It's For Work! - ACTA River Cruise Summit 2023

If you know me even a little, you know I'm never turning down an opportunity to go to Europe if it's even remotely feasible. So when the opportunity came up to take part in ACTA's (for those of you outside my industry, this is the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies and Travel Advisors) first river cruise summit, I jumped at it!

Let's sail! Day one, the joys of international travel from a very small center. Step one, fly to Toronto. Step two, spend the afternoon there working. Step three, meet Bek when she arrives. Step four, dinner and coffee. Step five, wait some more, while admiring the patience of Air Canada employees who have to continually ask people to sit down and not crowd the gate. Step six, delayed - wait some more. Step seven, fly to Amsterdam overnight while watching movies. Fast forward to the real day one.

We arrived in Amsterdam a couple of hours late from our delay, immigration took a little while, suitcases took a long while, and then we were off on buses to the ship. First up was some lunch and then we had a small amount of free time before things were set to begin, so Bek and I just found some cofffee (because we hadn't slept yet). Then, because I was there for work, the rest of the day was working - sessions, briefings, dinner, and some welcome festivities. Then sleep, glorious sleep.

We stayed docked overnight in Amsterdam and we had some time to do an activity there in the morning before we left. I opted to do a Van Gogh inspired painting class, which they hosted at the Kromhaut Museum (shipbuilding focused museum). What a fun chance to do something a little different. I'm so busy that it's been years since I painted anything that isn't a wall, so it was a real treat. We set sail for Germany early in the afternoon, attending sessions and visiting the various ship cabins en route.

It's a bit of a jaunt from Amsterdam to Cologne, so our morning was spent in sessions. After lunch, it was time for some exploring. We were docked about a 30 minute walk from Cologne Cathedral, so they had buses available. We did Jewish Heritage Tour, before taking some time to explore the cathedral on our own, do a little shopping (all the vegan candy from Germany!), and then we had a soggy walk back to the ship in the rain. Happy hour, info session, dinner, and some entertainment in lounge rounded out the day.

Next up, Koblenz, where it was time to hang out underground. We took a coach to Mendig to visit Lava Dome. Before heading down into the caverns, during the informational videos, the power went off. That definitely meant no caverns until the power came on. It took maybe 30 or 40 minutes, and then we we were off to grab our hard hats and away we went. Many stairs downwards, no problem at all. We had a great guide who showed us around the caverns, which used to be used for brewing lager beer (because of the perfect temperature) and now is just used by one brewery as storage. There's kilometres of caverns there and we just saw a small portion, but it was super interesting. And we even saw a bat! The guide let me name him Jeff. The 150+ stairs to get back up, ugh. Only a few of us braved them - the rest took the elevator. After that, we visited a little nearby sculpture park, for a beer and pretzel break. When in Germany!

Another few hours of working after we got back to the ship and then it was time for CASTLES! This is a definitely highlight of sailing the Rhine and we were so lucky the sun even came out for some of it. I absolutely adore just enjoying the view sailing down this part of the river. This evening we got a bit of a treat - we got to go in a castle! The current owners of Rheinstein Castle graciously welcomed us and gave us a bit of time to explore the grounds. Between the caverns and climbing up to the castle, we definitely got our steps in!

A beautiful, sunny morning found us on our way to Heidelberg - where it was time for day drinking! First stop, up into the hills to Klosterhof Brewery for a chance to sample several of their offerings. After that, we headed to the old town to make a stop at Vetter's Alt Heidelburger Brauhaus for beer and pretzels. Final stop before some free time - Kurpfalzbrau. After a morning of beer sampling, it was time to find some eats - so we headed to Frittenwerk (mmmm vegan currywurst!). It was raining by now, so we did some popping in and out of shops and some walking around until it was time to head back to the ship. Rounding out the day again with some training, dinner, and entertainment.

Bonjour France! This morning we were off to explore beautiful Strasbourg - though our bus may have had a small collision with a car along the way, causing a small delay while they sent another bus. Strasbourg is STUNNING! You need to go there. It's incredibly adorable, with lots of great twisty streets for exploring. I've wanted to visit for a long time, so I'm so glad to have finally had the chance - but I'm going back for sure. They were just starting to get it ready for Christmas, which I am sure is amazing. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here. On our return to the ship, we had some sessions, Manulife filled the lounge with candy, and we wrapped the day with dinner and entertainment.

For our last full day of the sailing, we spent the morning in sessions. In the afternoon, it was off to explore beautiful Colmar - known as the Venice of France. We had a lovely afternoon exploring here, browsing markets and shops and bakeries.

Dinner, farewells, packing, one more sleep, a bus to the Zurich airport from Basel, a flight to Toronto, an overnight at the Alt hotel (small center, remember?), and a flight home the next morning round out the adventure.

Let me show you a bit of the beautiful Avalon Vista before I sign off. The wall of windows in the panoramic suites are the best! Whenever we had a few minutes of downtime, we may have snuck back to our rooms to lay on our beds and watch the world float by.