Live from the AmaCerto

[H2Otstr]

Just a note about our pretrip to Istanbul:

 

We WERE in the area where the riots took place. We had a good time, but it really hindered our touring. We were unable to get out at night. We went out via taxi one night and had a hard time getting back. One taxi driver kicked us out of his taxi when he found out where we wanted to go.

 

Last night the rioters started in the afternoon and went all night long. Fires were set, bricks removed from landscaping walls and thrown in the street, fires were set, etc. The police ran out of tear gas. Several people were coming in the hotel gasping for breath and their eyes were burning.

 

This morning we left early to fly to Bucharest and we had to drive thru piles of rubble. The police stopped shooting their canister guns so that we could drive through.

 

Anyhow, we are now on the boat. Will have our welcome cocktail and port talk soon.

 

If anyone has any questions that I can answer please let me know. I will try to do a daily update if I have WiFi available.

 

Fran did a good job of addressing a lot of questions. Her updates were a good prep for our trip

[beechfor]

We will be cruising on the AMACerto later this summer, although not the same itinerary, and will be interested in reading your daily updates. Sorry to hear of the troubles in Istanbul - we were there a couple of years ago and really enjoyed the city.

[pacmom]

Sharon, stay safe. Glad you are now on the boat. Sooo much going on in the world right now---nature and otherwise. Pat

[RachelG]

Glad you are safe on the boat now, but hate that you had such a bad time in Istanbul. We have been there 3 times and loved it. I am actually on the side of the rioters, but it is a shame that your vacation has to start off so stressfully.

[franski]

Just a note about our pretrip to Istanbul:

 

We WERE in the area where the riots took place. We had a good time, but it really hindered our touring. We were unable to get out at night. We went out via taxi one night and had a hard time getting back. One taxi driver kicked us out of his taxi when he found out where we wanted to go.

 

Last night the rioters started in the afternoon and went all night long. Fires were set, bricks removed from landscaping walls and thrown in the street, fires were set, etc. The police ran out of tear gas. Several people were coming in the hotel gasping for breath and their eyes were burning.

 

This morning we left early to fly to Bucharest and we had to drive thru piles of rubble. The police stopped shooting their canister guns so that we could drive through.

 

Anyhow, we are now on the boat. Will have our welcome cocktail and port talk soon.

 

If anyone has any questions that I can answer please let me know. I will try to do a daily update if I have WiFi available.

 

Fran did a good job of addressing a lot of questions. Her updates were a good prep for our trip

 

 

Sounds quite frightening.... Glad that you made it to Bucharest and onto the boat safely.

 

I have always wanted to go to Istanbul - but couldn't manage the time with this trip. Hopefully things will settle by the time I plan to go.

 

Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip. It seems as if the "bottom" end of the Danube is one of the few places * not* affected by the flooding at this time.

 

Looking forward to your posts. Glad mine were of help

 

Fran

[cruisingmad]

Glad you are safe on the boat now, but hate that you had such a bad time in Istanbul. We have been there 3 times and loved it. I am actually on the side of the rioters, but it is a shame that your vacation has to start off so stressfully.

Hi, RachelG,

 

The problem is that there is no "one side" that represents the rioters... There are many different agendas and even contradictory causes on the side of the demonstrators. My concern is that the groups that are better organized eventually prevail, and they are not necessarily the ones on the side of "freedom" and individual rights.

 

Let's hope for the best, and that Turkey does not turn into another Egypt.

 

 

Sergio

[H2Otstr]

We are now docked in Giugiu, Romania.

 

We had a very busy day today. There were three options for tours. We took the all-day tour to Bucharest. The other two were a half day and come back to the ship and the third was a trip to Rousse. The all day tour also had two options.

 

First of all it took 1 hr and 45 min to get to the city.

 

We visited the Romanian Village Open Air Museum with a guide for about 15 minutes and then we walked around on our own for about 30 minutes. Then we went to lunch in a very large restaurant. After lunch we visited the Old City. We had a walking tour for about 20 min and then free time to walk around.

 

For those who did not visit the Old City, an option was to visit the Parliament. Passports were required for entrance to the Parliament.

 

We left at 9 am an returned at around 5 pm. At 6:30 we will have passport control and customs clearance. Tonight we set sail for Vidin, Bulgaria.

