Trying out river cruising

[uktog]

We have just been river cruising for a week. Whilst it is an apples and pears comparison folks might be interested in our perceptions and happy to answer questions.

 

Azamara wins hands down on crew and officers and how they interact with guests Ama is light years ahead in terms of the quality and quality assurance of their included excursions.

 

It’s not really fair to compare food as it’s different type of galley operation but it’s more like Aqualina experience all cruise. The wines are local and far superior

 

Anyway our comments on the river cruise boards you can see here.

 

Join us for a ride on Ama along the Danube

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2681396

 

 

 

 

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[combine]

A very good read, thankyou for the link Anne.

[Grandma Cruising]

Thanks, Anne. I really enjoyed reading your review and it’s given me a good insight into river cruising, which is something we have been looking at. Wonderful photos too!

 

 

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[mnocket]

Thanks for the review. I've thought about river cruising, but I'm not sure it's a good fit for me. I'm one of those cruisers who likes a good mix of sea days and port days. I like time to relax and enjoy the shipboard experience. My impression of river cruising is that it is... get up and have breakfast; head out for the day's tour; return to ship; freshen up; dinner; watch an entertainment performance; head to bed; ship sails to next stop; ...... repeat pretty much every day. You aren't really sitting on deck very much watching the beautiful vistas as you sail by. Have I got it wrong?

[BBMacLaird]

Hi uktog,

I hope Azamara has not been relegated to second place in your hearts! You and Mr Uktog are very important to us, and your feedback is always welcomed, and shared amongst the relevant teams.

I've shared your suggestion about the 'quiet box system' for our walking tours. It sounds like a great improvement to the experience of straining to hear the guide. I imagine the locals appreciate it as well...fewer shouting tour guides in crowded areas.

[florisdekort]

Hi Ann,

 

I loved reading your Ama trip report - thank you so much for doing, and from an Azamara perspective at that. We’ve long been contemplating river cruising but never dared taking the plunge... so your observations are exceptionally helpful to us!

 

On a personal note, I miss following your travels on Facebook since I left Facebook altogether 8 months ago. I did just join Instagram but am not sure if you are using that... Floris de Kort / florisfdk - just in case.

 

We are going back to Azamara in 2019 after a 2 year absence so perhaps see you on board car number 2 as well [emoji16]

 

Floris

 

 

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[150edmiston]

Thank you for posting this UkTog. Very interesting observations. Some of our american cruising friends have tried a couple of times to get us to join them on river cruises, one of them last year with AMA. We didnt think it was for us, but reading and looking at your “blog”, i think we’ll look again. Thanks for taking time. David

[Tom47]

DW and I started river cruising in 2004 and enjoy it as much as ocean cruising. We cruised with Vantage, the Rhine, Danube, Volga and Yangtze. Only started Azamara in 2016, Celebrity in 2010.

[Sail Girl]

Hi uktog,

I hope Azamara has not been relegated to second place in your hearts! You and Mr Uktog are very important to us, and your feedback is always welcomed, and shared amongst the relevant teams.

I've shared your suggestion about the 'quiet box system' for our walking tours. It sounds like a great improvement to the experience of straining to hear the guide. I imagine the locals appreciate it as well...fewer shouting tour guides in crowded areas.

 

Bonnie,

On our recent Journey cruise “whispers“ were used on some, but not all of our tours, all of which were Azamara tours. Have also encountered them on some Celebrity tours and on Viking River Cruises tours.

Agnes

[AllisonJames]

Thank you for this review! We are Azamara fans with two more cruises booked but we are considering river cruising. We were considering Crystal but the 2020 prices kind of shocked us. They seemed to get a big increase to more than $1,500+ per couple per day which is getting out of our ballpark. Also considering Ama. Happy to hear the wines are better than on AZ because to us that is one very big drawback of AZ. At the price point the wines should be better and even the wines for purchase list has been reduced and is very limited. This fact alone is driving us toward Seabourn and Silversea.

 

Would you mind sharing what category stateroom you had on your river cruise and the pros and cons of it (other than the noise which you mentioned). We are very noise sensitive and use our sleep sounds app all the time! Thank you!

[uktog]

I shall try and answer the various questions but thanks for all the comments.

 

Mnrocket in some ways you describe the cruise pattern and in others no. Yes certainly sea days do not happen, but we had two afternoons of scenic river cruising. You do not have to be part of excursions, for example at Weissenkirche where we got off for our Durnstein and Melk excursion several people stayed on for the alternative of scenic river cruising down to Ybbs where we were picked up again. - as this was a day that also had an afternoon of river cruising they effective made a sea day. The pace is what you want it to be.

