Review - Grand Danube on AmaMagna - 23-Mar to 13-Apr, 2023

[RobInMN]

AmaMagna - Vishofen to Giurgiu, first time review

 

In the Danube water levels thread, some people indicated interest in a review of AmaMagna, and excursions. I've never done a review for any ship or trip before, but I'll give it a shot.

 

Background

 

This trip could be booked as either the 14-night Grand Danube, or as a B2B with Magna on the Danube and Gems of Southeast Europe. There's a discount for B2B, but the 14-night is priced the same as a B2B, so it doesn't matter from that perspective. We also added the 3-nights Prague pre-cruise and the 2-night Brasov, 2-night Bucharest post-cruise. So, while the actual cruise was 26-Mar to 09-Apr, 2023, our trip was 23-Mar to 13-Apr.

AmaWaterway's loyalty program works like this. On your second cruise, you're Blue, on your third, you're Silver, and on your fourth, you're Gold. As we had done 1 Ama cruise before, there was an advantage to booking as a B2B. The first week we were Blue, and then that made the second week our third Ama cruise, which made us silver and added some benefits. Some comments here. Ama really should make the 2 week Grand Danube count double or something, or revamp the program to be by nights, as many cruises are not just 7 nights. Also, You're in the top category beginning with your forth cruise. Not sure how other river cruise companies do it, but being more familiar with Ocean cruises (Royal Caribbean's Crown & Anchor), four seems very low to me to be top tier. It will be years (if ever) before we are Pinnacle on Royal (Currently Dimond+).

 

In 2005, my parents took my sister and me, and our spouses, on a Danube cruise from Budapest to Bucharest. At that time, I think our whole family, including my parents, were the youngest on the ship. Or would have been, had the owner's daughter and her friend not been on board, but they just hung out with the crew. Anyway, us "kids" were a good 30 years younger than the rest of the passengers. The daily itinerary would even list the number of steps (vertical rising steps) that there would be on that day's excursion. Lots of bus tours. It was far more interesting than "fun". As we were young and didn't have a lot of vacation funds and time off at that point, we did not do anything other than the cruise. We always regretted not doing Transylvania and "Dracula's Castle".

 

In 2019, my parents again took us on a River Cruise, but this time with the 3 grand kids (10, 13, & 19). We booked Ama's Rivers and Castles on AmaDante. We really liked that trip and were impressed by Ama. There were a number of families (a couple larger than our group), and even kids younger than our niece. 

 

We really liked Ama, and having done several ocean cruises, when we heard about AmaMagna, we really wanted to go on her. So, we booked this like 2-2.5 years prior. Even though we had done a similar second week back in 2005, some of the ports were different. And posed with the idea of trying to make all the post-cruise travel arrangements to do Brasov after, we decided to just do the second week and the Ama post-cruise extension. Much easier.

 

I mention this because Spring of 22, my dad calls up and says he wanted to take the grandkids (now 13, 16, & 22) on a Christmas market cruise and booked one for Dec 2022. Our vacation schedule was already booked up, but we made it work. However, our daughter had recently graduated and started her first career job in June. We had another short vacation planned in fall, and she decided that she didn’t want to try to take that much time off work so soon. Turns out, this cruise went from Nuremburg to Vienna, duplicating 4 stops we would be doing on this cruise.

 

BTW, I'm all about "Cathedrals, Castles, Forts, and Ruins" 😉

 

Pre-cruise Extension

Day 1 - Prague - Arrival

We did the 3-Night Prague (Czech Republic) Extension. In general, Prague was wonderful. We loved it and would happily return. We would definitely recommend visiting Prague to anyone that has not been there before. 

 

Upon arrival, there was an AmaWaterway's kiosk right outside baggage claim where there were several us that came in about the same time, some possibly the same flight. The person that met us was the local guide, who was with us all the way to the ship. She loaded us onto a tour bus, and we were off to the hotel.

Ama put us in the Marriott near City Center. The hotel was very nice, and it was very easy to walk to primary sights.

At the hotel, we met our Cruise Manager, Radostina (Radi) Markovic. Radi is awesome. She gave us a packet of info for the pre-cruise, including itineraries, excursions, and some dining recommendations. After settling in, we needed food. We decided to go to Kolkovna Celnice, which was about a block from the hotel, for a late lunch (early dinner). The food was very good.

 

Later, Radi had a welcome meeting, and then led us on a short evening walking tour. There were 38 people on the Prague extension, but a few people were on delayed flights, and we wouldn't meet them until the next day.

