The Birth & Growing Up Of River Cruise Advisor
Five years ago, when we purchased the domain rivercruiseadvisor.com, we thought the site would be a good home for our river cruise-related content — nothing more than that really — just a place to digitally compartmentalize the content we were producing about what was then an up-and-coming segment of the cruise industry.
Then river cruising began its boom. Along with the surge, rivercruiseadvisor.com experienced a sharp upward growth trajectory. Starting at zero visits a few years ago, the site now regularly sees more than 1,000 unique visitors daily, and our email subscription base, while still small, is growing at a healthy pace – with more than 6,000 email newsletters sent weekly to a mix of travel agents and consumers.
In addition, we hear from many, many people who have questions about a travel segment that even throws us at times, despite our collective experience of having cruised on multiple vessels and multiple rivers.
People ask us if river cruising is a good match for the physically challenged (not always — some river cruisers still lack elevators, not to mention Europe’s many cobblestoned streets that make mobility challenging). Visitors to River Cruise Advisor ask which ships have open-seating dining (none that we know of, but some have more flexible dining options than others). They want to know which river to cruise (there are many choices) and which ships (even more choices than rivers); and even which side of the ship to book their cabins on for the best sight-seeing (our recommendation: Get out on deck).
Your Questions Answered
We have a lot of answers on a site that has grown to contain several hundred pages of content. Beginners will find some answers — and perhaps some inspiration — by reading the ABCs of River Cruising. Those visitors can forget about river cruising altogether, though, if they fail to heed the advice in this post: 2014 River Cruise Advice: Book Early. River cruising now has more demand than supply.
If you are even mildly intrigued by the idea of river cruising in 2014, which means from early spring (Tulip Time cruises) through end of the year (Christmas Market cruises), you had better get started planning now.
In the spirit of helping you do just that, we have produced three round-up posts to give you ideas of just where, and when, you might go. See our three-part series beginning with our 2014 River Cruise Roundup: Europe and followed by these two posts about exotic river cruise itineraries: 2014 River Cruise Roundup: Exotics, Part 1 and 2014 River Cruise Roundup: Exotics, Part 2.
Your Voice Needed On River Cruise Advisor
The old saying goes that it is better to give than receive, but we like receiving too. We appreciate your comments and your engagement. We rely not only on our experiences, brochures and press releases, and the information we can cull from river cruise company websites but also from your shared knowledge and experiences.
Share what you know or have learned on your own river cruises, and if you’ve yet to do river cruise, feel free to ask a question in the comments section that you will find underneath each post. Whether it’s us or one of our readers, someone will be there to help you.
Bon Voyage …
