Thank you for your beautiful videos. We will be taking this cruise in April. Our first Viking cruise was down the Danube. We had planned to go on this cruise twice before but they got cancelled from Covid, then i fell and broke my kneecap!! So hopefully 3rd time is the charm. We are looking at the side trip choices, so thank you for filming some of them.
OH MY! Lordy I hope this 3rd time is the charm! We loved this cruise. The places we visited were amazing. Wish we could have stayed 2-3 days in each port. Let me know if you have any other questions about specific towns. Part of what I loved about creating these videos was re-living all of the captured moments. What did you enjoy best about the Danube cruise? I'd like to go on that one next year.
Hi Aaron, I've enjoyed your 12-day vlog. Kudo's on how smoothly you walk us through each day of your journey. We will be starting this journey three weeks from today, so excited. This will be our third Viking river cruise. 2018 = Grand European from Amsterdam to Budapest. 2019 = River of Gold Portugal & Spain with a Pre-Ext in Madrid and a Post-Ext in Santiago de Compostela. COVID years had us stick to domestic travel so we are ready to get back to Europe. For this trip we have a Pre-Ext Milan and a Post-Paris (on our own). I know that you'll be putting out a list of Top 10 -15 items to take with you on a river cruise... can't wait to see that. I do have some questions that I hope you can answer. 1) Compare your Zurich stay at the Renaissance with your stay at the Pullman-Paris Montparnasse. You provided a nice overview of Renaissance, but quickly flashed through the Pullman. Our 'on our own' ext in Paris I reserved a couple of extra nights at the Pullman. I have checked out reviews that appear to mostly favorable. Great location to nearby restaurants and metro, but will require ground transport to museums Louvre, Seine cruise, etc.. 2) What type of camera are you using? Smartphone with a Gimbal? I was thinking about purchasing a DJI Osmo 6 to pair with my Samsung. 3) During your Cochem stop you biked the Moselle, did this mean you skipped the included tour Cochem, Reichsburg & the Moselle Valley? Our tour shows that the bike ride is scheduled during the same time as the included tour. We did the E-bike ride during the Grand European while docked in Passau. We rode where from Passau across the border into Austria and back to Passau. Absolutely loved it! I'm sure that I will have more questions, before I leave so I hope that you don't mind me asking a few more. Thanks again, for sharing your adventure with us. Prost!
Well thanks so much for watching the videos! I learned a lot of lessons doing this. The first... it takes a lot longer in post production than expected. :) Hence why it took almost exactly a year to get them all done. I'll put together a video of all the videography lessons... I'll start my getting them out of my head and on to paper today. You ask the best questions! I had not thought all the way through these before. I talked to my wife and she had some excellent points. 1) When putting the video together I was quite disappointed how little video I had at the Pullman. It was a great hotel in a wonderfully walkable part of town. Most everything we wanted to do was in walking distance, cafes, gardens, entertainment... the Metro station was close too when we headed elsewhere. Totally aligns with what you read. The Renaissance was not as central to Zurich as the Pullman was to Paris. There were restaurants somewhat close but we mostly took the streetcars to go anywhere. A streetcar stop was about 2 blocks away from the hotel so it was no problem getting there. The Renaissance definitely more disconnected from the city though. The included breakfast was great at the Renaissance. That part felt very high end. The Pullman's was quite crowded and hurried, food was good just a different feel. 2) I am using a DJI Pocket 2 (~$280) This little thing has been a miracle worker for me. It is small enough to put in any pocket, and comes with a cover that completely protects it. I can get take it out of my pocket and start videoing within about 5 seconds. It can shoot 4K 60fps and writes directly to a high speed SD card. That makes editing much faster since I don't have to download vids from the phone. Usually I shoot vids in 1080 60fps. My PC's CPU and GPU choke on 4K. Someday... The negative to the Pocket 2 is how small the screen is. Pretty limited view, I just point the camera and hope (grin). A phone's screen is beautiful and you can see exactly what you are shooting. Not so much the Pocket 2. There is a new Pocket 3 ($520) out that has a bit larger screen. Not quite worth the difference IMHO. I have a few phone gimbals but they generally take so long for me to get the camera in and ready that found I just didn't use it very much. I know others have had great luck with them. 3) Yes we missed that excursion. I love these historic cities so that bothered me a bit, but well... I LOVED the bike ride so... in the end i think we made the right decision. Also, the Burgfest was happening that day so the schedule was all thrown off. That impacted the scheduled events but I don't exactly know how much since we were off on a biking adventure. :) Here is the sheet I put together to decide what excursions to take: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b566QH71YT-1ipNB5xFGeMLVxMDLSBsB499F4iJis14/edit?usp=sharing I hope that helped! -Aaron
Aaron great job with the whole 12 days worth. We are leaving tomorrow to do this exact trip. Did you do money exchanges or could you make it through just using your credit card?
I totally missed this comment! So sorry, you are probably back now. We used our CCard the whole time. It cost us a tiny bit in fees but we didn't worry about cash conversions at all. I hope you trip was AMAZING!
