med stay was, and I told her, well, it's fine. I mean, I can do this consulting job. I can design wedding programs, but I am not their ideal client, which I'm not. I am married. I'm an empty nester. And I'm not their ideal client because I don't like elevated glamping. But I could still design their wedding programs, and my mom says, well, why aren't you the ideal client? And I shot back without even thinking, well, they don't have robes in the room. Enough said. So that is how the whole robe in the room joke came to be.

And therefore the fact that Avalon has robes in the room. The bathroom was a nice size. Two people could be in it at the same time. There were also slippers in the room, and sometimes in the morning, it's great to just throw those slippers on, put a robe on over your pajamas, and go have coffee. I did this one morning, and I sat in the lounge, and I watched us go under a lock, and I was the only one awake. As you know, I'm an early riser at the resorts and cruise ships, and I just loved it. It was phenomenal. And I should say that the late machine where I got that coffee was so good. So I really encourage you, if you're going on a river cruise, to invest in that experience in small ways, yes, a cabin configuration and a robe and a nice size bathroom so that you can enjoy the experience. Next. The dinner menus on our cruise ship each night correlated with the cities that we visited.

And it was amazing because lots of times on a river cruise, you're only actually visiting the city for a half or three quarters of a day, and then you get back on for dinner every night, and you're cruising along in the evening with the lights. It's really just a romantic. And I don't mean romantic as in love interest. I mean romantic as in the love that you will feel for these different small cities that have been around since the Middle Ages. Just phenomenal. And so in Vienna… Vienna is famous for the sacher torte. It's a chocolate sponge cake. And as I learned on Halloween baking championship that I was watching last season, last night, it has a jam in the middle.

So sacher torte was invented at the Sacher Hotel, which there is one in Vienna and there is the original in Vienna. There is also one in Salzburg. But they invented the sacher torte. And sacher tortes are now served all over Vienna. And I went to the most adorable little bakery to taste mine because the line at the Sacher Hotel is around the corner. And so I went to another authentic Vienna bakery that was recommended to me by my guide to taste my sacher torte. And when I first tasted it, I thought, oh, this is really good. I get it. I did post the sacher torte challenge that I did on my Instagram. So it is there under stories there's river cruise, and it's posted under there, so you can still see it. But then I got back on the ship and the ship had a sacher torte. Mind you, this is before I've had my main meal. I was so hungry, I was eating dessert first. Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. Yay me.

And I got the sacher torte from the chef. And after eating one bite of it, I was like, oh my God, this is better than the sacher torte that I just had. An authentic Vienna bakery. It was so yummy that I went to the pastry chef and explained how amazing it was. And just like Carrie Bradshaw, if anyone asks, I only had two pieces, not three. If you can quote that episode in my Instagram, message me because you are my person if you know that episode that I am quoting there.

So the dinner menus again each night correlated with authentic foods that we ate along the way. We had Bavarian pretzels when we were with cheese soup. Oh my goodness. It was so yummy. It had beer in it. Cheese, beer and pretzels, which, yes, you can get at Walt Disney World, especially at food and wine, but also at the Tap house at Disney's Hollywood Studios. But man, eating it in Germany, as you are watching the German villages float past you or you're floating past them, in reality it's special. So I love the food on river cruises. It is just amazing. I mentioned earlier that one reason that I chose Avalon to do this particular Jewish Heritage River cruise is that they had access to certain places that you can only get with that kind of clearance that a large company is able to get and that I wouldn't have been able to do to set up tours for my guests in the same way.

And one of those was in Bratislava. It was our second stop after Budapest. The cruise went from Budapest to well, it was supposed to go to Germany, but the river rose and we don't really need to talk about that. But anyway, and it went down the Danube. And our second stop was Bratislava, which is the capital city of Slovakia. And I have to tell you, before I went, I was reading about the different excursions and I was like, okay, fine. Bratislava has never been on my bucket list. I wasn't sure that I would really care.

And it was my favorite city. And the reason is the cruise ship was able to set up a tour of the Bratislava synagogue which survived World War II. Now, I have heard survivors of the Shoa, the Holocaust, Jewish and American survivors who liberated the camps speak. I've heard Eli Wezel speak twice prior to his death. It was always the speakers were on a big stage. I was in an audience that was filled with 200 plus people every time. There was never an opportunity to ask any questions. Survivors always tell their story.

I have also heard people who have met with survivors one on one. I've heard them tell about their conversation with survivors. But I, until this trip, had never had an opportunity to meet a survivor one on one for the first time. And I did. And Bratislava and I will always treasure the memory because this man whose autograph I got on a book about the synagogue, but I can't pronounce it, I apologize. It's very Slovakian, and the Slovakian dialect is very close to Russian, and I would damage his name, and I don't want to do that.

He is an elderly man, as you might expect. He was two when World War II broke out. He was a hidden child. His mother was a survivor as well, also hidden with a non Jewish family. And that is how he survived. He lost the rest of his family, siblings and father in the Shoa, in the Holocaust, at Auschwitz, at the camps. He gives the tours at the Bratislava synagogue. He is a caretaker of the synagogue. He is an active member at the synagogue, which is saying something because Eastern European Jewry, most of the Jews that are still there are non practicing. They stay there because they were raised there and their families are there, but they're not necessarily religious.

