Joann Tripi

I fell in love with river cruising myself and started sending my clients on them. I find that once people try one they keep coming back to me to book another. River cruises are especially appealing to baby boomers, who appreciate the intimacy of traveling with only 100 or 200 passengers and aren’t looking for the climbing walls and gazillion nightlife choices of the huge ocean liners. 

They also appreciate being able to visit small towns and out of the way places as well as big cities. Some of my clients’ favorite trips have been river cruises that take in the Tulip Festival in Holland or cruise the Danube all the way to Budapest. The best part is that the river cruise lines keep adding new ships and itineraries.

I am a Uniworld expert and I arranged a Uniworld cruise from Paris to Normandy for my brother and his wife for his 65th birthday on the new S.S. Joie de Vivre last year. It’s a gem, with the decor of a boutique hotel, very attentive service and a very sophisticated yet friendly ambience. They met people from Australia, England, all over, and they loved it. They’d never cruised before, and now they are hooked. In fact, they had booked a trip to Lake Como and Milan, and when they came back from their Uniworld cruise, they canceled that booking and rebooked a river cruise—this time down the Rhine!