mouse84

Thank you! Just ordered our pass for September's trip. Looking forward to visiting a couple of Canada's NPs!

I went a couple of weeks ago - the water was 62 degrees and beautiful. There's no way you'll be cold in the water, basically only your cheeks are exposed. If you want out of the water sooner, the guides were great about making sure everyone was comfortable in the water & if you wanted out, you could get out.

It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip for me. Plus, serious bragging rights... even if I was covered from head to toe in neoprene. :)

We just returned from our Aug 1 trip on the Disney Wonder & did not make it into Tracy Arm. I didn't hear from anyone who took a small boat tour in the area, so I'm not sure if they made it in. Endicott was beautiful. Not much wildlife; mostly seals and I was able to spot a few mountain goats.

notamermaid - Re the link you posted: We went through that stretch on Nov 2. That's the castle our cruise manager mentioned she'd never been that close to/see that much land around. There were green buoys through the entire gorge marking where it was too shallow. I can only imagine how stressful it was for the captain and his sailing crew.

We were on the Rhine Oct 29 - Nov 5, Basel to Amsterdam on the AMACello. Our captain warned us that the water levels were much lower than he'd like to see them. "Good weather for all of my vacationers means bad news about the level of the river."

As we sailed through the "enchanted gorge", you could definitely tell how low water levels were. Our cruise manager commented about how close we were to one of the castles & how she'd never been quite that close to it before. (It was one of the ones that was built on an island in the river.)

As we got closer to Amsterdam, we could tell they were taking their time navigating the waters. The captain commented that he ran aground twice while docking in Cologne, but none of us could tell if/when he actually did.

All of that being said, we were able to make the complete journey. I hope that the area gets some much needed rain (even though someone's vacation will have to endure it) so that the ships can continue to travel!

That is fantastic news! I was thinking about packing a couple of smaller ones, might still be wise. Good to know that even if I forget them, we'll be covered (pun intended!).

Hi all! We leave Saturday for our trip from Zurich to Amsterdam with AMA Waterways (we're doing the 3 days before on land along with the cruise).

I've been checking the weather & while I know the 10 day forecast can change, it's looking like there could be a fair amount of rain on the trip and we'd like to be as prepared. (Note: definitely not complaining about the potential of rain!)

Any tips/advice on river cruising in the fall with rain? I'm starting to think about my packing list, so if you have any advice on items that were especially helpful on a trip that it rained a majority of the time, please list them.

We haven't gone on our river cruise yet, but DH & I are in our mid-30s. When we booked on AMA Waterways, we were told that we're most likely going to be the youngest on the cruise. We're fine with that. Some of our favorite people to chat with are older - we learn so much from them. Looking forward to October!

I'm considering carry-on only for our river cruise. I'm a bit worried about it since it'll be late-Oct/early-Nov, but I'll get it down between now & then.

For shampoo/conditioner, I've been using bar forms of those lately. No liquid requirements to worry about! There are toothpaste tabs out there that also allow you to not worry about the liquid requirements. I don't love those for my every day toothpaste, but they work for when we're traveling.

I see from your signature that your cruise will be AMA Cello Enchanting Rhine. They will offer Active and Slow walking tours in addition to the regular ones, so you should have no problem finding a pace that suits you. The first evening on board we met two other couples -- one younger than us and two sisters who were much older. We each ended up in different groups each day (the sisters took the "slow" group) and all enjoyed our excursions. We got back together each night for dinner and compared notes -- age was not a factor in our new friendships!

That's one of the things we love best about traveling & life in general. Age really doesn't matter - as long as you have something in common to talk about. I really enjoy hearing about other's experiences!

My husband & I are 36 & 35 (respectively). Our first river cruise will be in October/November. It was funny when we booked through the travel agent; he made sure we knew the demographic tends to be a higher average than where we are in life. We're more than ok with it. We're always the youngest in our group of friends & tend to really enjoy our time with people who are older than we are. Can't wait!

