Sorry for the delayed response, as luck would have it I managed to bring back a virus along with my memories and I’m just recovering. The trip was amazing!! The guides really make it very special. I know I have nothing to compare it to as I’ve never done a small ABD but the six guides (Betti, Veronika, George, Katka, Dusty, Byron) seemed to always be around and available so never felt like it was too large of a group. The AMA crew is great too, it was their last cruise before they get a two month break and many of them had been on the ship pretty much nonstop for at least seven months. They really had a lot of fun celebrating the holidays and showing us the customs from their different areas. Christmas markets are a real treat and should be added to bucket lists where possible!
One thing I would note, when you go over the actual holiday days themselves some of the things you’d like to see are closed for the holiday. For example Germany and Austria start celebrating on Christmas Eve and that carries through the day after Christmas so although the guides were great about finding us things that were open, some of the experiences might be missed. For example Dürnstein was a super cute town that we did a walking tour in, but not one shop or restaurant was open, which was a little sad.
We are definitely sold on the value of these types of guided tours, and are figuring out what we want to do next.