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Gen X on Gate One Monarch Princess


IluvZ
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Hello all,

My husband and I just returned from our first river cruise on Gate One's Monarch Princess sailing from Budapest to Vilshofen. We had tons of questions before we cruised not only about river cruising but also specifically to Gate One because they don't have a lot of information available. We also found out that some of the information that is available isn't correct. I promised all you very helpful folks that I would come back and write a review after the cruise. If you have specific questions that I don't cover, please ask.

 

First off, I want you to know that we didn't participate in the river cruise in the normal way. That means, we took NONE of the included tours. And we only purposefully went to the evening program and port talk once. We also only ate four breakfasts, one lunch and two dinners on boat. So I won't have all the answers about how things were run.

 

About us, as the title says, we are in our late forties. My husband and I love ocean cruising (we have done ~15) but we hate a lot of the changes happening on Ocean Cruising. Because we like high level service but we tend to sail with our DS, we use mainstream lines but in a suite. We were very loyal NCL cruises as we really like the freestyle concept but the staff and budget cuts on those ships has gotten crazy so we won't sail them right now. MSC ships with the yacht club work good for us but their ships are huge. And we also like HAL, especially because they don't build mega ships.

 

My husband had river cruising on his bucket list so I had been looking at river cruises for a while but we almost exclusively travel with our DS. That means either two cabins or a very tight squeeze in a suite. We had priced out Scenic for this year's Christmas Cruises on a recommendation from one of our TAs. The price for the three of us ranged from $11,500-$15,000 for a week for the three of us. That was a lot of money given that we were worried if we might not like river cruising, especially since there are a lot of people on these boards who loved ocean cruising but didn't like river cruising. Then, about two months before our wedding anniversary, we got a email from a travel consolidator that had Gate One on dates close to our anniversary starting at $999 for an aquarium cabin. My DH and I decided to take a kid free trip for our 25th anniversary to check our river cruising at a tremendous deal.

 

By the time we decided, a day later, all the aquarium cabins were full, but we didn't care as we wanted a french balcony or suite. Turns out the suites were booked too so we ended up with room 305 on the top deck. The advertised price for our cabin was $1399 but didn't include tax, port charges or tips.

 

Although we weren't taking our DS, we were interested in Gate One's kid policy and it was all over the board - in some places says no kids, sometimes says kids over 16 and other time says kids over 12. We found out from the crew that they do allow kids on the boat and usually they need to be 14 or older. But it seems this isn't a hard a fast rule.

 

On to the review.

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I have gone back and forth on how to cover items in this review and I decided to group each topic by category and then cover each day's stop on the cruise. I have the dailies for all but one day (I was sure I took each day) so I will post those under each day and try to remember the details of the one day I forgot the picture.

 

The Ship:

We found the Princess to be in really good condition. Here public spaces are well maintained and there is a lot of areas to spread out. There is a bar and lounge on the third deck, which also includes a small covered outdoors seating area on the front of the ship. Here is the lounge:

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I don't know why, but those are the only two pictures I have of the ship. :'):')LOL. However, it does show you the quality of the finishes and seating.

 

There was only one dining room on the ship and although Gate One told me there would be an optional diner venue on the sun deck there was never food served at dinner other than the main dining room.

 

The club lounge was at the back of the ship and had 24 hour coffee, tea and water. There were often small cookies there as well. Smoking was allow on the exterior deck outside of the club lounge and upstairs on the back of the sun deck.

 

Finally, there was a small work out room with one treadmill and one bike (sorry I forgot to get a picture) as well as a spa room.

 

One of the things we were told by multiple people before we cruise was that Gate One was a discount line and the quality of the ship would reflect lower quality. In fact, one TA said you would notice how low of quality it was as soon as you walked through other ships and saw how much nicer they were. I call BS on that perception. We rafted numerous times with AMA, Emerald, A Rosa, Excellante, two other Gate One Ships and we overlooked most of the other lines including Grand Circle, Viking, Crystal, Tauck, Scenic, etc. There were differences with the ships offerings but in general the condition of the ships and the public spaces were were in were identical. There were three exceptions - Grand Circle, the biking tour line and this discount german line (can't remember their names) were older ships and had some exterior condition issues. However, not enough that I wouldn't feel comfortable taking any of the ships we saw over the week.

