Currently on board Avalon Visionary, Basel to Amsterdam

[notamermaid]

9 hours ago, coyboy1971 said:

There are tons of places open after 9 pm in Koblenz that are walkable

Yes, Koblenz is an excellent port for that. And I find the view towards Ehrenbreitstein Fortress at night great, with all the spotlights they have put up. While you were enjoying the nightlife in Koblenz Altstadt, I did a bit of experimenting with the webcam on Ehrenbreitstein. I have figured out how to freeze frame (if that is what it is called) and paste, etc., so here is a shot of Koblenz at night with the river cruise ships taken on 5 May 2022, 22.02 hours. Feel free to share:

 

 

Have a great evening and arrival in Amsterdam.

 

notamermaid

 

[dtenel]

Cowboy~. Again...thank yo ufo this wealth of information!  I do have a question about the dinners.  We were feeling as if we may prefer to skip the long, formal dinners and eat on the deck...can you tell me what the differences are? We prefer to dress less casual but still would like the same choices mainly if possible!  Do yi get all the same starters, salads, mains, and desserts?  Do you get your wine included?

[coyboy1971]

4 hours ago, dtenel said:

Cowboy~. Again...thank yo ufo this wealth of information!  I do have a question about the dinners.  We were feeling as if we may prefer to skip the long, formal dinners and eat on the deck...can you tell me what the differences are? We prefer to dress less casual but still would like the same choices mainly if possible!  Do yi get all the same starters, salads, mains, and desserts?  Do you get your wine included?

The casual dinner is served in the lounge. They have one soup, smaller versions of the salads, and smaller tasting sizes of the entrees in glass jars.  Honestly, we preferred it over 2 hour dinners and we got to sample more items this way. The bar waiter kept our glasses filled. If it's not too windy you can take your food to the outdoor tables on the front of the boat and enjoy Al fresco dining. 

[dtenel]

Thank you Cowboy!  I think we will be eating in the lounge for dinner!

[coyboy1971]

Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow. 
 

Disembarkation arrangements were a breeze. The front desk coordinated a taxi for us at 9:30 am to our hotel (independent arrangements to stay on in Amsterdam a few days). 
 

For guests leaving today or tomorrow and returning to the US, free covid testing was available on board. 

Canal tour is awesome! Comfortable large boats with toilets and cafe style seating. 

 

The Floriade was amazing, and very happy we worked with Avalon for them to honor the excursion. It can easily be done on your own in Amsterdam. We spent 4 hours there. You can easily spend two days! 
 

A very enjoyable cruise. Expect some bumps along the way until staffing and tourism more fully rebounds. You could see the confidence level of the new staff increase day by day and they really appreciated the guests who were gracious about the learning curve. 
 

Hope you all have a nice voyage with Avalon and hope to see you on board in the future. 

[Techno123]

1 hour ago, coyboy1971 said:

Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow. 
 

Disembarkation arrangements were a breeze. The front desk coordinated a taxi for us at 9:30 am to our hotel (independent arrangements to stay on in Amsterdam a few days). 
 

For guests leaving today or tomorrow and returning to the US, free covid testing was available on board. 

Canal tour is awesome! Comfortable large boats with toilets and cafe style seating. 

 

The Floriade was amazing, and very happy we worked with Avalon for them to honor the excursion. It can easily be done on your own in Amsterdam. We spent 4 hours there. You can easily spend two days! 
 

A very enjoyable cruise. Expect some bumps along the way until staffing and tourism more fully rebounds. You could see the confidence level of the new staff increase day by day and they really appreciated the guests who were gracious about the learning curve. 
 

Hope you all have a nice voyage with Avalon and hope to see you on board in the future. 

Thank you for taking us along with you - it was good to get a preview of what to expect. Hopefully, with another week under their belt the staff will be feeling more confident. Enjoy your stay in Amsterdam and safe journey home.

[macaroni]

Thank you for all the info. Was the testing done on the last full day you were onboard or the day of disembarkation?

