I LOVED our cruise on the Rhine River! I loved the sights we saw and I love the snow (but didn't love the cold as much)! What made the cruise the most memorable were the people on the ship... the passengers and the crew on the ship. In the dining room, there was no assigned seating so we got to meet many new people. As the week progressed we formed become closer to the people on the boat. It felt like home, we would greet each other in the hallways and public gathering areas. We would exchange funny looks or giggles about inside jokes. It was great to get to know so many people and become so comfortable with each other.
The two groups we became closest with was a family from Texas (Larry (dad), Maryanne (mom), Nancy (daughter), and Evelyn (Nancy's friend) and a couple from Californa (Bill and Susan). Nancy and I had fun with our boot slippers which we wore to many meals. (Her boot slippers were striped with pom-poms and mine were pink with sparkle sequins.)
Bill and Susan were out constant companions and great friends throughout this trip. Bill is just like mom and Susan is just like dad so I felt like I was at home with these too. We had many many laughs together and memories we will never forget. We met them in the airport in Basel and they were the last people we said goodbye to before we left the boat (with tears in my eyes).
While the passengers become great friends, so did the crew. There were only 200 passengers so our boat was not that big and therefore, the crew was not too big either so we got to know them all really well.
These wonderful people prepared our meals and cleaned the 100s of dishes.
Here is the Captians dinner we had for our final dinner on the boat. It was by far the best meal we had all week long! For dessert, we had the famous baked Alaska.
These sweet people served us our endless meals with big smiles and were as sweet as could be. My favorites are the two at the end and the short-haired waitress but they all worked hard and were really good at their job.
These sweet ladies cleaned our rooms every morning and turned down our beds each night.
Patricia is the one on the right in this picture. She cleaned our room and was a complete doll. She spoke with us each morning and even tried to teach us a bit of her language. She loved Thaddeus and took really good care of him.
These are our Program Managers. They do so much behind the scenes as well as are the people we saw the most. They went with us on every excursions, they made sure we had what we needed before we left, they planned all the special events, and they gave many of the lectures. They even led morning exercises (not that I was there... but that is what our daily schedule said). I loved these four people very much.
This is my favorite picture of the entire trip. Katarina (one of the program managers) holding hands with a young boy on our trip. Melt my heart!
Lucia was missing from the top picture because she was giving calling each group out. She was our Program Director and did what the program managers did as well as planning and executing everything we did. She also had a meeting each night with us to prepare us for the next day's schedule. If you ask me, she ran everything that happened on the boat!
This is our piano player and behind-the-scenes man. He carried our luggage and he carried in goods when they arrived on the trucks.
This is our captain, an assistant captain, and the hotel manager. The captains drove the boat and the hotel manager took care of everything with the our room and other important things.
This was a wonderful winter trip! Thank you Aunt Jeanne for all did to plan this trip and all the things you taught me and did along the way! You are a great travelling buddy! I love you!
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