 

Day 2 - Prague

A - Golden City of a Hundred Spires

B - Prague Castel Hike

After breakfast we did the city tour. The Castle hike didn't add any more castle, just added a hike which meant less city time.  A bus took us up to the Castle District. From here, we toured down, across the Charles Bridge, and eventually back to the Old Town Square, and the Astronomical Clock. We really enjoyed the tour, and learning about the buildings and history. This was the only included tour, the other 2 were optional/extra. For lunch we just got a sandwich from some fast food type place we don't have in the US. It was pretty good, but then we got a "Chimney" with Caramel and Ice Cream (Yum!). 

 

Dinner and Folklore Show - Optional ($)

We almost passed on this, as the description made it sound like we'd be expected to dance and stuff, but we are so glad we did it. We were bussed to a restaurant with several long family style tables. I equate this to going to a Bavarian/German Restaurant where it's Oktoberfest every night. The food was excellent, the entertainment was very good, and between the pre-dinner shot, the beer, and the never-ending wine, I think everyone had a great time, and I'm glad I wasn't driving! BTW, the Potatoes Gratin (not to be confused with Au Gratin? – don’t know if there is a technical difference, but they seemed different to us) were the best variation of that we've ever had.

 

Day 3 - Prague

Terezin Concentration Camp Memorial Tour - Optional ($)

The total tour is 5 hours, and of that, it's a good 1 hour each way. Terezin is pretty powerful. Not as powerful as Dachau, but we think it’s still worth going even if you’ve been to others. Being what it is, I don't feel like trying to review it. Knowing it would be the middle of the afternoon before we were back, we had made sure to eat well at breakfast.

 

Once back, us and 2 other couples (from Texas) went out for a beer (or 2), and we had a great time getting to know them.

 

Later for dinner, we ate at the Municipal House Cellar. There are 3 or 4 restaurants in this place, but we did the "Cellar". It reminded us of a Munich Beer hall, and again we really enjoyed the food. In the packet of information Radi gave us, there was a voucher for a free beer for each of us. We were pretty early (as we skipped a proper lunch), and not many people there until a pretty large group of Japanese(?) tourists was led in by their guide and seated at the far end. There was a guy playing the accordion, and he spent all his time with the group, which was fine, but I had to laugh when I suddenly realized that he was playing John Denver's Country Road to them.

 

 

Day 4 (Pre-Cruise)/Day 1 (Week 1), we left Prague.

It's about a 4-hour bus ride from Prague to Regensburg, Germany. Regensburg is a neat city to wander. This was the first of our repeats, so we were a little familiar with it. We cannot recommend the Historische Wurstküche enough. Had it before, and it was the only place I intended to go for lunch when we were there. Unfortunately, it was a bit cold and rainy, and the (covered) outside sandwich area was full, so we went inside the restaurant. My mistake. I completely forgot that you can't get it as a sandwich inside, only as a platter, and if you make sandwiches with the rolls on the table (the same as what they use for the sandwiches outside), they charge you 1.25€ each. Ended up being much more expensive than planned, and while our guide said they took cards inside, our server said no, cash only, which almost screwed us. They are still very good, and I will go there every time we are in Regensburg, but only outside.

 

From there, it was about another 1h45m to Vilshofen, where we boarded the AmaMagna.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by RobInMN

[RobInMN]

Day 1 - Week 1

AmaMagna! What can I say. This ship is amazing. It's Ama's flagship for European river cruise ships. For reference, Ama's data page says there's 98 staterooms, which means a capacity of 196 passengers, and 70 crew.

 

In our case, the Magna on the Danube (Week 1) ended up being a wine cruise. Apparently, some large group canceled, and we ended up with just 59 passengers for that week. We did not even know it was a wine cruise when we first booked, and when we booked, it might not have been? Not a big draw for us, but I'd guess about 20 people were booked as part of his core group, who booked in connection to the wine expert. This group was a lot of fun, but most dinners they did their own wine pairing dinner in one of the other venues. 

 

We were surprised to be upgraded from our original AB to an SA. I think most everyone was upgraded since there were so few people on board. We checked with our cruise manager about whether we were upgraded for the second week or if we'd need to change rooms, and she made a call, pretty sure she basically just asked if it was free and just said "done". So, same room it was! This room is incredible, and there's 2 categories higher.

The only downside to the room (all the rooms actually) is that the TV is basically built into the wall feature. There is no access to the back of the TV. We travel with our Firestick. I poked around a bit, and underneath, there were 2 large openings where there was some access to wiring, but also 2 latch pulls that would free the TV. Not wanting to screw around with it, I politely asked the "front desk" about having someone pop the TV off the wall long enough to plug my HDMI cable into it, and the Chief Engineer and one of his guys came some time the next day and did just that. I had a universal remote, programmed it, and changed the input to the Firestick and we were up & running.

