We are doing the Rhine River Cruise with ABD in June. If I hadn't already booked it before we left for our China trip we wouldn't be doing it. I had some issues with ABD in China (nothing to do with the guides, rather ABDs policies pertaining to assisting guests after the official tour ends -- which is, btw, no help at all, even if a category 5 typhoon is tracking to cross your intended flight path; you are ON YOUR OWN, even if you book additional nights with ABD) and other issues, to a lesser extent, on the Italy / Switzerland trip (which were no fault of the guides, who were AMAZING).
Dd and I are flying from Amsterdam (where our cruise ends) to Johannesburg to do our own safari / Cape Town trip (ds has to fly home from Amsterdam as he works full time and can't get additional time off). We will spend 3 nights at King's Camp in the Timbavati (famous for the rare white lion), then fly to the western section of the famous Sabi Sands Game Reserve for 4 nights at Leopard Hills. From there we will fly to Cape Town and stay for 3 nights at the amazing One & Only resort on the V&A waterfront. We will have 2 days of private guided tours with a driver and guide; one day will be a half day shopping (my request) and half day in wine country (dd would be bored to tears if I did a full day wine tour), the second day will be Table Mountain, Cape of Good Hope, Boulder Beach, etc. (not Robbens Island because this is a 3 hour tour that, while interesting, I didn't think we had the time for). This is a luxury trip (all 5* lodges with upgraded accommodations), including internal flights and all meals (and laundry on the safari portion) and costs $2,000.00 less than the S. Africa ABD. I didn't like the ABD itinerary (Kapama is a fenced reserve that doesn't border Kruger NP) and all the S. Africa tours were sold out before July 1st of this year. I hope dd won't be bored since we won't be traveling with other families, but the lodges we are staying at are all family-friendly. Frankly she wouldn't have had a good time on the Italy / Switzerland trip since there weren't any teenagers close to her age (the oldest by a few years was 12 and dd is 14).
A few of the major things I like about planning my own travel: business class seats for all internal flights if possible (I can't stand being crammed into economy class), we always upgrade our rooms a few categories and having complete control of the itinerary.
On the river cruise we have one of the few cabins for 3 people. I am hoping that it is big enough for us as we are all tall and used to large, open spaces. It will be nice to travel with both of my kids together as well.
Another small thing about ABD that bothers me a bit is that we aren't staying a night in Basel before the cruise (there is really nothing to do there, so we are flying into Zurich a day ahead, touring there, staying in a very nice suite at a lovely hotel (the Schweitzerhof across from the train station), then taking the train to Basel the day the cruise starts); I asked ABD if we could take the shuttle from the hotel to the ship. They said that since we aren't paying the exorbitant price to stay at the hotel in Basel we couldn't take one of the shuttle buses to the ship. Not a huge deal, but it leaves me scratching me head wondering why they would have an issue with that. We can just as easily take a cab from the train station to the ship, but it still seems strange to me, especially since we are paying a small fortune for the cruise. Oh well.
I think we are done with ABD, at least for the foreseeable future. We are planning on doing Antarctica with A&K in December, 2017 and returning to Africa (to Tanzania for the great migration and the Ngorongoro Crater) in 2018 -- again on our own. It was a great product for us for a few years and we had some memorable trips, but it is time for us to move on.