[H2Otstr]

It is now Wed morning at 7:15 am. Breakfast will be served at 7:30 (late for us). There are pastries and coffee in the lounge for the early risers. Sun is shining and we will be sailing until about 2 pm. This is what we signed up for 🌞.

 

Several things going on today. The. Rhodes Scholar group will have a lecture at 10 am. The rest of us will meet in the lounge to talk about some of the future excursions that are being offered. There are a group of bikers going out this afternoon. Tonight there is a group of children coming on board to entertain us. Not sure when we will be going through any locks.

 

Will try to update this evening.

[H2Otstr]

Cruised all morning and part of the afternoon. Docked at around 2:15 and immediately got off the boat for a one hour bus ride to Belogradschik. There we hand a tour of the gigantic rock formation. We had the opportunity to climb all the way to the top if we wanted. There was a small gift shop and wine shop at the bottom of the hill. We bought a bottle of Rosé which we will have for dinner one night.

 

We passed through a lot of farm land and a couple small towns. Saw a nest with a stork in it. People still drive horse and wagons here. Many of the households had little gardens behind their houses.

 

We drove back down the mountain to the Baba Vida castle. We had an tour of the castle and there was a small play put on for us in the back of the castle.

 

Tonight after dinner we were entertained by a group of young people who danced for us and sang. They were dressed in traditional Bulgarian costumes. People from the audience we encouraged to dance with them at the end.

 

We have just taken off a little while ago nd tomorrow we will cruise through the Iron Curtain.

[H2Otstr]

We are docked in Belgrade. No WiFi, but using the restaurant's across the street. Yesterday we cruised all day......just beautiful going thru the Iron Gate with the cliffs, rock formations and gorges.

 

With the high water levels we will have a change of schedule. We will have one more port, Novi Sad, and will leave the ship there. We will then all go to Budapest, stay at the Hilton, and for whoever is continuing, they will change ships. Our trip ends in Budapest. We will mill Pecs and Mohacs.

 

AMA has asked three additional program managers to join us in helping all 141 passengers get to their destination. They have done a great job in keeping us informed of what is going on and what we will expect for the continuing journey.

[abc2media]

Thanks H2O for keeping us posted on the trip. You definitely had some unusual situations on both ends of the trip. Was wondering how you were going to get to Budapest in the face of the floods. Figured they would bus you to Budapest from some point. Too bad you have to miss your last day cruising but glad that AMA is taking care of you all. Take care in Budapest as you will be arriving just in time for the height of the floods - but the city seems to be well prepared.

 

We are due to sail on the AmaCerto from Germany to Budapest on the 17th. Hopefully they will be able to get the ship up there from Novi Sad without passengers by the time we are ready to embark. Will be a bit of an unusual trip for us as well with all of the recent damage and misery for many people along the Danube. Hopefully we will see recovery in full swing and our tourist dollars will help move things on the way back to normal.

[caviargal]

Glad to hear that AMA is stepping up and providing good customer service and sorry that you are there at this time, which I know is far from ideal.

 

We were on AmaCerto last November and just loved it! It was definitely the best of the 6 river cruises we have been on and will be tough to beat.

[beechfor]

I'm not sure if there was an opportunity for any organized bike tours on your cruise but do you know the number of bikes they have on the AMACerto?

[MarkBearSF]

I'm not sure if there was an opportunity for any organized bike tours on your cruise but do you know the number of bikes they have on the AMACerto?

On the AmaCello for our Rhine cruise, there were 20 bikes. Perhaps 1-2 of the tours had full sign-up with a waiting list. (I assume that there were no-shows and they were able to satisfy anyone choosing to get on the list.) They also announced that they allowed passengers to take the bikes for their own personal trips, with priority given to advance sign ups on the organized tours. I didn't hear of anyone doing that, but heard great reports of a couple of the standard bike tours.

Things may be a bit different on your cruise.

[H2Otstr]

Beech for, there are 20 bikes on board. They look like theyvarebin very good shape. There was an organized bike tour yesterday. I think about 10 or 12 people rode. They said it was very nice, went around some lake, stopped and had a drink. They did get rained on, though💦.

 

There is another bike ride today and it starts at 9:am while everyone else is on the regular tour. There really has been no where for people to just take the bikes off and ride around. We have been far from the city centers, except for yesterday, and there are no "bike paths" ( at least from what I could see) for independent riding.