 

That first night, before dinner, there was an Oktoberfest Celebration in a tent basically right there at the dock. Beer, Pretzels, and music. What's not to love!

 

Day 2 - Passau, Germany
3 tour options:
A - City of Three Rivers Walking Tour
B - Passau Castle Hike
C - River Inn Bike Tour
We did the Passau Castle Hike. Having done a city walk in December, we didn't necessarily want to do it again so soon. Back in December, my sister's family and I (not my wife), hiked up to Passau Castle. At that time, it wasn't open, and the path and stairs were covered in ice. It was a bit treacherous, but we did it, and the views were amazing. Ama has this marked as a level of difficulty '5'. It is not. Covered in ice, maybe, but not in good weather conditions. '3', maybe '4' tops. This time my wife went. No problem. She was glad she did it, and agreed the views were spectacular. Of the 9 that had pre-signed up for it, 4 of them overslept (our 4 friends from Texas), and the other 3 were no-shows. So, it was just the 2 of us, the guide, and his guide trainee.  Prior to hiking up, we did a short city walk before crossing the bridge to the  bottom of the stairs. The guide was great, and very knowledgeable. The guide got us tickets to the museum, which allowed us to go to an overlook you can't get to otherwise, at the end, we could either hike back down with them or stay and tour the museum. We toured the museum, headed back down on our own and then wandered the city a little bit before going back to the ship for lunch.

 

Day 3 - Linz, Austria
A - UNESCO City of Media Walking Tour
B - Full-Day Salzburg Excursion
C - Cultural Mile Bike Tour
If you don't do Salzburg, there is an afternoon tour: Cesky Krumlov Excursion
Duplicate. We did a walking tour in December, so we opted for the full-day Salzburg tour. On the way there, we stopped in Mondsee, where some scenes were filmed for Sound of Music. In Salzburg, we did a walking tour with another great tour guide, and then either had enough time to have a leisurely lunch or take the funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress. Of course, we did the Fortress! Very cool and awesome views here also. Once back down, we had time for a quick lunch, and got one of the best Käsekrainer (cheese brats) "hot dog" (on a bun) we've ever had from Salzburger Grill Imbiss which is basically a permanent street stand that boast that Warren Buffet and Jack Nicholson ate there.

 

Day 4 - Grein, Austria
Burg Clam Wine Tasting
The only listed tour this day was the wine tasting. But before that, Radi made Castle Greinburg available to us. It's not normally open until May 1, but she made some calls, and a property caretaker would open it up for us. It sits on the hill overlooking where we docked, and it was a short walk. It was a very cool bonus. Its most unique feature is a grotto that is entirely lined with small pebbles, like a mosaic tile.

 

Burg Clam is a castle that has remained in the same family (even during WWII) for hundreds(?) of years. The current owner greeted us and explained the history of the castle, and led the outside tour to the kitchen where the wine tasting was. Another guide then gave us a tour of the castle. Can't say we were a fan of the wine as much, but the castle was very cool!

 

Day 5 - Melk & Spitz, Austria
A - Benedictine Abbey Tour
B - Guided Bike Tour to Marbach
Another duplicate from December. It's an incredible building, but we didn't see the need to visit it again so soon. We opted for a leisurely morning and then just took a walk to town, visited the remnants of the city wall and walked back.

 

Over lunch, the ship moved to Spitz
A - Dürnstein Walking Tour
B - Dürnstein Fortress Hike
C - Spitz Hike
D - Sptiz bike Tour
My wife did the walking tour, and I did the Fortress hike. We first took a bus to Dürnstein. This is a cute little town. The fortress is just ruins, and there’s not much left, but its claim to fame is that Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned there. There were only about 8 of us doing the castle hike. Now, this was also listed as a '5', but if Passau Castle was a 5, this was a 7. If I was in any worse shape, I would not have made it. But it was worth it, as the views were amazing!

 

 

Spitz Exclusive Wine Event
Before Dinner, we walked to a historic wine press house right near the dock. We tasted a number of very nice wines while being entertained by singing and accordion playing. The accordion player really made the night. Very entertaining and talented. Afterwards, we toured the cellar, which was pretty impressive, even if the current contents are just for show.

 

 

Day 6 - Vienna, Austria
A - Imperial Vienna Tour
B - Vienna City Tour by Bike
While technically a duplicate from December, the only part of Vienna we saw before was from the dock to the airport at 3:30 AM. So, we did the Vienna tour. While this tour was a good introduction, there's just too much to see in Vienna for a simple tour. May need to go back someday.

 

Schönbrunn Palace & Gardens
This was the only afternoon tour. If you didn't want to do this, they ran shuttles back & forth to the city center. What can I say, it's a very impressive palace.  

