280 Soulful Experience w/ AmaWaterways

So today what I wanna talk about is the actual experience and just give you kind of my take and different things that I took away from it.

Now, what this episode is not is me teaching you river cruising [laughs] because I went on one river cruise.

Like, this is not how to sell river cruises 101.

I fully understand that I am not the person for that, that one trip does not make an expert, and that there is probably 90% of you listening right now who know far more than I do about this product, about this niche, et cetera, et cetera.

But I think there are two specific things that this sailing taught me, and I would love to share that with you because listen, I'm a learner.

I'm figuring out a new product, but I think that there is always kind of value in being able to share as you learn.

And for some of you, it might be that you're new to this type of travel and you're wondering or curious about what my experience is like and so yay, I'm happy I had that to share it with you.

I will say that the thing that stood out to me is that there is a lot of nuance when it comes to all types of travel, right? River cruising is no different, and I probably didn't appreciate that as much as I should have beforehand.

And there's also going to be me explaining to you about this specific experience, which is a product that is-- it's a theme, so to speak, and I don't know that there's a lot of advisors who have experienced it and even maybe heard about it, so I want to make sure that I share that angle as well because I think it's really helpful to have that first-hand experience and be able to share it with you in an honest and open way.

So let's get started.

The first thing I wanna talk about is, like, the nuance angle of it because I think that mentally I've been filing river cruise as kind of like one category, and if I'm being honest, maybe it was just, like, cruising generally, even though I know that there's so much difference between ocean cruise and river cruise.

Even the way that I thought about river cruise was probably far larger in scope than it needed to be.

So if I was lumping all ocean cruising together, I realize that would be a huge mistake because clearly I know Carnival isn't Regent, a river barge isn't Scenic, all those things.

So in theory, I knew that for ocean cruises, but I also think that there is that nuance that exists in river cruising as well that I hadn't given proper thought to.

And on the Douro specifically, because I was on a ship and on an itinerary that sailed mostly during the day, I realized how important the views are to the experience because if you were sailing at night, you would miss that, and it's such a huge selling point to something like the Douro and I think a relatively short distance that you're covering, right? So that was true for this itinerary.

I don't know yet if that holds for every river, but that's kind of like the thing that I would need to learn before I would sell this confidently.

And again, this goes to the nuance that it's s- what I learned also is that the river actually depends-- what the river itinerary offers depends entirely on the actual river you're sailing.

So what does the Rhine give you that the Danube doesn't? What is different about the Nile besides the obvious, right? There's different things that play, play into it, the ship size, regional access, how close you actually get to towns versus how much is you traveling to the experience.

All of that changes the product.

And so specifically on this sailing on the Douro River, what I realized was that there is not a lot happening in port, right? So that is very different for other itineraries, and it really would make a difference based on the type of traveler and also what they were expecting.

Because it's not like you can kind of get to port and decide, hey, do I wanna, um, participate in one of the included excursions, or do I wanna just, like, bop around town? Do I wanna kind of like see where the day takes me and do my own thing? When you're on the Douro, you really don't have that opportunity.

You can either do an experience or not.

And so for me, that was totally fine.

There's [chuckles] a lot of times that I don't want a lot of options because I'm not gonna choose any of them, and I'm gonna be happy as a clam.

So for the days that I didn't choose a, uh, the excursion of the day, and I just kind of like lounged around the ship and read a book on the sundeck, I was perfectly happy.

So today what I wanna talk about is the actual experience and just give you kind of my take and different things that I took away from it.

Now, what this episode is not is me teaching you river cruising [laughs] because I went on one river cruise.

Like, this is not how to sell river cruises 101.

I fully understand that I am not the person for that, that one trip does not make an expert, and that there is probably 90% of you listening right now who know far more than I do about this product, about this niche, et cetera, et cetera.

But I think there are two specific things that this sailing taught me, and I would love to share that with you because listen, I'm a learner.

I'm figuring out a new product, but I think that there is always kind of value in being able to share as you learn.

And for some of you, it might be that you're new to this type of travel and you're wondering or curious about what my experience is like and so yay, I'm happy I had that to share it with you.

I will say that the thing that stood out to me is that there is a lot of nuance when it comes to all types of travel, right? River cruising is no different, and I probably didn't appreciate that as much as I should have beforehand.

And there's also going to be me explaining to you about this specific experience, which is a product that is-- it's a theme, so to speak, and I don't know that there's a lot of advisors who have experienced it and even maybe heard about it, so I want to make sure that I share that angle as well because I think it's really helpful to have that first-hand experience and be able to share it with you in an honest and open way.

So let's get started.

The first thing I wanna talk about is, like, the nuance angle of it because I think that mentally I've been filing river cruise as kind of like one category, and if I'm being honest, maybe it was just, like, cruising generally, even though I know that there's so much difference between ocean cruise and river cruise.

Even the way that I thought about river cruise was probably far larger in scope than it needed to be.

So if I was lumping all ocean cruising together, I realize that would be a huge mistake because clearly I know Carnival isn't Regent, a river barge isn't Scenic, all those things.

So in theory, I knew that for ocean cruises, but I also think that there is that nuance that exists in river cruising as well that I hadn't given proper thought to.

And on the Douro specifically, because I was on a ship and on an itinerary that sailed mostly during the day, I realized how important the views are to the experience because if you were sailing at night, you would miss that, and it's such a huge selling point to something like the Douro and I think a relatively short distance that you're covering, right? So that was true for this itinerary.

I don't know yet if that holds for every river, but that's kind of like the thing that I would need to learn before I would sell this confidently.

And again, this goes to the nuance that it's s- what I learned also is that the river actually depends-- what the river itinerary offers depends entirely on the actual river you're sailing.

So what does the Rhine give you that the Danube doesn't? What is different about the Nile besides the obvious, right? There's different things that play, play into it, the ship size, regional access, how close you actually get to towns versus how much is you traveling to the experience.

All of that changes the product.

And so specifically on this sailing on the Douro River, what I realized was that there is not a lot happening in port, right? So that is very different for other itineraries, and it really would make a difference based on the type of traveler and also what they were expecting.

Because it's not like you can kind of get to port and decide, hey, do I wanna, um, participate in one of the included excursions, or do I wanna just, like, bop around town? Do I wanna kind of like see where the day takes me and do my own thing? When you're on the Douro, you really don't have that opportunity.

You can either do an experience or not.

And so for me, that was totally fine.

There's [chuckles] a lot of times that I don't want a lot of options because I'm not gonna choose any of them, and I'm gonna be happy as a clam.

So for the days that I didn't choose a, uh, the excursion of the day, and I just kind of like lounged around the ship and read a book on the sundeck, I was perfectly happy.