Tui River Cruises and Marella Cruises have put their respective winter 2022 programmes on sale.

Highlights include five new itineraries sailing over the Christmas and New Year period for Tui River Cruises, and a new sailing from Barbados on board Marella Discovery from February 2023.

Marella’s new itinerary – Tropical Shores – will sail to San Juan, where guests can take in cobbled streets, brightly coloured houses and Spanish plazas, before heading to the US Virgin Islands. Here, guests will have the choice of two islands, St Thomas – known for its museums, shopping and the fort of Charlotte Amelie – and St Croix, famous for its award-winning rum.

Tui River Cruises, meanwhile, has added three new Christmas market sailings departing from the new embarkation port of Wiesbaden. These are Festive Flavours, Winter Wonderlands and Christmastime on the Rhine.

The line said that “cruisers can expect to visit some of Germany’s biggest cities, with the brightest Christmas markets, and ticking off famous landmarks along the way”.

In addition, the winter programme includes sailings for Christmas Day and New Year departing from Wiesbaden.

The Rhine Christmas Celebrations is a seven-night itinerary where cruisers will spend Christmas Day in Dusseldorf as well as stopping in cities such as Cologne and Mainz.

A New Year Getaway itinerary will dock in Frankfurt to bring in a new year, before calling at German and French cities, including Mannheim and Strasbourg.

The river cruise line will also be offering regional  Christmas dishes in on-board restaurants, as well as “festive favourites from home”, it said in a statement.

The new additions to the TUI River Cruises winter programme mean that guests now have the choice of 11 festive itineraries over winter 2021 and winter 2022. Five-night sailings on the Christmas sailings start from £729pp, including £85pp excursion credit, return flights, transfers, port taxes and tips.