 

BTW, This is a popular item:

 

Mozart & Strausse Concert - Optional ($)
This evening had the optional concert. Again, if you didn't want to do this, they ran shuttles to the city center. We opted not to do the concert, or take the shuttle. We just had a quiet evening. While we can appreciate Mozart & Strausse, especially in moderation, attending a whole concert was not something we were all that interested in, especially one that didn't end until 10:30. Note, people did dress up for this, even more than what I saw for the Captain's dinner the next night.

 

Day 7 - Esztergom, Hungary - Budapest, Hungary
A - Queen of the Danube Tour
B - Budapest Castle Hill Hike
We did the tour, not the hike. The hike was essentially hiking for the sake of hiking, and would not give you access to seeing anything you would not see on the tour, in fact, you see less since you are spending a lot of your time just hiking up the hill. The Buda Castle District has a lot of neat buildings and great views of the Danube of the Pest side. This tour also went to Heroes' Square, and an interesting park behind it.

 

That evening was the Captain's Dinner. We learned that our current Captain and the hotel manager would be leaving us, and we would have new ones for the next week. The captains operate on a 4 weeks on, 4 weeks off schedule. Not sure if the hotel manager does also or if that was just a coincidence.

 

Day 8 (Week 1)/Day 1 (Week 2) - Budapest, Hungary
Turn-a-round day. Of the 59 on week 1, only 12 of us were doing the full "Grand Danube". Of the 12, 8 of us did the excursion that kept us out of the way while they turned the ship over. We went to the Gödöllő Palace, which was pretty cool, then walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch (included). I never asked Radi, but we ended up only doing the first part of the excursion outlined in the cruise documents. After lunch, we went back to the ship instead of going to the Lazar farm in Puszta for the horsemanship show. Maybe because there were only 8 of us? Given the option between the two, I think we would have picked the Lazar farm. But not a big deal, since we had actually done that back in 2005. Overall, none of it was honestly that special, and maybe the best option would have been to just explore the city.

[RobInMN]

Day 1 - Week 2

When we got back, week 2 had 107 passengers, so it was still not near full.
Budapest is where we started in 2005.

 

Day 2 - Mohács, Hungary
A - Pécs Excursion
B - Szekszard Wine Tasting
C - Guided Bike Ride Along the Danube
We did the Pécs excursion. Can't say it was overly remarkable, but we did visit some cool places. A beautiful cathedral, a church that was once converted to a mosque and back to a church, and an early Christian mausoleum that dates to Roman times.

 

Day 3 - Vukovar, Croatia & Novi Sad, Serbia
A - City Tour and Eltz Manor House
B - Croatian Wine Tasting
We visited Vukovar in 2005. The town was almost etched into my memory, it was basically destroyed in 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence. In 2005 it was still a bombed-out shell, with pockmarks everywhere. In the last 18 years, they've come a very long way. The Eltz Manor being a prime example. In 2005, there was basically a single restored room to this museum, and now it's complete. On the third floor there is a movie showing the devastation compared to sometime recently.

2005:

2023:

 

After tours, a bus took us to Ilok, Croatia where the ship stopped long enough for us and the passport agents to board. Can't remember exactly when they asked us to give the purser our passports, but before we could be cleared to dock in Serbia, the agents needed to go through all of them. The ship gave us color copies of our passports and kept the originals while we went through non-EU/Schengen countries.

A - "The Athens of Serbia" Walking Tour
B - Petrovaradin Fortress Hike
C - Novi Sad Bike Tour
For the afternoon tour, we did the walking tour. It was a nice walk with a good guide, but nothing overly remarkable.

 

Evening Petrovaradin Fortress Hike
After dinner we did the Fortress Hike. This was a tour that explored part of the underground tunnels at night, in the dark, that were used to defend the fortress. I like this kind of stuff and it was a lot of fun and very interesting.

 

Day 4 - Belgrade, Serbia
A - The City by Two Rivers Tour
B - Belgrade Fortress Hike
Again, another one of these where the hike is just for the sake of doing a hike and really doesn't give you much more of the fortress, so we did the city tour, which also took you to the fortress. We visited the fortress in 2005, and it really hasn't changed. You don't really explore or see the fortress, you basically go out to the overlooks, take in the views and off to the next stop. In 2005, we just did a drive-by of the Church of Saint Sava, and this time we went it. It's spectacular.

As part of this tour, we went to the Tesla Museum. While Tesla apparently only spent 1 day in Serbia, his parents were Serbian, and after cremation, his ashes are in an orb urn housed in the museum. Sounds kind of like how Minnesota is quick to claim anyone with any connection to, or ever stepped foot in, Minnesota.