Thanks everyone! We decided to go with AMA for this trip. When we took many of your suggestions into mind, as well as our research, we think they're a good fit for us & our traveling style. We did manage to get a booking for October of this year and we're SO excited about it!

Thank you everyone! You all brought up some great points that we hadn't considered yet. Back to researching. :)

Hi all! We're new to the idea of river cruising, but figured it'd be great to give it a try. We'll be celebrating our 10 yr anniversary in the next year and wanted to do something a little different than we normally would.

After reading through several threads & looking at the "new to river cruising" stickies, we've narrowed it down to AMA and Uniworld on the Rhine.

I know it's a very personalized thing - but what are the pros/cons of each? Any other advice you have about how to decide one line over the other would be great!

We were in line just behind the eldery gentleman who collapsed before the 11/30 sailing. His blood sugar dropped & he went down. Thankfully a few younger gentlemen were around him and were able to catch him & lower him down. I went to get an employee & a nurse was just ahead of him. She started asking all of the right questions (thank goodness because all of my First Aid & CPR training went out the window for a minute!) and we got him to start eating & drinking a couple of things until emergency medical got there. They got his sugar level back up & he was doing well. They wheeled him past us & he wanted to get back in line with us all (and he was finally alert enough to know where he had been). They took him to the wheelchair entrance instead. I did see him on board later in the week and he was doing much better.

I should also mention, because Trunk Bay is part of the US National Park Service, there is an entrance fee. Well worth it! Here's the information from the NPS site:

"There is no charge for entrance into Virgin Islands National Park. However, a same-day user fee is collected at TrunkBay. Children age 16 and under are admitted free; adults, $4; individual annual pass, $10; family annual pass, $15; Golden Age and Golden Access annual cardholders are admitted half price."

Since they are part of the NPS, if you collect the passport stamps, they do have the stamps available at the location you pay the entry fee.

Jo24 - It was VERY easy. Once off the ferry, we were pointed to the taxis. They filled them up as people got off the ferry (for anyone who wanted to go to trunk bay). There were 2 in our party. On the way there, we shared a taxi with 2 other people. On the way back, we had a full taxi (8 people). I don't remember the cost of the taxi, but have cash on you for the trip. (I want to say $5 per person, but I could be way off on this, as it was my husband who paid.)

When they drop you off, they tell you where to pick up the taxis to go back to the ferry. Super easy.

We did it while on Allure. For our free time, we took a taxi to Trunk Bay. Loved it! We're looking forward to going back to St John.

Thanks for the gluten info!

Great review so far! We leave tomorrow for Allure & are looking forward to it.

I'm newly gluten free due to dr's orders as well, so thank you for including that in your review! Did you find that breakfast choices were easy enough to come by (other than eggs)? At home, I've been eating sausage/bacon & veggies, probably not as easy to find that combo on the ship. Also, did you order your dinner the night before or just stick to the gluten free options as listed on the menus?

And our 2nd one just got canceled too. It was the Historic Philipsburg by Bicycle in St. Marteen. Guess we'll try to find something else.

We got an email last week that our Eco Hike in St Thomas was cancelled as well. They did refund the amount. We went ahead and booked something else. Hopefully our other excursion is "safe".

Fantastic review! Sad to see it end. You've given me another reason to get back to Europe and explore some more!

Bombas are a fried meat & potato ball. They look... interesting...

I'm loving your review! I was curious about the Black Madonna and the significance of the orb, so I googled a bit. It seems like it's just to touch it & say a prayer.

http://www.goddessgift.net/black-madonna-monserrat-statue-SS-BMM.html

"There are many stories about this black madonna and the mountain, who many believe to be magic and some say she guards the holy grail. The statue is kept in a glass cabinet but her right hand is exposed so that a pilgrim can touch her golden orb and make a prayer or wish."

Mjldvlks, we were told that while we were on board last year and then again when we were in port by the places we were exchanging money. It could've been completely wrong (esp given that it was at the exchange places). I'm sure there are ways (like banks) to get it legally out of Croatia, but we definitely got the impression that they wanted you to keep the Kuna inside of Croatia. Who knows!