 

Within Gate One, the Baroness was definitely newer and had a few amenities that we didn't have on the Princess. That is the ship that does have an extra dining venue (someone should tell the gate one customer service that fact). Baroness also had a larger ship store, Monarch Queen had a small store and we didn't have one at all. It only mattered to me because the day we were cruising the Wachow Valley I wanted to buy sunscreen. I am not sure if the stores had sundries at all as we only walked past but they did have logo merchandise.

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The Cabin

Wow, were we surprised at the quality of the cabins. There was excellent bath amenities including shampoo, conditioner, body wash, soap, sewing kit, vanity kit, shower cap, shoe shine and nail files. I don't get this many options on any main stream cruise line we have taken in years and rarely even in the hotels we select.

 

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The layout of the cabin was excellent. Although it is small, there was plenty of storage and we could easily keep all our clothes (although we only had one full size suitcase and a few carryons). However, there were no drawers at all, which was odd and we would have like them in the desk and next to the beds. Our suitcases fit under the bed easily.

 

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The big SURPRISE was the fridge. We actually brought a small collapsible cooler with us as we wanted to bring back food from the local markets and all my research said there was no fridge!

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While we did like the layout of the room, I could see the benefit of having a bed that faced the french balcony. We did spend time in our room watching the river go by and one of us usually sat on the desk chair facing our the door with the other on the bed. The view was pretty good but it would have been nicer if the bed was relocated. Also, the room is small. Only one person can walk between the bed and desk at a time. And there wasn't a lot of room to use the chair that was provide. We expected the small size so were were mentally prepared for this.

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We popped our head into some other room categories and they all seemed to be identical except the suite. And those suites were not that much bigger, although you got two lounge chairs instead of the one desk chair. We had no idea if the room were different based on the Gate One website. The photos were really labeled on their site by room category. And when we called CS, they didn't know what the rooms looked like either.

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The Bathroom:

We were expecting a small bathroom and were not disappointed LOL. However, it was layout out well. I would compare the room size to similar you would get on any ocean ship in a standard cabin. We could both stand inside but then we couldn't move around. The shower had a glass door, which was really nice over a shower curtain. The hot water was always hot and the cold also cold.

 

 

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Cabin issues:

We did notice a few times, especially when docked, a sewer smell in our cabin. We thought it came from outside our room but we never identified the location. We also found the pillows terrible. This was one of the few areas that we were unhappy with. While the bed was comfortable and the lines were nice, the pillows were lumpy. I wish they would have had other options for us.

 

 

Other cabin observations:

There were two bathrobes in the room to use, which we didn't expect. We received turn down service at nice as well as cleaning in the morning. Chocolates were placed on the pillows and two complementary bottles of water were replaced every night. There was an ice bucket but this wasn't filled. However, the bar would fill it and we also found an ice maker in the club lounge. There was a safe, which we didn't use, and the staff said it was really tricky to program. We never found out what that meant.

 

 

Finally, there was 20" flat screen tv above the fridge. The channels were approx 20 channels that were almost exclusively english. There was some sync issues with a few of the channels, where the audio and visually were not correct so we couldn't watch those. In addition, they played two dvds on loop that switched every day. One was a movie and the other was usually a travel show. One channel had ship information including the menus for the day.

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Thank you for taking the time to post your impressions of Gate 1, since we don't get much information on them in this forum. I'm considering them for a Russian cruise when I retire.

 

Roz

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Fellow passengers:

Yes, we were the youngest people on board. My DH joked that we brought average age down by 20 years. Many of the people were my parents age and then there were also quite a few of very senior travelers that did have more limited mobility. This had no effect on our enjoyment of the cruise and we enjoyed talking to everyone we met. However, you could see the effect of average age on the entertainment offered.

