River cruising as a vaction option has been around for years; the problem is, you might not know much about it. Besides the fact that the great river cruises operate across the pond in Europe, there is a dearth of advertising and marketing of river cruise products here in the States. Commercials touting the big guns such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line are in heavy rotation, but nary a word is peeped about the Vikings, Uniworlds, Amadeus' and Avalons of the world.

Travel agents are at the forefront of changing that. Just as travel agencies market their services primarily through word-of-mouth advertising, the river cruise lines are benefiting from the same grassroots method. Most agents will agree that their clients' satisfaction rate of a European river cruise is high. "They rave over it," says Neelie Kruse, owner of Cary Travel Express in Cary, IL, near Chicago.

Gauging travel agent response, it's becoming exceedingly clear why river cruising is receiving such high marks: size of ships and the passing scenery. "Past mainstream clients find the smaller passenger capacity intriguing and the overall experience more relaxed and intimate," says Lew Boehnke, a travel consultant with The Travel Center in Des Moines, IA.

River cruise vessels usually carry only between 100 and 200 passengers, which is a far cry from the more mainstream cruise ships that haul upwards of 3,000 passengers. This is not to disparage the bigger ocean-going ships; it merely shows the vast difference in lifestyle. Plainly put, "It's a different type of experience," notes Harriet Soltoff, of Destinations Travel in Philadelphia. This partly is because riverboats, unlike big-ship cruising, can ease right into a city's port without much hoopla. There is no waiting to disembark the ship, and, on top of that, when you step off the boat you are right smack in the city action.

Costa Maya, the small touristy region between Cancún and Belize, it appears, did not escape the ire of Hurricane Dean. News has surfaced that Costa Maya's cruise port was badly damaged by the storm. Cesar Lizarraga, Costa Maya's director of sales and marketing, says that about 50 percent of the port's infrastructure, including the cruise ship pier, was impacted. Further, Lizarraga says, early estimates indicate that the port could be out of service for six to eight months, with clean-up costs reaching into the millions.

Costa Maya has become one of the most visited ports in the western Caribbean, and a disaster, such as the one encountered by Hurricane Dean, is hard for both Costa Maya and the cruise lines to swallow.

Weak Dollar Spurs New Destinations

The almighty dollar losing its mighty title might be one culprit behind the emergence of new cruise destinations. For many Americans, doing a land-based vacation in Europe (or almost anywhere overseas) is becoming price prohibitive. Jeanne Wyndrum, director of operations of Port Everglades, FL-based Cruise.com/, has tried it. "I tried to put a land package together and it was difficult," she says. So instead of doing South America by foot, she went by sea. Adds Bon Voyage's Cooper, "People are using cruises as a means of exploring."

This doesn't mean that it's purely economic. Take, for example, traveling to any of the now Cold War relics. Twenty-five years ago these were places Americans did not travel to—yet curiosity is ingrained in most Americans DNA, so exploring new places, whether it is the Baltic states or parts of Asia, becomes a quest.

"Many people like to visit places that, not long ago, were inaccessible to westerners," says Jerry Vaughn, president and CEO of World Voyager, Inc., which operates two offices near Seattle.

Look no further than Europe to find cruising's current nerve center. A weak dollar mixed with a been-there, done-that feeling toward the Caribbean has turned the Old World into the new frontier for cruise enthusiasts. This is a golden opportunity for travel agents, particularly because of the variety of options at their disposal. Yes, there are the big players (Carnival and Royal Caribbean come to mind), but, of course, they can't give you Vienna or Budapest—they're a bit too voluminous to ply the Danube, the Seine or the Rhine. That's where riverboats step in. Riverboats not only fill a niche, they also are gathering looks because they offer an altogether different experience than what cruise ships offer.

Until May, the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which represents 24 member lines and dedicates itself to the growth of the cruise industry, had not one river cruise company on its roster. Skip forward to July: CLIA now represents two: Uniworld Grand River Cruises and Majestic America Line.