Avalon Lake Como Hotels

[KMH1314]

Hello! I'm looking at booking an Avalon river cruise (the Romantic Rhine with the Amsterdam and Como extended days) for my honeymoon next year and saw on their site that one of the possible hotel options for the Como days is in Milan. Has anyone who's taken this cruise or had days in Como on another Avalon cruise stayed in Milan and can tell me about your experience, or has everyone pretty much gotten a hotel in Como itself? 

 

Thanks so much for any info! Much appreciated! 

[cbr663]

We completed the Romantic Rhine cruise with the Lake Como and Lucerne add on and overnight in Amsterdam in June.  We stayed in the Hotel Barchetta Excelsior in Como.  

 

Logistically staying in Milan would be a nightmare.  We flew into Milan and drove to Como.  Depending on where you are staying in Milan you are looking at about an hour and a half drive to Como.  That would most likely be by bus and would really negatively impact your time in Como and on Lake Como and places like Bellagio.  

 

One of the things that we enjoyed so much about our time in Como was that it didn't involve any buses like the rest of the cruise and we were able to walk and sightsee.

[KMH1314]

Thanks! I agree that it would be a nightmare... can't understand why that would be an option, but I asked the travel planner I was working with after seeing it on the website and he said it was in fact a possibility. Of course hotels aren't confirmed until you're almost ready to go, so it's hard to know. For me this issue is possibly the difference of booking this trip or not so I'm trying to gauge from others what they experienced. I'd hope because we'd be in Como in October that there would be less demand, but you never know! 

Thank you for your response! 

[Nippy Sweetie]

Crazy to stay in Milan. There are hotels in various towns around Lake Como. One of the best things about being there is using the many ferries to take to to all the places of interest on the Lake. Find a hotel near where ferries land? 

[ilovesalchows]

It's not that big of a deal to take the train from Milan to Varenna.  From there you can ferry around to the other towns.  It's a regional train and it can't sell out.  You can even drop your bags at luggage storage at the station in Milan and run over to see the Last Supper if you time it right.  We did this all in August of 2022.

 

And then we trained back to Milan after several nights in Varenna.  

[CielBleu]

Does the stay in Milan include any kind of tour of Milan? If so, I'm assuming you would need to make a choice whether you'd rather see Milan or the Lake Como area. If it doesn't include some kind of appealing tour, I wouldn't see any reason to stay in Milan rather than Como. I can't comment about the hotels Avalon uses because we do that area on our own when we go and prefer staying in Bellagio.