A - Brandies of Belgrade
B - Belgrade Bike Tour
or shuttle to City Center
For the afternoon tour, we did the Brandy (Rakija) tasting. While fun, I can't say we were fans. However, since I can't do tree nuts, they replaced the walnut one with a raspberry one. That was the winner! I'd recommend that one.

 

Day 5 - Golubac, Serbia
Golubac Fortress Visit
This is the widest part of the Danube, it seems like a large lake. This is the prettiest dock, as you are basically at a well manicured park, with the castle at the end.

Various parts of the castle have been re-built and there is a small museum in it. I had fun climbing the available towers and taking pictures. Before reboarding, you could partake in a food and wine tasting. We passed.

 

Afternoon
Through the afternoon we sailed "The Iron Gates", which is an impressive gorge the river flows through. There are a couple of massive hydroelectric dams and locks you go through, and the face of Decebalus.

 

Day 6 - Vidin, Bulgaria
A - Baba Vida Fortress and Vidin Walking Tour
B - Banitsa Pastry & Yoghurt Making
We had a great guide. Baba Vida Fortress is one of these places that would never, ever fly in the US, both from an ADA and a safety perspective. Once you're in, you have free reign to explore, and explore I did. During the walking tour we saw a very cool old orthodox church, and one of the gates from the old city wall.

Day 7 - Rousse, Bulgaria
A - Veliko Tarnovo Excursion
B - Rousse Walking Tour & Rock Hewn Churches
C - Bucharest Excursion
We did the Veliko Tarnovo excursion. We did almost this exact same excursion back in 2005. We first visited Arbanasi, where we visited a couple amazing old orthodox churches, and an old merchant house/museum. Lunch was included at a local restaurant, but neither of us liked it much.

After lunch we went to Veliko Tarnovo.

<Rant On>

I'm going to sidetrack here for a moment. Due to where these tours went, there was no "gentle" group, only "regular" and "Active". This is what the Cruise Planner said "Only the active tour will walk up to the fortress and less free time. The regular tour will stop at the fortress but will not go up and will have more free time". Perfect! This is exactly what I wanted. Back in 2005, we did a drive-by (~10m stop for photos) of the fortress and the Ascension Cathedral on the top of the hill. My BIL and I wanted to go in/up, but due to the passenger demographic, there was no way they included that, and there was not even time for us to do it on our own. This day, there were 4 groups total, 2 groups each in 2 buses. Each bus had 2 tour guides. Having 1 tour guide do all the work in the bus, that's fine. And in our case, that was Dennis. But here's where things went awry. In the normal group was an older lady that had mobility issues. She should have never been on the tour, but she really, really wanted to see the churches. So, the other tour guide babysat her, and Dennis took everyone. Dennis likes to stand and talk, not walk and talk like the active tours should do. This wasn't too much of an issue until we got to Veliko Tarnovo, where Dennis stood outside the ticket gate with both groups of people telling us all kinds of stories. Relevant, and informative, but still, we should have been split into 2 groups with the other guide talking to the non-active group outside, while Dennis talked to us on the walk up to the base of the fortress. While we stood outside, we saw another group from our ship actually go inside (which they shouldn't have done per the description?). Once we did get inside, we stopped at a map right at the base, and Dennis kept blabbering on & on while we saw the other group further inside. This entire time, he kept implying that we would have free time to explore and meet back at the entrance at a certain time to load the bus and go (there really is not a good place for a bus to stop). As the meeting time kept getting closer, it was now about 13 minutes until we were supposed to meet. Another guy and I ditched Dennis and booked it up the hill. That was a climb, and I was winded, but it was worth it. From up there, we could see that the rest of the group never left the map, and they started heading back to the meeting point. The 2 of us got our views (which were fantastic), and saw the Cathedral, and we got our pictures, and then we booked it back. While Dennis was concerned about being 2 short, we got on the bus right behind the previous person from our groups, so we didn’t hold them up. Once back, I complained to Radi and she was pissed. She had explicitly told Dennis not to join the groups and keep them separate, because this is what used to happen all the time.
If you get Dennis from England/Scotland/Ireland (I forget), Run!! This is the only complaint I have about any of the guides we had. All the rest of them were wonderful. To his credit, Dennis is a very knowledgeable guide, but he did not run the tour correctly.

<Rant off>

Ok, back to the fortress. They call it a cathedral, but it's a church. Not that big, but beautiful paintings, and the view is spectacular. Well worth the hike, and totally doable at a normal pace.