Thank you for your beautiful videos. We will be taking this cruise in April. Our first Viking cruise was down the Danube. We had planned to go on this cruise twice before but they got cancelled from Covid, then i fell and broke my kneecap!! So hopefully 3rd time is the charm. We are looking at the side trip choices, so thank you for filming some of them.
OH MY! Lordy I hope this 3rd time is the charm! We loved this cruise. The places we visited were amazing. Wish we could have stayed 2-3 days in each port. Let me know if you have any other questions about specific towns.
Part of what I loved about creating these videos was re-living all of the captured moments. What did you enjoy best about the Danube cruise? I'd like to go on that one next year.
Hi Aaron, I've enjoyed your 12-day vlog. Kudo's on how smoothly you walk us through each day of your journey. We will be starting this journey three weeks from today, so excited. This will be our third Viking river cruise. 2018 = Grand European from Amsterdam to Budapest. 2019 = River of Gold Portugal & Spain with a Pre-Ext in Madrid and a Post-Ext in Santiago de Compostela. COVID years had us stick to domestic travel so we are ready to get back to Europe. For this trip we have a Pre-Ext Milan and a Post-Paris (on our own). I know that you'll be putting out a list of Top 10 -15 items to take with you on a river cruise... can't wait to see that. I do have some questions that I hope you can answer.
1) Compare your Zurich stay at the Renaissance with your stay at the Pullman-Paris Montparnasse. You provided a nice overview of Renaissance, but quickly flashed through the Pullman. Our 'on our own' ext in Paris I reserved a couple of extra nights at the Pullman. I have checked out reviews that appear to mostly favorable. Great location to nearby restaurants and metro, but will require ground transport to museums Louvre, Seine cruise, etc..
2) What type of camera are you using? Smartphone with a Gimbal? I was thinking about purchasing a DJI Osmo 6 to pair with my Samsung.
3) During your Cochem stop you biked the Moselle, did this mean you skipped the included tour Cochem, Reichsburg & the Moselle Valley? Our tour shows that the bike ride is scheduled during the same time as the included tour. We did the E-bike ride during the Grand European while docked in Passau. We rode where from Passau across the border into Austria and back to Passau. Absolutely loved it!
I'm sure that I will have more questions, before I leave so I hope that you don't mind me asking a few more.
Thanks again, for sharing your adventure with us. Prost!
Well thanks so much for watching the videos! I learned a lot of lessons doing this. The first... it takes a lot longer in post production than expected. :) Hence why it took almost exactly a year to get them all done. I'll put together a video of all the videography lessons... I'll start my getting them out of my head and on to paper today.
You ask the best questions! I had not thought all the way through these before. I talked to my wife and she had some excellent points.
1) When putting the video together I was quite disappointed how little video I had at the Pullman. It was a great hotel in a wonderfully walkable part of town. Most everything we wanted to do was in walking distance, cafes, gardens, entertainment... the Metro station was close too when we headed elsewhere. Totally aligns with what you read.
The Renaissance was not as central to Zurich as the Pullman was to Paris. There were restaurants somewhat close but we mostly took the streetcars to go anywhere. A streetcar stop was about 2 blocks away from the hotel so it was no problem getting there. The Renaissance definitely more disconnected from the city though.
The included breakfast was great at the Renaissance. That part felt very high end. The Pullman's was quite crowded and hurried, food was good just a different feel.
2) I am using a DJI Pocket 2 (~$280) This little thing has been a miracle worker for me. It is small enough to put in any pocket, and comes with a cover that completely protects it. I can get take it out of my pocket and start videoing within about 5 seconds. It can shoot 4K 60fps and writes directly to a high speed SD card. That makes editing much faster since I don't have to download vids from the phone. Usually I shoot vids in 1080 60fps. My PC's CPU and GPU choke on 4K. Someday...
The negative to the Pocket 2 is how small the screen is. Pretty limited view, I just point the camera and hope (grin). A phone's screen is beautiful and you can see exactly what you are shooting. Not so much the Pocket 2. There is a new Pocket 3 ($520) out that has a bit larger screen. Not quite worth the difference IMHO.
I have a few phone gimbals but they generally take so long for me to get the camera in and ready that found I just didn't use it very much. I know others have had great luck with them.
3) Yes we missed that excursion. I love these historic cities so that bothered me a bit, but well... I LOVED the bike ride so... in the end i think we made the right decision. Also, the Burgfest was happening that day so the schedule was all thrown off. That impacted the scheduled events but I don't exactly know how much since we were off on a biking adventure. :)
Here is the sheet I put together to decide what excursions to take: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b566QH71YT-1ipNB5xFGeMLVxMDLSBsB499F4iJis14/edit?usp=sharing
I hope that helped!
-Aaron
Beautiful, so well produced. We will be on the reciprocal cruise featuring the Christmas markets in December. Thank you!
I am sure the Christmas markets will be beautiful, enjoy! We loved our river cruise. Someday we’ll do the Christmas one.
Aaron great job with the whole 12 days worth. We are leaving tomorrow to do this exact trip. Did you do money exchanges or could you make it through just using your credit card?
I totally missed this comment! So sorry, you are probably back now. We used our CCard the whole time. It cost us a tiny bit in fees but we didn't worry about cash conversions at all. I hope you trip was AMAZING!