Travel

The strains of "The Blue Danube Waltz" floated over the shimmering river as we glided out of Vienna, heading for Budapest. Steaming past ancient villages, church steeples, castles and minarets, sometimes close enough to almost smell the coffee in the outdoor cafes, I became a convert to small ship cruising long before it came into vogue as the hottest trend in senior travel.

Small ship voyages now account for 80 percent of Grand Circle Travel's business, surpassing the motor coach as the most popular way to tour Europe - and a few other continents - according to the largest marketer of international vacations for Americans over age 50. The company lists seven river cruises among its "top 10" vacations for 2006, with "The Great Rivers of Europe," a 16-day cruise along the Rhine, Main and Danube topping the popularity poll.

Small ships can take you into village ports that large ships can't get into and also have the advantage of a port a day - no long days with nothing to see but the sea - says Priscilla O'Reilly, spokeswoman for the Boston-based company that built its first river ship in 1998 and now has 50 ships plying the waterways. Six more 50-passenger ships are due out this year.

But the biggest advantage is not having to unpack and repack for the length of the voyage, says Ellen Koeppel of Locust Valley, recently returned from a 16-day Grand Circle cruise called "Romance of the Rhine and Mosel." In younger days, Koeppel and her husband, Robert, would rent a car and tool around European cities, just the two of them.

"At this point in our lives, it's more relaxing to take a tour and have everything done for you," she says.

Unlike airports, harbors are close to the heart of a city - sometimes they are the heart of a city. Since the ship sails at night, dropping off its passengers at a different harbor each morning, the Koeppels found their shipmates would walk around the city, return to the ship for lunch if they wanted, and go back ashore in the afternoon.

For Robert Koeppel, 75, an attorney who was stationed in Germany during the Korean War, the Rhine-Mosel cruise, which starts in Antwerp, Belgium, and winds through Holland, Germany, France and Switzerland, brought back memories. Although he was "the only guy who was still working," he got to know almost all his shipmates during the three-week voyage.

If she had one reservation during an otherwise enjoyable cruise, 16 days was "a little long," said Ellen Koeppel. River cruises generally vary from seven to 17 days and many seniors prefer a 9-day voyage such as "Classic Cities on the Danube," touching Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna or "Storybook Landscapes Along the Rhine" through Holland and Germany. (For a 2007 Small Ships Travel catalog and free small ship DVD, call 800-248-3737 or visit gct.com.)

To entice passengers with special interests, river ship lines have added theme cruises to sailings on the Danube, Rhine, Mosel, Rhone, Saone, Seine, Elber, Neckar, Vltava, Oder and other waterways that crisscross the continent.

Like to golf in different lands? Peter Deilmann Cruises offers seven golf cruises from May through October. Garden, music, hiking and cycling theme cruises also are available among the line's 250 sailings from March 24 through Nov. 10.

Most intriguing perhaps are the week-long wellness theme cruises with health and fitness sessions, spa facilities and massage treatments aboard the German luxury line's 110-passenger Heidelberg or 200-passenger Mozart. For a Deilmann catalog, call 800-348-8287 or visit deilmann-cruises.com.

If health is a concern, as it tends to be for seniors, there is an advantage to a river cruise, where you are never far from shore. In a medical emergency, you can easily be moved to a port with modern hospital facilities. Even more advantageous is a cruise on American waterways. Medicare doesn't cover emergencies in foreign ports and evacuation costs can be astronomical.

For seniors who loved the old Mississippi riverboats, there was comforting news that the Delta Queen, American Queen and Mississippi Queen will sail again this spring, now under the banner of the Majestic America Line, formed last year by swallowing the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. and the American West Steamboat Co. The newly minted Seattle-based line is comprised of seven U.S.- flagged cruise ships that will ply the coastal and inland waterways, including the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland and Arkansas rivers of the Midwest; the Columbia, Snake and Willamette rivers of the Northwest, and Alaska's Inside Passage.

Thus the new brand, if successful, will carry the old stern-wheelers, and possibly many American seniors, a long way from New Orleans. Call 800-434-1232; www.majestic americaline.com.

RHODA AMON gladly accepts letters from fellow senior travelers. Write to her at Newsday/Travel, 235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville, NY 11747-4240, or e-mail her at rhoda.amon@newsday.com.

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