 

It is 6:30 am and we just docked. In Belgrade and in this town we have had to carry our passports with us when we leave the ship. They are collected at the reception desk when we return.

 

AMA had substituted A visit to Sremski Karlovci because our scheduled has been altered. We will visit a picturesque village and have a wine tasting we will also get to taste fresh honey and visit a Bee Museum 🐝.

[H2Otstr]

We will disembark the boat at 8:30 this morning and head to Budapest. We will drive about 2 to 2.5 hours and cross the Serbian border into Hungary. We will have to go through border control which should take 30 to 45 minutes if all goes well.

 

We will then have lunch and get on the road again. We should arrive at our hotel between 3 and 4 pm. Later this evening we are going to a restaurant and will have a folklore show.

 

Yesterday we visited Novi Sad which was a beautiful little town. The weather was warm and sunny untilnthenskies opened up around 6:30 pm. Heard from one of the tour guides that it rained all last week.

[cb222]

Don't you always carry your passports with you? We keep ours in a waist-belt with a copy of each other's too. In an emergency, I want to know we can go to a US Embassy and get home.

 

On ship - Uniworld - and in hotels, we give them a copy to meet their requirements.

 

cb

[caviargal]

We carry a copy and always leave our passports locked up safely. I was robbed in broad daylight in Paris ten years ago and had my money and passport stolen. In the airport in Milan, I was robbed on a past trip. The embassy advised me to carry a copy of my passport with me and not the original.

 

I do not walk around with it any longer.

[beechfor]

Beech for, there are 20 bikes on board. They look like theyvarebin very good shape. There was an organized bike tour yesterday. I think about 10 or 12 people rode. They said it was very nice, went around some lake, stopped and had a drink. They did get rained on, though💦.

 

There is another bike ride today and it starts at 9:am while everyone else is on the regular tour. There really has been no where for people to just take the bikes off and ride around. We have been far from the city centers, except for yesterday, and there are no "bike paths" ( at least from what I could see) for independent riding.

 

 

Thanks for the information. We are planning to sign up for a couple bike tours on our cruise. They indicate on the website that there are 20 spaces but I wasn't sure if that is all the bikes they had or if that was the number they were limiting on pre-cruise sign up.

[caviargal]

Thanks for the information. We are planning to sign up for a couple bike tours on our cruise. They indicate on the website that there are 20 spaces but I wasn't sure if that is all the bikes they had or if that was the number they were limiting on pre-cruise sign up.

 

AMA does not offer pre cruise sign up for bike tours or walking tours. This is done once aboard.

[Keith1010]

Enjoying your posts.

 

Keith

[beechfor]

AMA does not offer pre cruise sign up for bike tours or walking tours. This is done once aboard.

 

Perhaps they are starting something new as they are listed under "Limited Edition Tours" on their website and once you have paid in full you can access them with your booking number. These tours include some culinary experiences and biking tours in place of the city tours in a number of ports.

[pbeach]

Perhaps they are starting something new as they are listed under "Limited Edition Tours" on their website and once you have paid in full you can access them with your booking number. These tours include some culinary experiences and biking tours in place of the city tours in a number of ports.

 

That's right. Once you get your booking number, you log onto their website and access Explorer Tours to sign up for 3 tours for each passenger.

[caviargal]

That's right. Once you get your booking number, you log onto their website and access Explorer Tours to sign up for 3 tours for each passenger.

 

Interesting and new since our cruise last November. Is it paid in full or booking number as you get your booking number at time of making your reservation.

[pbeach]

Interesting and new since our cruise last November. Is it paid in full or booking number as you get your booking number at time of making your reservation.

 

It's paid in full. Following is from their website.

 

Explorer / Limited Edition Tours are offered as a substitute for the regular tour scheduled for that same day and time. These alternative tours are offered free of charge but space may be limited; if you are interested in joining one, we encourage you to reserve a spot prior to your departure. You will also have an opportunity to sign up for Explorer / Limited Edition Tours on board your ship, provided that space is still available.

You may pre-register for up to 3 Explorer / Limited Edition Tours, providing your booking is Paid in Full. Simply enter the booking number found on your final documents and your last name, then click START. (Please note: The system will not allow you to select tours if your booking is not paid in full)