Welcome to 2026
Hank Schrader, USMA '71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
Anne Schrader, Certified Travel Counselor & Certified Luxury Cruise Specialist
Welcome to the New Year—2026 has a lot to look forward to in the river cruising year.
This will be a slightly different blog than usual as Anne and I try to improve our service to you, so I will start by a quick recap of 2025 and some valuable lessons learned and then tell you about some river cruise sales being offered by our suppliers.
Lessons Learned from 2025
In our review of 2025, 3 items stood out for us.
First, and foremost is the need to stress the importance of travel protection to our clients
Sadly, we had 4 clients who had last-minute problems that prevented them from taking their scheduled trip. 3 were significant medical problems, one was a family situation. Some had insurance; other didn’t and lost a lot of money.
However, the most serious situation is that one of our dear friends had a medical emergency that was life threatening. Thankfully they had purchased travel protection for their entire trip, and this decision saved them many thousands of dollars. We saw first-hand how significant travel protection is in a real situation where a trip is interrupted; hospitalization is necessary; and return flights with a medical attendant escorting them were required.
This was not the only just the health portion of the situation, there is the change of plans with extra hotel nights and working to adjust travel plans and recoup expenses. It doesn’t require much imagination to figure out the significant cost this would have incurred without this protection.
As a result of this, we are going to insist that each of you who hire us to plan your travel to send us a written notice that you are declining travel protection or you have some form of protection.
We want to be clear here—we do make a commission selling travel protection products, but this is not the reason we must insist on this procedure—we want to be sure you have thought about the consequences of traveling without insurance and you recognize this risk. Also, many contries now are starting to require travel insurance, so we will keep you advised of the ever changing requirements.
As you might wonder who provided this excellent service, it was Allianz Travel Insurance that made things right and went over and above to solve these problems and safeguard our dear friend.
Second, Our Values
We always review how we interacted with our potential guests and I am proud to say we feel we followed our core values in the many interactions. Here are our values, we apply to get you the best possible trips:
Experienced, Certified Professionals, Trustworthy, Honest, Client First.
Third, What We Need to Improve
There are 2 areas we feel we need to improve to serve you better.
The first is to try and respond more quickly to your emails and phone calls, within the bounds of our normal operating hours, no matter if an item is urgent or not. We know to you, your questions or concerns are the most important items, and I acknowledge sometimes I am slow to respond. I promise you, I will try to do better, and I encourage you to call me out if I am too slow.
The second is to try to inform you of opportunities to travel with specials that you might not be aware about. We are very sensitive to the overwhelming number of constant offers and travel-related emails you may be receiving, but we have long neglected our Specials Page on our website. To remedy this the second part of this blog is a summary of the current offerings from the 8 river cruise companies we follow.
I should also add we do provide more than river cruises, as our Limited Services Company provides many travel services with a speciality in Europe River Cruises'; Luxury Ocean Cruises and Luxury European Tours and we will also try to post specials about offers we deem appropriate to you. For now, here are the current river cruise offers.
Our Current Specials Website Page:
AmaWaterways
Cruise Spotlight (current 2026 1st Quater AmaWaterways Offers—please click on the link as it has extensive free land packages)
The AmaMagna in port in Budapest. Photo Anne Schrader
Avalon Waterways
· Free Air or Save $1,500 Per Person on Select Europe River Cruises
· $599 Air or Save $1,000 Per Person on Select Europe River Cruises
· Save $3,000 Per Couple on Select Europe River Cruises (combinable with Fly Free from select u. s. cities)
· Save $1,500 Per Couple on Select Europe River Cruises
· All have booking window of 28 February 28, 2026
The Avalon Impression docked in Vienna
Emerald River Cruises
· Wave of Savings Sales offers you Bonus Savings of up to 30% off per suite plus 2 for 1 Fares on select luxury 2026-2027 River Cruises
The Emerald Sun on the Danube River
Riverside Luxury Cruises
· 15% Discount for bookings made by February 28, 2026
· 10% Discount for bookings made between March 1 and May 31, 2026
The Riverside Ravel. Photo Anne Schrader
Scenic Luxury River Cruises
Scenic Wave of Savings Sales offers you Bonus Savings of up to 30% off per suite plus 2 for 1 Fares on select ultra luxury 2026-2027 River Cruises
The Scenic Opal. Photo Anne Schrader
Tauck River Cruises
No Current offers
The Tauck Savor.
Uniworld Boutique River Cruises
· Uniworld 50th Anniversary Sale offers up to 30% on select departures
· Offer ends Feburary 28 2026
Uniworld’s Maria Theresa
Viking River Cruises
The Viking Savings Event—Up to 35% off |Free Airfare | $25 Deposit |Expires January 31, 2026
The Viking Baldur ported in Cologne, Germany
Our Final Thoughts
We hope you find this blog interesting and meaningful to you. The better we can connect with you, the better we can serve you. Please reach out to us with news of your life, any travel dreams even if you are not quite ready to travel and, of course, a trip you want us to plan.
We are travel experts, ocean and river cruise specialists, and Europe destination experts. We have first-hand knowledge of almost anywhere you want to visit in Europe. We know our products and the vendors who sell them to you. We have designed special tours for dozens of clients, led several and will continue to find just the right vacation that will exceed your expectations.
When you are spending your hard-earned money for a vacation, you want an advisor who can match you with the right trip. You want someone who will understand your expectations and fuel your anticipation (or excitement) to get you the best possible trip experience. And, you want someone who can help you with the decision-making process. We think we have all these qualities.
Whatever your Dream Destinations are, we are here to help you get the best possible vacation based on what is important to you! We will provide you with high quality, expertly planned travel. Please give me a call 713-397-0188 (Hank) or email me at hschrader@visitdd.com . We want to help you: Savor life…make memories…Visit Dream Destinations! Your journey begins here!
ANNE has earned a degree from the University of Houston in Hotel and Restaurant Management. Serving as the President of Visit Dream Destinations, LLC, since 2016, she is uniquely experienced professional travel advisor with over 30 years’ experience in the travel industry. Among her numerous certifications, she is a Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) by the Travel Institute, considered the gold standard in travel agent certification and she is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC) by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), as well Luxury Cruise Specialist also from CLIA. Having traveled often to Europe since 1989, she has expanded on her certification as a Destination Specialist in Western Europe (DS) with extensive first-hand experience in luxury vacations. She holds numerous other specialty designations from individual vendors. An expert photographer, she delights in capturing the true essence of destinations to share with all.
HANK is a certified Western European Destination Specialist (DS) who has been traveling to Europe for 55 years. He is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC), conferred by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA). His last major certificate is a Verified Travel Advisor (VTA) certificate earned from the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA). This recognized expert in cruise and leisure travel is a retired Army Officer, and taught World Geography for 8 years. He is a `71 graduate of West Point and has earned 2 master’s degrees. His other Certifications:
AmaWaterways River Cruise Specialist
Avalon Waterways Specialist
CLIA Riverview Certificate
Emerald Waterways Specialist
Riverside Luxury Cruise Specialist
Scenic River Cruise Specialist
Viking River Cruise Specialist
Brit Agent