 

Thank you Bonnie for your kind comments - as Sailgirl said we’ve occasionally had guide provided whispers but on this river cruise it was provided in our stateroom, we were responsible for charging it etc I found the Quietbox to be far superior to whispers. Yes it really makes a pleasant experience as photographers can take time for shots and catch up, slower walkers are not such an issue and yes, towns are quieter! I am hoping we can have a favourite cruise line and a favourable river line and I would love to be able to b2b the two, I’m now looking at the logistics for that for next year.

 

Alison, we were in the top non suite category on the deck below the pool deck. I’m not sure if the cheaper deck below might be better, then you are nearer the engines, though that only seems an issue in the low water we had. I’m also not sure of the between floors soundproofing as that could have been one of our issues.

 

One interesting (nice) thing. The top deck if you look at my early photos looks like a wooden deck with a running track. Actually it’s a matting substance decorated to look like that. It’s absolutely brilliant because unlike Deck 10 on Azamara it’s non slip in the rain and is very easy to keep spotless. It looked brand new but is actually two years old. The joggers (only allowed 8-6) liked it as well.

 

Floris life without car 2 will never be the same!

 

 

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[nordski]

Really appreciate your reasoned assessment, Uktog.

 

We have cruised on Uniworld and Viking Rivers and it seems that, at least in its marketing, AMA has attempted to carve out a niche for those really focused on wine and food. Your report suggests they have very much succeeded.

 

Agree with much of your assessment re: river cruising in general, it can be memorable. I especially concur with your point about the service provided on the land tours.

 

Two concerns. When we began river cruising there were far fewer boats (ships?) on the usable European waterways and the explosion of growth in this industry has had some interesting impacts upon some traditional ports of call. If possible, I think it best to consider cruising on the shoulder or off seasons. It seems your September cruise may well be an excellent option.

 

The second is that, given the various changes we see in climate and the potential impact upon river levels, it is best to try to choose a season when those issues seem less probable.

 

As this thread has pointed out, the River Cruising Forum, hosted by Jazzbeau, can help immensely with choosing a cruise line or a season.

[Jem 12]

Thank you Uktog for your excellent review, we have done one river cruise on Avalon, which we thoroughly enjoyed, although maybe the food and wine was not in the same league as yours we thoroughly enjoyed everything.

 

We also thought the tours and guides were excellent.

 

The ships captain on Avalon was very young and the ships crew were all very efficient and very friendly.

 

We too had a large group of ladies on board who went to bed fairly early, but we met a core group of 8 people and we had the best times in the dining room and in the lounge every evening.

 

We too would like to do another river cruise but are worried we won’t have so much fun next time.

 

 

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[BBMacLaird]

Hi uktog, I read on the other thread that it was difficult to meet others due to groups. I’m wondering if there was a Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle on the first night, and whether the voyage had a Roll Call?

[Host Jazzbeau]

Hi uktog, I read on the other thread that it was difficult to meet others due to groups. I’m wondering if there was a Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle on the first night, and whether the voyage had a Roll Call?

 

There is a river cruise roll call forum on CC [All Other River Cruise Roll Calls] but with only around 150 passengers on a river ship roll calls for individual sailings rarely get any action – we have more success with 'omnibus' roll calls that cover all sailings of a particular river cruise line on a particular river. Since all [or most] excursions are included in the fare, one of the main reasons for roll call activity doesn't exist for river cruises.

 

For the same reason there are no Cruise Critic meet & mingle activities. But most river cruises have a full-ship meeting on the first day [and each evening just before dinner] to go over the schedule for the next day. Many people find this a good way to meet other guests. Uktog was unlucky in that her cruise had two large groups who already knew one another plus the pre-cruise extension group who had gotten to know each other before boarding – that left very few 'unattached' passengers.

[uktog]

Jazzbeau has answered Bonnie, the other reason I think there is virtually no internet interaction before the cruise is there isn’t actually a driver for it for 99% of the guests. We only saw one family group one day with a private guide. Everyone else uses the included product for touring, not only because they’ve effectively paid for it in their fare already but because the product is so good.

 

Funny the first evening talk was our first hint things might be less friendly. The groups had sent down seat savers so each time we approached a sofa and asked may we sit here, we were told no our friends are joining us. We did eventually find a family group who were happy to let us sit with them but they were understandably wanting to stay as family only for dinner as they’d just met up.