 

Entertainment:

So, there wasn't much. That is the bottom line. They had a piano player who we found was terrible. His music choice was limited and he often uses syth background and didn't actually play even though he was sitting there. We like all kinds of music from jazz, Frank, 60's, punk, reggae, rock, pop. Really everything so it wasn't that he didn't play popular music (which he didn't). It was that he seemed to just be going through the motions and wasn't really engaged in entertaining. He was one of the only staff members we thought wasn't good. The activity director had waltz class, a battle of the sexes, early morning yoga, and a few other things. He was really entertaining and although we only participated in one night (and totally by accident as they were doing maintenance in our cabin so we went for a drink) we did enjoy his program and hanging out with him.

 

They did bring on two local acts - a opera group in Budapest and a German Singer in Vilshofen. The crew also did a show one night.

 

Staff:

Speaking of staff, we really loved them. Many of the ocean cruises we have been on in the last five years we have found that the staff are worked so hard that although they are nice they don't have time or energy to interact with guests. There are exceptions to this observation of course (Yacht Club Butlers on MSC for instance) but if you are on the other boards you will see lots of comments about how many rooms a steward has to clean and over worked waiters, etc.

 

We ended up making friends with several of the staff members and even had plans to go out drinking with some of the crew at one port (but times changed and we left earlier than anticipated). Some of this might interaction might have been because we were never on the tours so we were often the only people at breakfast or at reception or the bar. Some mornings we had the whole ship and staff to ourselves. But I also think it is because the river boat staff gets more time off and has more flexibility than a cruise ship. We noticed there were adequate rooms stewards and they all helped each other out. Because people spent a lot of time off the ship, staff was allowed to use public areas and they had time to have gatherings in staff areas. We also found out the staff actually get vacations (1 or 2) during the season and they can host family members (the head chef had his wife on board the week we were on). All this contributes to a crew that likes their work and enjoys interacting with the guests.

 

Food and meals:

So, food is subjective but I will say my DH and I are foodies. We keep travel lists that don't have historical sights but hot restaurants, up and coming chefs, unique bars, and food markets. This is what we do when we travel and what often constrains us on ocean cruise. Knowing this is important to us, we planned in advance to make sure that if we didn't like the food or the meal times that we would have a plan B.

 

In particular, we wanted options for dinner. My DH isn't as social as I am and does not like social dinning. This is one of the reasons we started traveling on NCL in the first place. We also tend to eat late when on vacation - ideally at 8 or 9 pm. As part of our research, Gate One CS told us that dinner was both open seating and you could join any time between the 1 1/2 hours the dining room was open. THAT WAS NOT TRUE! Of course, we suspected this might not be the case on the cruise because many people on this board were quick to warn us that we might have issues. That is why we specifically brought along a collapsable cooler because we wanted to have the ability to eat local foods in our room later in the evenings.

 

Meal times really varied through the cruise and were mostly tied to the tour times but it wasn't a direct one to one correlation. We wished that breakfast would have been consistently open until 10:00 but that was widely inconsistent. In fact the two days were in port for a really long day they closed breakfast at 9:00 and 9:30. While a few short port mornings breakfast went to 10:00. Lunches were always timed to when the morning tour returned to the ship or when we docked in the pm. Dinner was almost always at 7:00 give or take and the dining manger told us at the opening safety briefing that while breakfast and lunch was come when they were open that dinner was to be ON TIME. And there were absolutely no reservations or table requests accepted.

 

Breakfast was a buffet with one additional item available to order. It varied from smoked salmon, corned beef, pancakes, etc. The ordered items were small but you could have extra or supplement from the buffet. There were made to order omelets available every day as well as mimosas. Other items included smoothies, fresh fruit, meats, scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, baked beans, many pastries and breads, muesli, yogurt and more. Most of the items were there every meal but a few things would change like the type of sausage or fruit. The food was fresh and well made. I was especially impressed with the scrambled eggs because they were obviously scratch made with real cream and not from powder. The croissants were also authentic and amazing (except one day when they seemed to be a day old). Coffee was just ok, with the machine in the club lounge providing a much better cup of coffee. Overall, we were quite pleased with breakfast and if the times had been later we would have eaten there almost every morning. Most mornings we had a table to ourselves.

