We have our big vacation scheduled for next year, but for 2018 we were thinking of doing a river cruise.
American Cruise Lines seems to have a wide range of options, from the Southeast to Alaska.
Pros, cons, things you’d do differently?
I would consider doing the Rhine or the Danube. The ones in your link don’t make me lick my chops.
We’re not done exploring the good ol’ USA yet.
I’ve only done an ocean cruise - wife loved it but the rest of us were meh. Par of that had to do with we live in the Pacific Northwest, and the Alaska inbound cruise isn’t all that different - just greener and wetter with a side trip of ice burgs.
River cruises sound better than ocean cruises to me in that they are lazy and you deboard every day instead of being stuck on the inevitable 2 day cruise to get somewhere on the ocean. My parents did the Rhine, and my father, god bless him, said pretty much all you do is eat and screw. 
FWIW, I think the river cruise really boils down on what geo you want to experience. If you’ve never been to the Pacific, well the Columbia and Snake River might be pretty interesting. I’ve never been to the south, so for me reading Sam Clemens floating down the Mississippi has some attraction. I wouldn’t do something to similar to where you live.
not terribly helpful nor informative, but there you go.
No firsthand experience, but the linked itineraries don’t seem like a ton of fun to me. It seems like a lots of stops in tourist-trappy “old towns” (where you can no doubt take old-time photos, buy bulk candy from a barrel and get your pennies stamped) and/or taking generic guided tours of second-rate tourist attractions. At the prices being offered, I’d hope for more.
I’d look for an operator with some focus-- history, cuisine, luxury accommodations, whatever. Just something that would get me out of that tourist trap zone.
I’ve driven the freeway along the Columbia Gorge many times and I would not recommend that one. Pendleton isn’t big enough to need a “guided tour” and only interesting if you happen to be there for the Round Up (huge rodeo.) If they happen to take you into the underground old town, that might be interesting. Otherwise, its mostly skip worthy. Clarkston, WA is a big ol’ yawn. The scenery is nice, but very little that I would say is noteworthy. It’s some trees, and a river. Pretty much par for the course around here. If you do it in late summer it will be hot and dry besides.
I’ve done about 15 ocean cruises, but only one river cruise, which was with Viking on the Yangtze River in China through the Three Gorges Dam down to an area close to Shanghai. I found it disappointing, although I was told by others who had done European ones that they are head and shoulder better.
The cabins themselves were fine, but there were several issues with both the venue and the ship:
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The area was filthy and disgusting. The Chinese absolutely don’t care about the environment and doubly so in the rural areas. Our ship regularly cruised through piles of floating garbage and off our balcony, we watched a dead pig float by. The smell was awful as well. So we all had balconies, but no one ever went on them.
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Wasted space. The ship is long and skinny. At the top front was a giant meeting room, which was empty 95% of the time. They used it for short lectures and slideshows on the sites we would be stopping at later in the day, but the rest of the time, it was just used by the tourists to play board games or read. When they had a tai chi demonstration, they decided to do it on the top deck where it was over 100 degrees and the smell of garbage was all around us. Why not in the giant meeting room? They also had shops positioned in the center of the boat. If two people stopped to look at something at one of the vendor booths, other people had to ask them to move to get by them because of the narrow hallways. Again, why not set up the shops in the meeting room?.
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Mediocre and weird food. I realize it was China, but everyone on our boat was American or from a Westernized country. Many of the dishes were cooked with something called a ‘Szechuan peppercorn’ in them. This tiny black ball shaped spice tastes like ammonia when bitten into, which is inedible to Western tastes. Everyone spent the cruise picking these out of their food.
The Three Gorges Dam was a cool and interesting engineering marvel, but not worth all the wasted time and money that I would, in retrospect, rather have spent on additional land tours.
I’ve done lots of ocean cruises, and the advantage of them is that you can check out reasonably exotic places very easily, to see if you want to go back to really see them. I’ve seen the paddle-wheelers when I’ve visited New Orleans, but it is so easy to get around the US that I’ve never really been tempted by a domestic river cruise. I get brochures for European ones which appeal more, but they seem excessively expensive.
Thanks for the review of the China cruise - good to know that this is one to avoid.
FWIW, picking out the peppercorns was the right thing to do. They are used like bay leaves to add flavor, and aren’t supposed to be eaten directly. The usual objection to them is they produce a strong numbing sensation, which is a key component in Sichuan food (along with liberal of hot pepper).
Oh ya, I’ve done the Yangzi River 3 Gorges cruise on one of the “best” ships.
First, the 3 gorges no longer exist. After building the Gezhouba dam, the river raised up hundreds of feet so these are no longer narrow treacherous gorges. Underwhelming is the word rather than a “wonder of the world”
Food and service is not international standard. Heck, it wasn’t even very good food by Chinese standards.
As Yarster points out, if they cook with Sichuan peppercorn, and you don’t like the taste. Well, you’re pretty SOL as it is in everything. Some people like it, but most Westerners don’t like it, and if you’re like me then think it is simply nasty and renders food pretty inedible even if you pick out the actual peppercorns. I probably spent a year total in Sichuan province back in the 1980’s and the peppercorns in the food was nasty. My kids like to play April fools on me with putting some Sichuan peppercorn extract hidden in some food – argh. IMHO it
A) tastes nasty
B) makes me salivate (literally, I get a drooling reaction)
C) numbs the mouth and not in a good way
Even Sven, IIRC, did 2 years straight in Sichuan in the Peace Corp, so maybe she likes the stuff. 
They’re all one of the “best” ships!
They were still beautiful, IMHO, and going through the locks was impressive. I’ve gone through the Soo Locks more times than I can remember, but this lock system still managed to impress.
Pretty mediocre food, but we were the last trip of the season so I chalked it up to them not knowing how to cook for only 40 people (the boat was spacious!), but you’ve confirmed that I know I was only fooling myself.
My favorite Chinese food is Chongqing and Sichuan food! There’s the only thing I have to look forward to when I have to travel for Chongqing. Here in NKG was have bland, tasteless Jiangsu food, and the “Sichuan” restaurants try to accommodate local tastes. 
For me the pluses outweighed the minuses. I have no intention of ever taking a sea cruise, and I didn’t like the idea of a river cruise, but in the end the technology was cool, and all of the shore excursions took me to places I wouldn’t have otherwise seen in China. I certainly wouldn’t want to do the same on, say, the Mississippi, because I could simply drive myself to where I wanted to be without being stuck without a bunch of strangers for the rest of the day.