Cry Me a River…

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to attend the CLIA River Conference Awards held in for the seventh year running in Amsterdam. This was a weekend of firsts for me. First visit to Amsterdam, first visit to the awards and most beneficial, a first to experience river boats.

We arrived the evening before and this allowed us a free to explore this famous city. As you can imagine walking around there was certain aroma if you can call it that in the air! It really is a cosmopolitan city, vibrant and very busy with people as you would expect for a popular city. It was lovely to see all the bikes padlocked up and made a great black and white photo which I shared on Instagram. Of course we ventured to the infamous Red Light District- I mean it’s got to be seen. Along the canal you find plenty of windows where these young girls pose in underwear (thankfully). They all seemed early twenties and I couldn’t help thinking what their families thought of this choice of work, or in fact as it is so famous it may be some kind of tradition that runs in the families- who knows!

On the Saturday we attended the conference which was really informative and being quite new to selling cruises I did learn a lot. We were given a chance to visit the fair where all the River Cruise lines had stalls where you could talk to the reps about their product and help yourself to a complimentary pen. Always useful.

Afterwards we then went back into the conference and had a bit of fun with answering questions to be in chance of winning a River Cruise. The prices where really good: a fam trip along the Mekong, vouchers off certain products, an amazon echo and the best prize of all, everyone at the conference won a 7 night River cruise for two. How incredible is that? We really are lucky with the oportunites we get working in this industry.

In the evening after a quick freshen up on the river boat we were staying on which was the MS Emily Bronte which only launched this year. She truly is a beautiful ship and the attention to detail with the decor really makes it stand out. This was more noticeable once we had visited the other ships.The on board amenities are few but then you have to remember this is a different kind of experience. They had a gym, nail salon and on the sun deck a tasteful seating area to relax, I can just imagine being up there watching the world go by as you sail along. Our cabin again and beautifully decorated , we had a balcony. The beds were extremely comfortable and all mod cons were available. Even a dressing gown and slippers and a coffee machine. We headed back to the conference for the awards with our very own Jill Johnson winning the Special Recognition Award.