 

Lunch was more limited. The first day we arrived they had soup and sandwiches in the lounge from 11:30 ish to 3:00, which was nice for arriving passengers. We didn't partake because we wanted to go see more of Budapest. After that lunch was typically one soup, two sandwich selections, a salad option and a pasta option. We didn't find the menus exciting and mostly passed on lunches. For example, the first full day of cruising we weren't expected in Bratislava until 1:00 and lunch opened at noon. I had originally planned to eat on the ship before going out but we thought the menu (which you can see on the TV) wasn't very exciting so we decided to eat off ship once we arrived. What I remember of the menu that day was a walnut pasta, a club sandwich, pea soup, and some seafood salad. I do believe there were two other choices as well.

 

There was one day, though, that they did a big Bavarian lunch buffet. This was absolutely terrific. There was fresh roasted pork, multiple local sausages, pickled veggies, salads, pretzels, etc. We really loved the food and the atmosphere that day. The program listed lunch at a specific time but the dining manager confirmed that it was an open buffet and we could come whenever the dining room was open. Almost everyone went when they announced the dining was open and there was quite a line to start. We wandered in about 40 minutes later and found a completely empty table for ourselves and still managed to leave before a number of the tables.

 

Finally, dinner. We only ate dinner twice which I'll cover in the day to day, but we were really thrilled with the quality of the food. In fact, we got the head chef to give us one of his recipes because we want to make it at home. Typically, we found that there was at least one regional specialty entree on the menu, which we prefer, as I checked the menu every day. Most days there was one salad, one soup, three entrees (meat, seafood, veggie), cheese plate and two dessert choices (one always ice cream). In addition a caesar salad (with or without chicken) and a chicken breast with baked potato was always available. A few nights there was a second soup option. We meals we had were tafelspitz (a typical Vienna meal) and duck breast. One night, I didn't like one salad - a creamy shrimp - as it was too fishy (love fish, hate fishy). The assistant waiter noticed right away and proactively asked if he could bring the Caesar for me instead.

 

A few observations about dinner selections. The presentation was fairly similar - on the meat side it was duck with sauce, beef with sauce, lamb with sauce. No chicken meals just the always available breasts. No steaks, although I wouldn't expect that in Europe like the US. All the fish was regional, lake perch, bass, etc. They had a fresh herb garden on the sun deck which was nice. There were always two wines with dinner and both times we found them to be specific to the area we were traveling and different from the night before.

 

Timing was more like old school ocean cruising but a little faster. The courses were all brought out at the same time so if you wanted to eat faster, it seemed that would be a challenge. Since it was just two of us, our waiters usually served us first but we did wait for each course with all the others. We felt dinner was faster than we would have expected. Often, both times we had our entree within 40-45 minutes of sitting down. We specifically didn't have dinner the second night in Budapest because they cruised out at 8:15 and we wanted to be on deck. However, we could have easily finished by then and made the night cruise if we wanted. However, many of the groups lingered over coffee and didn't leave for two hours.

 

Yes, it would have been nice to have a few more choices but we felt the quality of the dinners more than made up for a huge selections of choices where only a few are executed well. That tends to be what we find on ocean cruising - sure I can pick four apps but the waiter quickly tells me the ONE I should order.

 

As for seating, our boat didn't appear to be full so both meals, we had a four top table to ourselves. There were a lot of four tops that could be combined into eights and a number of 6-10 round tables. The large rounds were extremely popular and we found that groups would rush into the dinning room to try and get specific servers and locations. Because we didn't go to the port talks, we were the first ones in the dining room both nights and giggled at the way people jockey for their tables. There were a few miffed people.

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Tours:

Although we didn't go on any tours, we did pay attention to how they were set up and tried to compare them to other lines that were in port with us because my parents want to do a river cruise next year and they partake in the tours.

 

The tours is where we noticed a difference between other ships. We would have morning free tour, either walking or bus. The buses used by all the ships appeared to be the same and our cruise never had completely full busses. It appeared, though, that many of the other ships would have a number of options to choose from. For example, in Durstein we had a hike to the castle. The other ships in town had a hike to the castle, a wine train, and a walking tour. I do not know if all of those were complementary tours. We also noticed about have of the boats had complimentary bikes and did find we would have used them in at least one port, if not two. I could have rented bikes on shore in both locals easily. But the convenience of having bikes right there was nice.

