CastleCritic

"you dont have to go home but you cant stay here" on a cruise ship? that doesnt seem right, especially the cruise company just calling the ships season then and there. That sounds like a "something else is going on"

Piraeus is basically Athens.10min bus or cab ride from the ship to the acropolis. The "open top" bus tour companies in Athens all have stops at the cruise port. Also the cruise I was on in October (virgin) did offer either a day of embarkation/disembarkation excursion if you wanted. I wouldn't have wanted the cruise to spend a night docked in Piraeus just for them to offer a "formal" excursion. Civatavecchia is a different beast entirely thats a good hour away from Rome.

there are a good number of threads on various AMA cruises here. It's rare to find anyone who has anything bad to say about them, I did cruise #5 with them this year and have #6 booked for Egypt in 2025. Much like the above situation, they generally have things pretty well handled and are well organized.

You'd think rising water would make it easier to free the ship....hell for it not to have gotten stuck in the first place. the article says only the stern is in the channel, isnt the Rhine even through there multiple lanes? Obviously what I remember coming up on deck and seeing ships 6 wide isn't the Gorge but still....

Cant catch a break this year drought, flood, unscheduled disassembly of a lock gate, now this.

sounds potentially annoying, but as you say, not yet Salzburg was a full day bus trip no matter where you started from (and if the weather is good...a rather nice trip too). What ship broke this time?

Ive done 3 post cruises with AMA at this point and the cruise director came with us for all 3 (French coast to St. Malo then Paris, Prague, and Brasov/Bucharest that RobInMN refers to.) The only * are the ones pointed out in RobinMN's reply, the 14 day Grand Danube is actually also 2 7 day cruises back to back where some of the passengers leave in Budapest to go to Prague, for the cruise I was on, the week 1 cruise director went went them and the ship got a new cruise director in Budapest who came with the the pre-cruise passengers joining in Budapest and she went with us through Bucharest at the end of the cruise. At the Romania end of the cruise you can either go to Romania or Turkey so yes those who went to Turkey were handed off to someone else while the cruise director went with us to Brasov later that morning.

With amawaterways they come with you.

very likely was, bing still has a picture of a very full harbor I know that most of the Danube AMA fleet ends up near Linz

There will be no presented opportunity for you to tip him or her after you leave the ship. They will be around pretty much constantly during the extension if you want to hand them cash but I always do it before I leave the ship. They will give you 2 envelopes on the ship (or fill out 2 lines on a book at the reception desk) for the amounts you want to tip. 1 for the crew, the other for the cruise director.

I remember finding an image one of the viking "winter" ports during covid..you think that pic looks tighly packed? thats nothing.

for what little good these datapoints are Ive done 5 Europe cruises with no changes due to water levels rhine April 2019 Danube November 2019 Rhine-Main November 2021 (though this one gets an * because the starting point WAS changed due to dredging that happened due to flooding in the spring and THEN somewhat low water caused by sediment that the floods drug along causing some havoc the days right before I arrived but the actual water level was ok) Seine May 2022 Danube (east) May 2023 (the next week..flooding)

I can definitely remember arriving at a lock with AMAwaterways far as I remember on the Rhine and having a barge come around us and go through an entire cycle before we could go in.

lahneck castle was on the itinerary but there were no other choices so I didnt cover it.

Shouldnt be any extra fees ones on that list Im seeing on their site. Ive done all those cities with amawaterways in the past. Freiburg is a nice small town Strasbourg there arent any options and you will have all day to explore here with shuttles too and from the ship. Im a sucker for castles and Heidelberg is a really good one. Rudesheim the music museum is good, the gondola ride isnt exciting but the sites are good Cologne and Amsterdam the main tour is the only real option.

Last month on resilient I did both I would walk in every morning and go over and look at what was on the bakery display, ask for anything I wanted. Go next door and get pancakes/French toast. Get some oj on the way to my table then flip up the flag and order an omelet. A few days later all I had to do was put my hand on the flag and the same waitress would walk up and take my order.

The Kronwell isnt bad, its just...weird and a little outside of town and keep in mind I had walked PAST the Radisson at the time I wrote what I said and that factored into the tone.... I had a lot to say about it on my cruise thread at the bottom of the first page. (for the most part you would think RobinMN and I were the same person on the same trip..we weren't we just came to similar conclusions weeks apart).

sigh...yes I strongly dislike you both for your better weather luck at Golubac considering how much I love castles, yes we did the entire tour in the rain, then it was just dismal and overcast until we left. Later in the day was better though Also yes Prague rocks, we were just outside old town at the cosmopolitan when I went in 2021. Bucharest we were at the intercontinental right across from the art museum, it was a pretty good spot.

Always interesting to see peoples take on things. Definitely wouldn't not have been my first choice for a river cruise especially if you want to see "old and beautiful" Europe. Yes Transylvania is probably a huge highlight of that trip. I was there in May with AMAwaterways and I really wish we had stayed in that Brasov Raddison they had us out at the Kronwell by the train station, a good enough hotel but it was a LONG way from downtown But having done cruises to that point in "old" Europe I thought it was a good change of pace. Yes seeing an ex communist country that is doing its best to modernize (Romania...proably better mobile internet than even France or Germany, did you ever NOT have a connection, even in Carpathians), and one that still wants to be in the 80s (Serbia, our cruise director said she, like most Serbians considers herself Yugoslavian) puts things in perspective And then yes you get to Vukovar and HOPE that youre looking at Ukraine in 15 years. Budapest is great, Ive been there to end a cruise in 2019 and start this one and still haven't seen enough of it. I think I could have done another day in Bucharest as well. But possibly thats because we didnt get to do the thing we were supposed to, the Parliament building due to protests. Sad that you got sick, I have ended up getting sick either the day we left (not covid) and the day after I got home (no idea) the last two river cruises. It definitely happens. It does sound like that cruise missed the one good castle that is right there on the Danube at the start of the iron gates

while looking to see if there was any mention of this in the English press I found a quote from a ship hitting a lock in Kiel in 2020 that probably applies "the main cause of the accident was probably that the officer on watch had reached the limits of his competence when carrying out his duties"

I dont know, looking at the picture they hit the lock on the high water entry side while it was closed so they would NOT have been cleared to enter. unless there was a signal issue. (or they got confused at which lock to enter and were supposed to be going into the other lock.)

Looking through my email they did not have a sale at that time last year. EVERYTHING is more expensive than we remember at this point. Also keep in mind that the insurance covers the flights when you book it through them, hence why its more expensive.

hit going with some momentum judging from the pictures of it hanging off the gate.

But the luggage service is hardly a viking exclusive perk, Ive had that same service on my last 3-4 AMA cruises (every one except the first that we didnt go from the airport to the ship and vice versa) and didn't pay for it. All but one (Munich to Vilshofen) were basically chauffeurs, not even coaches, just me/us and the driver usually in a passenger car (last one was a van). The ship to airport is always a bus. Excursions, it sounds viking may have convinced some people every other cruise line only has one excursion, take it or leave it. Ive almost always had 3-4 to choose from every morning and they were all free. I chose AMA based on itinerary, and much line the viking passengers they haven't given me any reason to go elsewhere. if viking didnt have a 100% solo supplement I would probably try them at some point, I have nothing against them but what they do is definitely available elsewhere.

Yep there are definitely those people out there. Ive never been on viking. But I asked my mother if I could fly her to London and pick her up at the airport (after I had done an ocean cruise was the rough plan) and she said she didnt feel like she could get through European airports by her self. Keep in mind she's only seen Heathrow and CDG.