2020 Food and Wine Rhine River Cruise Pre-night

sun_seekin

Earning My Ears
Joined
Apr 1, 2015
My husband and I are booked for October 2020 on the Food Wine Rhine cruise. We will have one pre-night before the cruise... Is there enough to see in Basel or should we do our pre-night in Lucerne instead? Would it be foolish to try to catch the train in from Lucerne the morning of the cruise? I've read the train system is very efficient in Switzerland and the train ride is only an hour to Basel from Lucerne. I have my eye on the Hotel Schwiezerhof. Also, does anyone know what the pre-night hotel is in Basel that ABD will be staying at? Do we need to be at the ABD hotel early to meet the guides to pick out excursions? I've read that in the past that guests sometimes did not get their first choice of excursions for the Rhine. (Not sure if this was a problem on the Adults-only Food and Wine cruise or just the regular Rhine sailings.) My other fear is missing out on the excursions we want bc we aren't staying at the same hotel. Thank you :-)
 
We recently booked for the late Sept 2020 cruise and our pre-night is at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Basel. He did not give me any choices so I am assuming that's the sole hotel for ABD. This is our 1st trip so I'm excited to learn about everything.
 
When we did it, friends who did the ABD pre-night stayed at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Basel. We booked our own and stayed at https://www.teufelhof.com/ which we really liked.
Basel is a cute town - we basically wandered around for the morning - Laderach chocolate and Baseler leckerli https://www.laeckerli-huus.ch/en/ - mmmmmm yummy! There are also some cute museums.
We have been to Lucerne twice (once with ABD) - it is charming. We stayed at Hotel Schwiezerhof and liked it - between the two though, Teufelhof was our preference.
If I only had one pre-night though, I think I would just head to Basel.
 
When we did it, friends who did the ABD pre-night stayed at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Basel. We booked our own and stayed at https://www.teufelhof.com/ which we really liked.
Basel is a cute town - we basically wandered around for the morning - Laderach chocolate and Baseler leckerli https://www.laeckerli-huus.ch/en/ - mmmmmm yummy! There are also some cute museums.
We have been to Lucerne twice (once with ABD) - it is charming. We stayed at Hotel Schwiezerhof and liked it - between the two though, Teufelhof was our preference.
If I only had one pre-night though, I think I would just head to Basel.
Thanks, I will check out your suggestions!
 


i also stated at the "art hotel" in Basel and thought it quite charming. We had time to walk around Basel, drop our bags in the ship, and tour a famous design museum over the river in Germany before embarking. That being said, I would heartily recommend more time in Switzerland. We stayed in a wonderful Alpine village and trained to Lucerne on our predays. I would not have missed that magnificent experience.

When we did it, friends who did the ABD pre-night stayed at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Basel. We booked our own and stayed at https://www.teufelhof.com/ which we really liked.
Basel is a cute town - we basically wandered around for the morning - Laderach chocolate and Baseler leckerli https://www.laeckerli-huus.ch/en/ - mmmmmm yummy! There are also some cute museums.
We have been to Lucerne twice (once with ABD) - it is charming. We stayed at Hotel Schwiezerhof and liked it - between the two though, Teufelhof was our preference.
If I only had one pre-night though, I think I would just head to Basel.
 
I agree that Basel was quite charming. We enjoyed walking around it. A lot of businesses shut down really early, which was kind of annoying.
 
When we did the Rhine cruise, I was able to reserve our excursions months in advance. I suggest talking to a Vacationista now rather than waiting for the start of the cruise.

As for Basel, it has an old town area, several museums, and shopping. I didn't see it as a major destination but it was pleasant enough to explore in the day before boarding the ship in the afternoon.
 


Yeah it's a great place. My friend also told me about this cruise. it seems like quite and charming views, and they were enjoy walking around it. I'm also trying to visit Food Wine Rhine cruise. And I'm excited to learn about everything.
 
My husband and I are booked for October 2020 on the Food Wine Rhine cruise. We will have one pre-night before the cruise... Is there enough to see in Basel or should we do our pre-night in Lucerne instead? Would it be foolish to try to catch the train in from Lucerne the morning of the cruise? I've read the train system is very efficient in Switzerland and the train ride is only an hour to Basel from Lucerne.

Took this trip this year! You are going to have so much fun! The Radisson Blu is the Disney Hotel. Loved Basel, we arrived the day before and the city center is within walking distance. You can probably stay where you want and just check in with ABD at the Radisson to get transferred. But just stay in Basel. Why worry about having to make the train?
Have fun!
 
Thank you all for the advice. We have decided to just stay in Basel and if we're up for it, take the train into Lucerne for a few hours and then back to Basel that evening. Looking forward to this cruise! We also have the Danube this summer with our three kids to look forward to as well!
 
We just recently booked the early September Food and Wine Rhine cruise. We are flying in a few days before and decided to stay in Zurich and take the train into Basel the morning of the cruise. For us at least, Zurich seemed to offer more for a pre-cruise stay. Since there are no non-stop flights from Zurich to Basel, they have trains that leave almost every 10-15 mins. One of our flight options with Swiss Airlines was a flight/air train combo, where your flight boarding pass was also a train ticket from the Zurich airport station to Basel.
 
We did the first Food and Wine cruise back in October 2018. We stayed in Basel for 2 nights and took the train to Lucerne the day before the cruise. Lucerne is beautiful and I am so glad we went but I don't think we would have done it the day the cruise left. The train to Lucerne leaves about every hour and the trip is about an hour. Our hotel was across the street from the train station. The day of the cruise we took a taxi from our hotel to the ship. If I remember correctly it was about 30 minutes from our hotel to the shop
 

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