 

Day 8 (Week 2) / Day 1 (Post-Cruise) - Giurgiu, Romania
We literally just docked on the other side of the river, just down a bit. You could see where we were previously docked. We had to say goodbye to the AmaMagna and got on a bus for Basov.
We disembarked and loaded onto our bus. There were 25 of us. Of the 25, there were 6 of us (7, if you count Radi) that ended up spending all 3 weeks together. There was another post-cruise extension that went to Istanbul. I am not sure how many went on that one, but we did talk to several people that were going on it. I figured that it will be easier to work Istanbul into a future trip than to try to get back to Brasov.

[RobInMN]

Day 1 (Post-Cruise)

We would have the same guide and bus driver the rest of the time.
Anyway, on the way to Brasov, we stopped at Peles Castle in Sinaia. This castle is pretty spectacular. I thought this looked familiar and realized that it was used for the external and establishment shots in the "A Christmas Prince" trilogy on Netflix. A quick Google search confirmed that.

 

A very short distance after leaving Sinaia, we passed a billboard in Bușteni proclaiming "Welcome to the filming place of Wednesday Nevermore Academy" (just the exterior school scenes), which was filmed at Cantacuzino Castle (not a stop for us).

In Brasov, we checked into our hotel. The Kronwell Brasov. We were not impressed. This may possibly be the only 5 star hotel in Brasov, but we can't figure out how they get the high reviews they get. The room has the most confusing technology for controlling the lights, and several people reported issues of lights automatically coming on by themselves every few hours during the night. It's all weird technology for technology's sake without adding any useful benefit, and I'm one that's got Alexa controlling lights, fans, and fireplaces in my house. Upon entering the room, we realized that the strange doors on the corner of the room actually slid back to fully expose the entire glassed-in shower to the rest of the room. We called it the exhibitionist shower. It also had the worst lighting we've ever seen in a hotel bathroom with only a single light over on the far-right side of the mirror. Our A/C did not work at all, we left the window open but it barely helped. The next night someone came up and fiddled with the unit (pulled ceiling panels), and maybe replaced a filter, and it was better. I would not recommend this place, but I have no idea what else is available in Brasov.

 

Day 2 - Brasov
Full Day Sighisoara and Brasov Tour
Along the way, our guide explained about "Citadels". Seems that every town has a citadel up on the hilltop and the town sits below it. Many of these towns have what our guide referred to as "Hollywood signs", basically, they love to put their town names up on the hill in large white letters, just like the Hollywood sign. We saw many of these citadels over the next couple days until we got to Bucharest.

Sighisoara is one of these citadels, and a well-preserved walled city. It is also the birthplace of Vlad Ţepeş (aka Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula). We had free time for lunch and to wander. We ended up at an old hotel restaurant, and really enjoyed our lunch, and overall, enjoyed our visit.

 

Day 3 - Brasov
Bran with Bran Castle
We packed up and drove to Bran, home of Bran Castle, more famously known as "Dracula's Castle". This is what we had wanted to do back in 2005, and we were not disappointed. We had a guide specific to the castle, and she was great. It was neat to be there and see it, but in the end, it's a castle. It's in good shape and the tour parts are furnished, but not a lot to say. Lunch was on our own, and we did not choose to well. Oh well. After that, it was off to Bucharest.

In Bucharest, we checked into the InterContinental Athénée Palace. This was formerly a Hilton, and now IHG. When we booked this, the hotel was originally the Radisson Blu across the street, but apparently, it's gone downhill a bit and the InterContinental was recently refurbished. Along the way, our cruise documents changed to the Hilton InterContinental Athénée Palace, and what's funny is that the sheets are all still "Hilton" sheets, and there are large 'H' things in the halls. Anyway, apparently only 2 cruises were going to use this, and most cruises will use the Marmorosch. Radi said that it's in an old bank and very cool (which I would agree from pictures), and excellent. I can't vouch for that hotel, but the InterContinental was everything I would expect from a 5-star hotel. We loved our stay there.
After we all got settled, Radi led us on a walking tour, and then we split up for dinner. My wife & I just got some pizza from a place Radi liked, and took it back to our hotel room. It was pretty good.

 

Day 4 - Bucharest
A - Bucharest City Tour and Parliament Palace Visit
B - Bucharest Old Town Walking Tour
In 2005, we did a tour of the Parliament Palace. It is impressive, but as the guide said, it's got a lot of empty space in it. I remember that yes, as you walk through it, you are wowed by the size and elegance of rooms, but I also recall noticing that it was shoddy cold-war eastern bloc construction.

Even in 2005, when it was less than 10 years old, there was noticeable cracking all over. Anyway, since we had seen it before, we opted for the old town walking tour. Before the actual walk, we did a bus tour and drove around the Parliament Palace, and stopped for a photo op. Behind the palace, they are building what is being billed as the largest orthodox church in the world. This thing is already impressive and will surely be a must-see stop for any tour once it's open. We had a great guide, and the city walk was a good choice for us.

