Vantage, Avalon & AMA Vietnam Cambodia and Mekong- help please

We're ready to book and I'm so confused and I'mcomparison overload. Any comments, the itineraries are basically the same but we've not done a river cruise on any of these lines.

Does anyone have 1st hand experience on this tour/cruise? What did you like or not like by a particular line? Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi suspaul,

I have just booked the Scenic Spirit for March 2016 Cambodia and Vietnam. The ship looks absolutely amazing. It's still being built, so will be brand new. It's all one bedroom suites.

Just another option for you to consider.

Cheers

Good morning,

We cruised with Avalon last year. Reasons for doing so: only 32 pax max, actually boarded ship in Saigon itself--no hour long bus ride to get to ship. did not want to go to Hanoi--friends spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton--definitely not five star. This was offered as a precruise option, only 4 people on our trip did it. There is also a post trip in Laos.

The crew, CD and PDs were outstanding. There was one PD for Vietnam and one for Cambodia. We did go in the dry season so no sail on Tonle Sap, but it was still a wonderful trip. Food was served buffet style at breakfast and lunch--good variety of western and Asian style food.

Avalon is putting a new boat out this year--with a gym and mass age therapist, but still only 32 pax.

Whatever line you pick, it is such a memorable experience. If you have more questions, will try to answer them. Pat

do read the reviews under member review section for this cruise.

Loved the itinerary esp.the inc. Halong Bay cruise overnite,and 5 star hotel visits in Saigon and Hanoi.

Ship had balconies and food,staff,etc.all top rate.

Agree, you ll love it, whatever line.See whats best for YOU.

Ps. is a physically demanding one.Lots of stairs,climbing out of small boats,etc.Make sure you re up for it,plus heat and humidity.

Avalon just launched our extremely popular Suite Ship design on the Mekong. Our new ship is the Avalon Siem Reap - featuring just 18 staterooms/suites (each measuring 245-square-feet). We attached a handful of photos.

We did a trip along the Mekong on the RV Jahan(Heritage Line)last September, which was high water. This meant that we were able to sail across the Tonle Sap lake - stunning! It took over 6 hours to cross. You should consider if you want to travel during high water so you do not have to travel by bus(About 4-5 hours), also if the boat is not too high to go under some of the bridges. Ours removed the funnel to be able to go under and therefore cross the lake. We travelled from Ho Chi Minh(by bus to boat) to Siem Reap. Booked 4 nights prior to the cruise independently(Riverside Renaissance) and also 3 nights in Siem Reap(Shinta Mani Resort) and organised our own trips to Chu Chi tunnels(Via speedboat), day in the Mekong Delta and sights within Ho Chi Minh(Saigon hotpot). Also booked a private guide for Angkor Wat and day trip to a fishing village and Beng Melea temple away from Siem Reap. Did not go to Hanoi & Halong Bay as we had visited there before. If these are included would recommend, Hanoi different to south and the scenery on Halong Bay is very beautiful, definitely have to stay 2 nights on the boat as it is a long drive from Hanoi. We had 46 on our cruise mainly Aussies, a couple from UK, NZ and a group from Norway. Food was great, staff fantastic, rooms very spacious with balconies, a small pool and very good guides(Vietnamese in Vietnam, Cambodian in Cambodia).Was a wonderful trip! Will definitely return to Vietnam & Cambodia but a trip down the Mekong is a once only trip. Hope this info helps.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to respond, I apologize for not having gotten back to you earlier but it's been one of those weeks. One thing that's certain, everyone seems to have thoroughly enjoyed the trip, no matter which company you used. We still haven't "pulled the plug" and booked but will do so in the next week. We'll be out of town until the 13th so it may have to wait until we return. We plan to go January 2016 and being from Texas, were used to the heat and humidity, hoping by choosing this time of the year we can avoid it to some extent.

Avalon, I'll take a look, ship looks lovely.

Again, thanks!

Just a quick update,

We have booked with Avalon, January 15, 2016. Going in a day early (Hanoi) and doing the 16 day Fantastic Vietnam, Cambodia and HaLong Bay. Love the new ship, small group size, seems like a perfect fit for us.

Thanks everyone for your experiences. We are big Viking travelers and looking forward to trying Avalon.

new Avalon ship looks great. Guess they got their money s worth by reading and posting on CC. Odd, never saw that happen before. Good when companies start to be aware of all the social media.Seems a tad bit like allowing advertising tho, maybe I m being too picky.Surprised it wasn t deleted like some travel company posts have been.:confused:

Alexandra cruiser, if you'll notice the heading, Avalon was always one of our choices so they're comments did not sway us one way or the other. I've seen many other cruise lines post in response to questions so don't feel this is advertising.

We did a 15-day Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi trip with Uniworld, which included a 7 night Mekong cruise to Siem Reap. It was fantastic! Some differences in itinerary and ship between the various river cruise companies that do this cruise, but they all get great reviews. If you are interested, take a look at our write-up of our trip to get an idea of what to expect - Top 12 reasons to take a Mekong River Cruise :)

Great read WAVEJourney, thanks for your link. Loved your photos too. What time of the year did you travel? Now that we've booked the trip all we have to do is wait :).

Pacmom - This may be too late for you to see, but when you didn't get to cruise Tonle Sap, how did you get to Siem Reap? Their booklet says they fly you. Was this true? Most of the other river cruises mention a terrible bus trip. We're looking out to January or February 2017 and are considering Avalon, AMA, and Viking. The Avalon ship looks like it wins out over Viking for sure.

Thanks!

The Vantage ship is the same as they use on the Irrawaddy which we did.

It was a lovely ship!!! Great crew and chartered to Vantage by Haimark.

Vantage did a very nice job on the Irrawaddy trip so I imagine this itinerary would be done well too.

OBX, yes we did have a bus ride of about 5 hours broken up by a few stops. So glad we chose Avalon for this trip, just wish we were going on the new boat, but the river was less crowded then. Pat