 

Since we knew we wanted to explore on our own, the more limited tours really appealed to us. We knew were weren't paying for items that we wouldn't use. Maybe we would have felt differently if we had the opportunity to visit the local market with the chef or bar hop with the crew as an option, as I have seen those listed in other lines. But being my DH isn't one for any type of groups, I doubt we would have even done those.

 

The best thing we noticed about the Gate One tours is they used the quiet walk system. Basically an intercom system that you wear with headphones and as long as you stay relatively close to your guide, you can hear what they are saying. We saw a number of other boat tours that weren't using the system while we enjoyed some local beers, and those groups had trouble hearing and had to walk slower to keep the group close.

 

One of my only complains about this trip was that they made MULTIPLE announcements, really loud announcements, about each tour leaving. At the first port talk, they promised only two announcements and that wasn't true at all. OMG - there were a few cabins that didn't do the tours (we weren't the only ones) and I am on vacation, stop announcing. There was no way to turn it off and many days the cruise director would forget to turn the intercom system off. It actually because a running joke between us and the staff. Especially when I had to call down to the desk to tell them the intercom was on. Did it ruin my trip. No Way. Was it annoying. YES. Was it funny, oh YES.

 

Ports:

I am going to cover docking times and locations, easy of town, and a short overview of how we spent the days and our observations. If you have specific questions, though, please let me know.

 

Budapest:

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We spent two night before the start of the cruise in Budapest in the castle district and then got ourselves to the boat. We were told the ship parked between two specific bridges. So the taxi driver dropped us off at the start of the one bridge and we walked towards the second bridge. My biggest tip - have the hotel call the ship and find out exactly where they are docked. We walked all of the 2.5 miles Gate One warned us it might be. I have to saw I was a little worried after we got past the second bridge and it wasn't our ship. The officers from another ship stopped us to ask if we were cruising with them and were helpful in pointing out the four additional ships further down the river. Yeah, we found her!

 

The location in Pest was great. Three blocks from the Central Market and next to one of the hottest river districts in town. It features four great restaurants, bars, shopping and a brewery. We loved it. It was adjacent to a trolley stop and close to one of the pedestrian streets.

 

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We over nighted in Pest the first night and sailed out at 8:15 on the second. It actually ended up being almost 8:45 before we left as some people were missing. The delay ended up being a blessing because we left once it was fully dark. The cruise down the Danube at night is a great way to start a river trip. I was frustrated in pre-trip planning because it was unclear what time we would leave the port. I knew we would like seeing the river at night but couldn't confirm any approximate sailing times at all. We decided to risk it and didn't do a hour trip but it feels like we got lucky. If we would have left at 8:15 it would have been pretty but not spectacular. Because of the departure time, though, we decided to eat an early light dinner off ship and then have late night snacks. In hind sight, we could have just had the ship meal that night.

 

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Bratislava:

 

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We sailed all morning to Bratislava, which was a great way to start. The docking port here was right downtown, about 4 minutes to the historic district. We were surprised to see we were staying so late. As I mentioned before, we had planned to eat on the ship but changed our minds after seeing the menu. With the late departure, we had the ability to have a later dinner on shore as well. It was great spending time in town after all the tours had gone through and most of the locals were out an about.

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Vienna -

 

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Vienna was one of two long ports days. Many people we talked to went on all three tours, two of which were additional costs. We were docked in Nussdorf, which is farther out then the other river boat port. It is 30-45 min into downtown depending on how you go and time of day. We were excited to be here because Nussdorf is the center of the wine district in Vienna.

 

The train and tram into town were a 10 minute walk from the ship. If you go on your own, the tickets for both can be bought on the train platform, not at the tram stop. Also, the tram had a detour and didn't go downtown like normal. Don't trust google maps on this location, use the local transportation app.

 

In the evening, after exploring downtown Vienna, my DH and I walked into Nussdorf to find a wine tavern and garden. They are throughout the small city and each are open at different times. You can tell which ones are open because they hang pine branches outside. The one we selected was 20 minutes from the ship.

 

Durstein, Melk and the Wachau Valley:

Sorry - this is the day I don't have the program for.