[dtenel]

Cowboy~ Again, thank you for blogging for us and answering our questions!  I am so happy you had such a great time.  Enjoy all Amsterdam has to offer!  I do have 1 more question though!  We end our tour in Lake Como and have added on ourselves a few days in Milan before heading home.  My thought was to go ahead and test with Avalon before departure to check for COVID just in case.  My reasoning is that we have taken out their insurance so if we do test positive they will help cover costs and hotels in which to quarantine.  So, are we able to get tested with them even if we are not headed straight home?

[*Miss G*]

Thank you for taking the time from your vacation to do this review.  I very much appreciated it.

 

When you disembarked, would you say that the train station is within walking distance of the port or should we arrange for a taxi?  (Or anyone who knows the answer to this question.) We are heading straight to Rotterdam in order to board a TA that same day.

[FlipperGal]

Thank you for all the details (and even the newsletter and menu!) We'll be on the Visionary June 12th heading south down the Rhine, and you've answered so many questions and have made us excited (and less nervous) about our trip!

Only one question: Would you say it would be easy for us to walk (or take a cab) to  local sites if we don't want to take the included early morning tours?

Again, great thanks. Hope the rest of your travels are easy and happy ones.

[hmcrn]

Thanks Cowboy 1971! Great review - such good info!  I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise.

[coyboy1971]

On 5/8/2022 at 2:15 PM, macaroni said:

Thank you for all the info. Was the testing done on the last full day you were onboard or the day of disembarkation?

They did testing the next to last, last, and day after the cruise (since they remained in port) ended with results emailed in about 3 hours, depending on the day of w passenger's flight back to the US. We decided to do testing through e-med, our airline's preferred partner. 

[coyboy1971]

On 5/8/2022 at 7:59 PM, dtenel said:

Cowboy~ Again, thank you for blogging for us and answering our questions!  I am so happy you had such a great time.  Enjoy all Amsterdam has to offer!  I do have 1 more question though!  We end our tour in Lake Como and have added on ourselves a few days in Milan before heading home.  My thought was to go ahead and test with Avalon before departure to check for COVID just in case.  My reasoning is that we have taken out their insurance so if we do test positive they will help cover costs and hotels in which to quarantine.  So, are we able to get tested with them even if we are not headed straight home?

That's probably a question best answered by the Avalon CD onboard. I believe that guests using Avalon for their hotel extension were being offered testing at their hotel. 

[coyboy1971]

11 hours ago, FlipperGal said:

Thank you for all the details (and even the newsletter and menu!) We'll be on the Visionary June 12th heading south down the Rhine, and you've answered so many questions and have made us excited (and less nervous) about our trip!

Only one question: Would you say it would be easy for us to walk (or take a cab) to  local sites if we don't want to take the included early morning tours?

Again, great thanks. Hope the rest of your travels are easy and happy ones.

You can walk into Breisach, Mainz, Rudesheim, Koblenz, Cologne, and Amsterdam. The other stops are in fairly industrial areas, although they ran a shuttle to the city center for folks wanting to tour Strausbourg independently. 
 

Edited May 10, 2022 by coyboy1971

[FlipperGal]

Thanks for your generosity and for caring about other travelers who have questions, concerns, and problems. I'm sure your kind nature makes your travels happier ones for you. You have helped make this cruise workable for us. 💕

[coyboy1971]

Here are the daily newsletters from the May 1-8 Basel to Amsterdam trip I just disembarked a couple of days ago. I think these will answer anything I missed in my posts. 

These arrive daily in the Avalon Go app around 5-6 pm the day prior, usually right around happy hour and the daily port talk. 

[mj_holiday]

On 5/6/2022 at 12:37 AM, coyboy1971 said:

As far as meals, dinner service has been at 7 pm and ends promptly at 9 pm. You should be fine sitting down at 8 pm. 
 