And all the synagogues there for the most part, except for one that we visited, are also all Orthodox. And not Orthodox in the American Modern Orthodox standards, but Orthodox in the Israeli Modern Orthodox standards, which does mean that there is usually a wall, which in Hebrews calls a mehitza, between women and men worshippers. Only men get to read from the Torah. It's a very traditional and it's a form of Judaism that doesn't work for me. But in Eastern Europe it is what is there, it is what exists. And this gentleman who I had the opportunity to interact with one on one is the caretaker of the Bratislava synagogue. And I have to say, and I think he said there are 700 Jews there. I would have to check that number, but it's very few.

And it is the only surviving synagogue in all of Slovakia. And most of the Jews who are still in Slovakia are there in the capital of Bratislava. But this gentleman, although he is a tour guide and a regular tour guide, he was very introverted, he was very soft spoken. He wanted the focus to be on the synagogue and the history of the synagogue and how it survived, but not him and his personal story and me being me, I of course wanted to hear about him. I love to connect with people and the locals. It's one of the reasons, as you heard in my very first episode, that travel is so special to me. And I asked him a personal question also knowing that he was orthodox, I wasn't sure if he would be okay with taking a picture with me because men and women can't touch. Also a story for another time. If you're interested, you can DM me and I will tell you why.

But he did. He put his arm around me and he took a selfie with me. It is on my Instagram. It's saved forever in my heart as well, but you can see it and it opened him up and he started to tell me and then everyone flocked to it, his own personal story. It's the first time and because of age, probably the last time I will ever have the opportunity to meet a survivor one on one. But to get to know him and to connect with him in that way was very special and definitely a highlight of the trip.

Now that's my highlight. And of course my goal is always to open up travel in your eyes and hope that you will do things to expand your horizons and your travel experiences. And I want to say that no matter where you're traveling, I mean it can be talking to a cast member about his or her story when you're at Disney, but connecting with a local and asking questions, you will connect with people regardless of where you are. Even if you do a staycation and you take the time to ask the person who checks you in what their favorite restaurant is, you are golden. The locals and the connection with the people is how you make the most of your travel memories. I just have one more special example about this particular river cruise, which was the day after we went to Bratislava, we went to Vienna. And I have to say I loved, love, loved Austria, but trying to see New York in a day was what it felt like trying to see Vienna in a day. It was so rushed and so fast. I did find a fabulous local bakery where I got my sacher torte.

I found awesome souvenir shops. We got to see the home of Mozart. It was just so fast though, and it was pretty exhausting. It was a really busy day. It was the only day where we did a morning afternoon and an evening excursion and it was kind of rainy and of course it was still really hot in Europe. But the reason we tried to pack so much into Vienna. As I said, it was like trying to see New York City in a day is because we went to the Schoenbrum Palace. It was an optional excursion.

Not everybody did it, but it was an UNESCO site. And I will say that we got to see several UNESCO sites on this trip. And anytime in any part of the world where you're traveling, if you have an opportunity to see UNESCO site, do it. They are branded UNESCO sites for a reason. They are amazing. So we went to the Schoenbrim Palace, which was the summer palace of the Habsburg Empire. You learned a lot of history on this trip, and I'm currently watching all about the Habsburg Empire on Netflix. It's all about Elizabeth Sissy, the queen who marries Franz Joseph.

Amazing. Anyway, we got to see her. Summer was well, actually, it would have been her mother in law's summer home, which obviously then became her summer home. It was amazing. It was so beautiful. It reminded me of the palaces that we got to see in Russia. Thank God we went to Russia when we did, because obviously we're never going back there. Also that night, the Avalon Company, there were two ships in port that day set up a special symphony just for Avalon passengers.

It was an extra price. It was a special excursion, and it was truly magical. It brought people in the audience to tears to hear Mozart and Strauss in the country where they composed and wrote and lived for part of their lives. It was incredible. And the reason that I knew that it was going to be incredible is because when I went on my river cruise in not my river cruise, my ocean cruise, as I said, we did a Baltics cruise that went to St. Petersburg in Russia, we went and saw Russian ballet. It wasn't the Russian ballet, but it was a Russian ballet. And because the training of ballerinas and ballet artists, men as well as women in Russia, is so different than it is in the US.

It is one of those memories that just sticks with you. It was beautiful. And so I knew that going to the symphony in this place where musicians are trained differently and more intensive than many in the US. That it was going to be incredible. And I encouraged all these people who hadn't signed up to do it. And to a person, people cried. People said thank you. People were so happy that they went. And as a special surprise, Avalon gave us all a CD of the performance, which I was so excited to bring home to Mr. Michele Visits Mickey.

And one more thing that we did see in Vienna. I didn't get to try it, and this will be a reason to go back to the city. Any Amazing Race fans out there who remember the famous Ferris wheel challenge where you had twelve minutes to eat. It was, I think maybe even on the second to the last episode it was going to determine who made it into the finale. It was all very exciting. We saw that Ferris wheel and lo and behold you can rent out one of the carriages on this Ferris wheel for a private catered dinner and it takes twelve minutes to go around the loop.

So I was like, oh my gosh, Amazing Race challenge in the flesh. And I am super sad that I didn't get to do it. And despite my fear of heights and it is old and Rickety looking, you can see the picture on my Instagram (which if you have forgotten by now is @michelevisitsmickey, it's also in the show notes) that Amazing Race Ferris wheel. I plan to do it when I go back to Vienna, which I absolutely will because Austria was phenomenal.

Now, next week I will talk all about the extensions which included a folklore dinner show in Prague and then a private Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, both of which were definite highlights of this extended heritage cultural river cruise and the meeting of amazing experiences and friends. So until next week, see you real soon.