 

Durstein is a very small town but it right in the middle of the best wine area. I had marked out wine stories and local wineries on my map for us to explore in the morning. But, we only docked from 8:00-10:30. I was really disappointed. We rafted to two other ships that weren't leaving until 11:30 and noon. Of course, I thought Durstein was really charming, too. I expressed my disappointment to one of the staff members and he said "what would you do here, it's so small". Ugh - it's the middle of some of the best wineries in the world.

 

Wachau Valley - we spent 2 1/2 hours cruising between Durstein and Melk. It was a great cruise and this is the day they did the Bavarian food buffet for lunch.

 

Melk - the river boats park outside of town, through a woodland preserve. The walk is approximately 20 minutes. We didn't do the Abbey tour (lots of personal reasons) and because it was Saturday afternoon most of the town was closed. This was our least favorite town, not just because things were closed but we felt it lacked the charm of the other cities. In hindsight, we should have rented bikes in Durstein and spent time riding through the Wachau Valley and met the boat in Melk. There is a company right at the docks that had one way rentals and e-bikes. We didn't do this because we felt we wanted to cruise the Valley on the boat but we definitely missed out on items that would have appealed to us much more.

 

Linz -

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Linz is a great city and seems very underated. We docked right next to the historic downtown and there were fewer boats here than in other ports. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and lots of the town was closed. We had limited choices on our promo rate for the cruise, so we didn't look too closely at what days were were in port. In hindsight, we wished we had Duerstein and Melk on Sunday and Linz on Monday. That being said, we ended up enjoying a local beer hall with many families celebrating Mother's Day and it was a terrific day.

 

Passau and Vilshofen:

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So today was a surprise. Both because Passau was only really a morning stop and because we were sent to dock in the worst location in the middle of nowhere. The crew said this was the first time they were sent to the location and really had no idea where we were. If we had gone to the port talk the night before, we would have learned that we were outside of town, so that was totally our fault. And because I never heard about this location I had done no research on the area. Those people that took the tour in town had two shuttle times to get back to the ship but they didn't have other shuttles to get into town since the port of call was shorter. There was a bike rental place 5 minutes from the ship and a bus stop about 10 minutes away. We ended up outside of the tourist area in their main commercial area and had a good time, but not was we anticipated.

 

This was the port the crew was going to go out with us at 2:30 but we were sailing by then. We had a good laugh about that later. Many people stayed on ship with us and skipped the Reggensburg tour, as we did. This was the busiest we saw the sun deck. Interestedly, we pull out of the dock and then waited 45 minutes to get into the lock. I had scheduled a massage and didn't miss one minute of our sailing. That was a nice surprise.

 

Finally, Vilshofen we were the only ship. We arrived late afternoon and I don't think many people even got off the boat in town. That was a shame as the town was a quick walk, had all these great little hidden passageways and we had one of the best meals right in the shadow of their bell tower.

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Final thoughts:

We would do another river cruise again. We did find some of the ports crowded, Durstein in particular, but most of the time we didn't see much impact of the boats on the towns we were visiting. The atmosphere of the boat and speed of cruising appealed to us. In fact, many of the cruise ship things people love - casinos, big shows, etc - we don't use anyway so river cruising fit us better.

 

I do wish the rooms were bigger! And I would like more food flexibility.

 

Gate One was great. The staff was fun, the food was excellent and the rooms good. They could be so much easier to work with though. The pre-cruise information was limited and often inaccurate. To their defense, I think some of the other companies don't share a lot of information either but they have more passengers so there is more information here on CC.

 

Finally, on a kid note, I think our DS would have enjoyed this ship. Partially because he would have liked the crew a lot. But also because we were in ports so late. We could do a variety of things while having some downtime back at the boat. It was a very similar pace to our land Europe tours which he enjoys.

 

Any questions, ask away.

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Thank you soooo much for the detailed review! It’s the most information I’ve found on Gate1 and in particular, this ship, since we booked almost a year ago!

 

We are leaving tomorrow for Budapest where we’ll board the Princess for a 14 night trip to Amsterdam. I’ve saved your dailies for the several ports we will share...gives me a great idea how things generally run.