 

I think the nature and composition of the group (one group could all speak fluent English but did not want to converse in anything but French) was unusual, if you’d 30 folks like that and 100+ in groups on Azamara you would not notice

 

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Edited September 30, 2018 by uktog

[hiccups]

Thank you for this review! We are Azamara fans with two more cruises booked but we are considering river cruising. We were considering Crystal but the 2020 prices kind of shocked us. They seemed to get a big increase to more than $1,500+ per couple per day which is getting out of our ballpark. Also considering Ama. Happy to hear the wines are better than on AZ because to us that is one very big drawback of AZ. At the price point the wines should be better and even the wines for purchase list has been reduced and is very limited. This fact alone is driving us toward Seabourn and Silversea.

 

Would you mind sharing what category stateroom you had on your river cruise and the pros and cons of it (other than the noise which you mentioned). We are very noise sensitive and use our sleep sounds app all the time! Thank you!

 

We sailed on Uniworld in 2015 and enjoyed it very much--I think I prefer it to ocean cruising simply because there were so many more active options for excursions. The "all in one" pricing also made things very easy (Uniworld includes all alcoholic beverages and gratuities). My husband, though, was pretty tired after the trip because there really isn't much of a break--you're at a new port every day.

 

We booked the lowest level cabin, often referred to as "aquarium" because of the high fixed windows. We were perfectly fine with that and had no sleep issues, but there weren't any low water concerns on our trip. The cabins are pretty small compared to most ocean cruises, but the shower was larger than on Azamara :)

 

We are looking at AMA and Uniworld next year for some of their wine cruises. AMA isn't as all-inclusive as Uniworld, but it gets very good reviews. Some people don't like Uniworld because of its ship decor, but for me it was just part and parcel of the experience (and the price).

 

The best service we have ever had on any cruise, hands down, was on Uniworld. I mentioned on uktog's thread on the River Cruising board that the kitchen made a special lunch for me every day (grilled chicken and vegetables), and on the third day both the chef and the hotel manager came to speak to me, concerned that I was eating the same thing, and they asked what else they could prepare for me. I explained my reasoning for requesting the chicken and vegetables (dieting at lunch to indulge at dinner), and while they still seemed bothered I didn't want variety, it was there for me every day. In the lounge, a few times I tried the "drink of the day," and if the server noticed I hadn't finished it, she brought over my "usual."

[jkadventures]

We have done two- both with Avalon. First class all the way, we’ve just booked a Christmas markets voyage with them for 2019.

 

 

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[aussie travel bird]

We've only done one River Cruise (on Scenic) in 2010 and that's what led us to Azamara as we prefer the smaller ship experiences (as recognized by our astute travel agent). During that cruise met another three Aussie couples, developing firm friendships and still keep in touch with and visit/and travel to their home cities (Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart - or an Aussie wine region) regularly each year.

 

You can't fault their inclusions, itineraries, food, abmbience, excursions, included internet etc. but where they didn't match was the was definitely the friendliness and interactions with the Officers, Staff and Crew. It was also very much a 'go-go' itinerary (and little rest) and we have learnt to love our relaxing sea days on board Azamara.

 

There's still some River Cruising itineraries that I would love to do once we retire.....

[QueenP]

We've definitely looked at River cruising but I'm nervous about the whole river level thing. The last thing we would want coming all the way from NZ is a last minute cancellation or being stuck on buses. What you wrote sounded very nice though....apart from being stuck tied up to other river boats! We like to sleep with the curtains wide open so we can see a new Port when we wake. Maybe that wouldn't work on a river cruise!

 

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[eileenover]

It has been so interesting reading everyone's experiences! There are obviously so many wonderful experiences to be had!

 

Please don't forget the Nile.

 

We went on a week-long (or was it 10 days...) Nile cruise a couple of years ago.

 

Luxor to Aswan and back. Lots of temples, markets, Aswan dams (yes, there is more than one!) wildlife and sadly, poverty.

 

There weren't many tourists art any of the sites because of the terrorism over the last decade or so. We walked straight into the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.

We never felt in any danger throughout our cruise. There are plenty of soldiers around ----the Egyptian government realises that it needs tourists.

 

Our ship was owned by Movenpick. We had expected 4* but in reality it was more like 3*.

The restaurant was large and there was open-seating although the muslims prefered to be seated in on area away from the rest of us. This saddened me and so I went to sit amongst them (thinking that it was the staff who separated us) but I was soon ushered away by a guide.

 

Poverty is a huge issue. In Aswan, so much is aimed at the tourists ----and there are so few. Chugging along the Nile we could see hundreds of tourist boats moored and mothballed awaiting better times.

 

The good news is that recent surveys and other stats are showing that tourists are starting to return to the Nile.

 

If you are considering a cruise along the longest river in the world, do it soon!