We ate last night at the self-serve "bistro" dinner in the panorama lounge and wish we'd done that most nights. It's small, nicely presented portions of the food in the dining room and you can take as much or as little as you like. There's only one soup option and sometime one less entree choice but otherwise the food is the same and you don't have any of the service mishaps I mentioned earlier as the new crew get familiar with their roles and the dining room. 

Thank you for the info on the dining room and bistro.

Edited May 11, 2022 by mj_holiday

[SometimesCruiser]

1 hour ago, coyboy1971 said:

Here are the daily newsletters from the May 1-8 Basel to Amsterdam trip I just disembarked a couple of days ago. I think these will answer anything I missed in my posts. 

These arrive daily in the Avalon Go app around 5-6 pm the day prior, usually right around happy hour and the daily port talk. 

 

 

Thank you so much for posting these and all the other tips!  I will share with family members who will be joining us on our Romantic Rhine cruise in July.

[gnome12]

3 hours ago, SometimesCruiser said:

 

Thank you so much for posting these and all the other tips!  I will share with family members who will be joining us on our Romantic Rhine cruise in July.

Just don’t assume that any of these times will be the same for your cruise. Times depend very much on river traffic and any locks that need to be traversed. 

[SometimesCruiser]

1 hour ago, gnome12 said:

Just don’t assume that any of these times will be the same for your cruise. Times depend very much on river traffic and any locks that need to be traversed. 

Thank you!  Understood!

[milling73]

Just to confirm - Avalon is not requiring daily PCR or spit tests for COVID, as Viking is doing?

 

Thanks….

[coyboy1971]

On 5/12/2022 at 12:33 PM, milling73 said:

Just to confirm - Avalon is not requiring daily PCR or spit tests for COVID, as Viking is doing?

 

Thanks….

For the May 1-8 cruise I took, there were no testing requirements and masks were optional for guests. Only the health attestation was required. 

[Cimarie]

Thank you for the excellent overview of your trip! We will be traveling on the Vista from Basel to Amsterdam on June 1.  There is mention of a tasting menu experience. Did you try that?

[JustBe56]

On 5/6/2022 at 1:29 AM, coyboy1971 said:

We had booked the philosopher's walk because we thought it was only 1/2 day. However, you travel to Heidelberg and back to the ship with the all day people who are going to the castle. Basically you have 3-4 hours of on your own time after completing the walk until the buses go back. People enjoyed it but said it makes for a long day. 

I’m new to river cruising, and this app so I apologize if this gets buried, but I’m so grateful to you for this thread!!  I wasted hours today calling Avalon trying to find out more about how the timing will work on the Heidelberg day when I go in August because I really wanted to meet a friend in Germany and both the philosophers hike and the castle visit said that they had free time afterwards so my question was which had more time and you have answered that!!  No one at Avalon would tell me or my travel agent. 😡 You’ve even expanded on how it works riding over there together and that if we do the philosophers hike will have even more free time which in my case is a plus.  Thank you to everyone else asking specific questions too.  So helpful for newbies like us. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

Just now, JustBe56 said:

I’m new to river cruising, and this app so I apologize if this gets buried, but I’m so grateful to you for this thread!!  I wasted hours today calling Avalon trying to find out more about how the timing will work on the Heidelberg day when I go in August because I really wanted to meet a friend in Germany and both the philosophers hike and the castle visit said that they had free time afterwards so my question was which had more time and you have answered that!!  No one at Avalon would tell me or my travel agent. 😡 You’ve even expanded on how it works riding over there together and that if we do the philosophers hike will have even more free time which in my case is a plus.  Thank you to everyone else asking specific questions too.  So helpful for newbies like us. 

This are the type of thing that can be very frustrating to nail down in advance of a river cruise, but are quite easy once on board.  The cruise director on the ship will give a preview of all the excursions, and questions like these will either be covered in the talk or you will have an opportunity at the end to ask your specific questions.  If your #1 priority is meeting your friend, the CD should advise you which excursion is best or whether you should bag it and get a taxi.