 

Day 5 - Bucharest - Depart
Unfortunately, vacations end, and we left about 5:30 AM for the airport. 

 

In general.
Crew
They were all great.
Radi - We can't rave about Radi enough. She was the best. We were talking with another passenger, who had been on 13 Ama cruises, and he'd been with Radi before. He said she's in his top 3.
Joszef - He was the piano player, and he is very talented. We enjoyed sitting in the lounge and listening to him when we were just chilling.
Marcus - Bartender. He's ready to get a party going, very charismatic.
Anna - Al Fresco - Always made our time in Al Fresco enjoyable.
Chief Engineer - Can't thank him enough for helping me get our Firestick hooked up.
While both captains were friendly, the captain the second week was a lot more visible. He'd be there greeting people returning from excursions along with other crew.

 

Dining
The food was very good, but for our tastes a bit too fancy. Not going to ding them for this, it's our tastes, and that's on us. We say our tastes are "pedestrian". Basic meat & potatoes, bar & grill type food. My wife doesn't do any seafood, and likes her meat very well done, and I still avoid most vegetables. For us, 4/5 course meals are nice on occasion, but we can't do that every night. Most nights we'd just go straight to the main course and dessert. This is where the seating design on AmaMagna is awesome. There are tables of 2, 4, 6, 8, and in a couple corners, there's some tables that they can put together for larger groups. We could sit at a 2-person table and be in & out after 2 courses no fuss. We weren't "held hostage" through appetizers, & salads while 6 other people ate theirs before getting our main course. A few times we ate with others.
We did not partake in either Jimmy's Wine Bar or the Chef's Table. Both venues looked very nice, but as I've described our tastes, a chef's tasting menu obviously would not work well for us. And Jimmy's just serves the same food as the main dining room, just as a family style meal. Would be great for a larger group, but didn't really interest us a couple. Al Fresco had the same Mediterranean menu for dinner every night. Honestly, I think it would have been nice to have the lunch “always available” items also available for dinner here as a lighter and more basic option.
In the main dining room, sometimes we just order the basic dinner "always available", but we usually did order something from the nightly specials, even if they were augmented with fancy stuff we weren't going to eat. That said, the parts we did eat were always great, and we never went hungry (I still gained 10 pounds). We ate breakfast and lunch in the main dining room a couple times, but mostly ate in Al Fresco. Breakfast was the same there, but it felt quicker. Since there were so few people, they were not doing the buffet in the main dining room for breakfast to try to limit food waste. Other than pastries you had to order it and they would serve you. Al Fresco still had a limited buffet, but it was always what we wanted and always good. You can always order a waffle if it's not the daily option, and they are always fresh out of the waffle iron, crispy outside, soft inside. For lunch, the main dining room would have a themed menu (Bavarian lunch was good), and you can always get a burger or pizza. Never had the marghareta pizza, didn't look real good, and didn't get good reviews from those we talked to. They could use a good basic american style pepperoni & sausage. In Al Fresco, they add a käsekrainer platter option to the always available menu. It's good and was our go-to. Probably ate that 5 times each week. But after the first day, we would order just the sausage plus a hamburger bun. We'd cut both in half, and voilà! Cheese brat! Anna thought we were crazy the first time we asked for it, since the bun and sausage are such different sizes, but she got it when she saw us cut them. The fries and wedges are always fresh out of the fryer and seem to be made per order. 

 

Dress
I think the average age on the first week was lower than the second week, and this seemed to be reflected in dress as well. We are both 54, and I think we were right in the middle the first week. The second week, I think we were on the lower side. I feel that in general, people the second week dressed up slightly more than the first week. Less jeans, sweatshirts, that sort of thing. This was a slight difference, not drastic. The first week for the Captain's dinner, I put on my sport coat and tie, and I think I was one of three sport coats, and maybe the only tie. Seemed like what I've seen in recent years on Royal Caribbean for "Formal" night. Anything goes (ok, not that bad), but some people like to dress up. Next week, just my designated dress shirt, and I was probably in the minority.  

 

Ship
The extra "lower lounges" are very nice for hanging out without being in the main lounge. However, they are right off the main lounge, and they won't be that much quieter if there is something (like dancing) going on.
The only downside to the ship's layout is that every other river ship we've been on, the lounge is in the front. You can sit in the lounge and see everything as you sail along. This is not possible on AmaMagna, as Al Fresco sort of takes this spot. You can sit here, but you're sitting at one of the tables. There is some outdoor seating in front of Al Fresco, as well as upper deck seating. But when we were on, it was too cold. In the lounges, you have to pick a side.
Al Fresco does have the ability to lower the upper half of all the windows, which will be awesome on gorgeous days. We only had one day where it was nice enough to open them a little.
The cinema/theater seemed totally underutilized. It's a neat space, but it's not like they show specific movies or anything, they just have it hooked up to the same Apple TV system you have in your room, and you can just wander in and if no one's already watching anything, you can pick something. In the 2 weeks, I think we only saw or heard of it being used just once. It's also very easy to miss, and I imagine a lot of people never even knew it existed.
There are tables in the lounge large enough for games or cards, but also, above the lobby there are 5-6 large 4-person tables that you can easily play at, and we saw some people doing just that. This is also where the passport agents went through everyone's passports.
Upper deck has the obligatory loungers and seating areas, the walking track, as well as chess, and a new Pickle Ball court. There is a small pool and a hot tub, and a pool bar. It was too cold to really use these spaces these two weeks, and knowing this before we left, we didn't bother to bring swimming suits. However, I know the hot tub did get used on occasion.
AmaMagna has a guest laundry! We love this. This allowed us to pack about 5-6 days of clothes. Even though we got 1 laundry bag per person per week, we just prefer to do our own. A lot of things are wash cold and tumble dry low, and I know on Royal Caribbean, the service is referred to as "boil & fry". We just aren't sure if instructions would actually be followed. There are 2 washers and 2 dryers and they supply laundry pods. Now, the dryer does what we call "European Dry", and we'd do 2 dry cycles and then hang them. There didn't seem to be any controls to set the drying temperature, only dryness level. I Googled for a PDF of the manual, and the best I could figure out is to select "Delicates", but then set the dryness level as high as they would allow for that setting.
Other amenities that we did not use are the gym, spa, and salon. There’s also a small store.

 

Weather
End of March, early April is still a bit cold. We even experienced snow in a  few places. Temperatures ranged from upper 20’s (F) to upper 60’s, but probably in the 40’s to lower 50’s most of the time. It was overcast more than it was sunny, and I think we had a reasonable chance of rain in the forecast almost every day. Luckily, most of the time it was only a threat, and it didn’t rain that much. And when it did, it was mostly light rain or drizzle. We wore our rainproof jackets most of the time, and we were fine. Maybe once it got to the point that we were just sort of over the excursion. There was one day where it was nice and we spent some time on the upper deck and Al Fresco opened their windows some!

 

Lastly, I think another name for the Grand Danube might be "The Habsburg Tour", as many, many things are tied to them in one way or another.

[worcestergal]

Wow!  Thank you so much for such a thorough and fascinating review. I feel like I was right there with you!

[Canal archive]

Thank you RobinMN how interesting and when on earth did you find time to watch the tv? I notice the Grappa glass salesman has been busy again they used them on Scenic during our last cruise. Thank you again sounds altogether a super cruise.

[Roz]

@RobInMN, thank you so much for the very thorough review and beautiful photos.  I felt like I was right along with you. 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Roz

[whitbob]

Excellent review!  Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences.  We are leaving this month for our 4th AMA cruise (Main/Moselle Rivers) with the pre-trip to Prague.  Still studying the options for tours so your details are very helpful.  We need to add AmaMagna to the bucket list.

[notamermaid]

Thank you very much for your detailed review. A great ship. And good to read you had a lovely time. East of Budapest is unknown territory for me, your photos really give great impressions and make me want to go further East than Hungary.

 

notamermaid

 

[letteanne]

Thank you. It was fun taking this trip with you from my desk.

[ssawjo]

Thank you for your well written and comprehensive review.  We are on the AMA Bella from Giurgiu, Romania to Vilshofen  in two weeks.  With a pre cruise in Istanbul and post in Prague.  Smaller ship of course but the tours you did are the same as the ones we selected.  We are planning on the Vienna concert.  Glad you enjoyed the dinner/folklore show in Prague.  I was having my doubts about whether to go or not.  We'll go.  

[RobInMN]

16 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Thank you RobinMN how interesting and when on earth did you find time to watch the tv? I notice the Grappa glass salesman has been busy again they used them on Scenic during our last cruise. Thank you again sounds altogether a super cruise.

 

We'd watch TV in the morning while getting ready and then 1 show before going to sleep. We don't dance, so we typically weren't up real late. On the night of the concert, the ship was pretty quiet as most people went. We just chilled in our room and watched a few things.

I had to look up "Grappa glass". That was at the bar that did the Rakija tasting, not on the ship. But they did have a ton of those glasses.

 

[jimbo5544]

Thanks for doing the review.