 

 

Thanks for your note on docking in Budapest - I’ve been worried about finding the ship. We will ask our hotel or concierge to call.

 

Oh, as an amusing aside - We will be partaking of EVERY onboard meal and EVERY included tour....haha! My husband would cut off his right arm before not using whatever is included.

 

(Not sure if it is just me but a few of your photos aren’t showing up - the first 2 of the ship? And the 2nd photo from Budapest)

Edited by durberville
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Enjoyed this thread. Good sales job too ;)

Funny - we usually like every cruise we take even the one where my DH ended up standing on fire ants and the one I ended up both walking into a glass wall and falling down a set of stairs. But I was really surprised with Gate One.

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Final thoughts:

We would do another river cruise again. We did find some of the ports crowded, Durstein in particular, but most of the time we didn't see much impact of the boats on the towns we were visiting. The atmosphere of the boat and speed of cruising appealed to us. In fact, many of the cruise ship things people love - casinos, big shows, etc - we don't use anyway so river cruising fit us better.

 

I do wish the rooms were bigger! And I would like more food flexibility.

 

Gate One was great. The staff was fun, the food was excellent and the rooms good. They could be so much easier to work with though. The pre-cruise information was limited and often inaccurate. To their defense, I think some of the other companies don't share a lot of information either but they have more passengers so there is more information here on CC.

 

Finally, on a kid note, I think our DS would have enjoyed this ship. Partially because he would have liked the crew a lot. But also because we were in ports so late. We could do a variety of things while having some downtime back at the boat. It was a very similar pace to our land Europe tours which he enjoys.

 

Any questions, ask away.

 

Thank you for the review. The only thing that we found a bit differently on the Monarch Express last year was that the lunch buffett also included additional hot items in addition to the sandwich and soup items you mentioned.

 

Considering their price point Gate 1 is easily the best value in river cruising in our opinion.

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IluvZ, Thank you for the review. My wife and I are thinking of a Gate One cruise in 2019. Where most of the guests from USA or were there alot of Europeans? We like meeting people from other countries. We don't like having to get dressed up for dinners,so I guess I'm asking is how formal the dress code is/ Thanks again your review answered alot of questions about Gate One also

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IluvZ, Thank you for the review. My wife and I are thinking of a Gate One cruise in 2019. Where most of the guests from USA or were there alot of Europeans? We like meeting people from other countries. We don't like having to get dressed up for dinners,so I guess I'm asking is how formal the dress code is/ Thanks again your review answered alot of questions about Gate One also

The majority of the guest on our cruise we from the US. There were also South Africans, Australians and British. Less than 10% not native English speakers.

 

As for dress code is was casual all the time. Lots of shorts and jeans for dinner. Women in capris and casual pants. We noticed that the first few days people were dressing up a little more but by the end of the week anything goes. There is no published dress code that I remember. The nights we went to dinner I was the only one in a dress.

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IluvZ- Thanks for posting your write-up. You approached this very differently than most cruisers, which made it that much better of a read.

 

For the price you paid, just using it as a floating hotel really worked out.

I like that you stayed late in a few locations, made your dining off boat choice that much easier.

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IluvZ- Thanks for posting your write-up. You approached this very differently than most cruisers, which made it that much better of a read.

 

For the price you paid, just using it as a floating hotel really worked out.

 

I like that you stayed late in a few locations, made your dining off boat choice that much easier.

 

Thanks for he complements! Trip reports are hard!

 

I think the beauty of Gate One’s pricing, especially their special offers, is the idea of flexibility. We joked that we might have spent a few more hours in the bar suffering, I mean listening, to the pianist if there were included drinks but it’s not like drinks were terribly expensive. In fact our total bill including a 90 massage was €170 at the end. The cruise director told us that last year one “younger” couple left the ship for two nights to hit Octoberfest in Munich on a 14 day trip. We liked that idea a lot too.

 

And the late nights were great, even for those who ate on the ship as quite a few people went out after dinner to enjoy an evening stroll.

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IluvZ Thanks for the information. We were afraid that river cruises are more elite travelers and we are more middle class.Gate One appears to be our level of travel flip

I don’t think you would feel out of place on any of the river boats, really, as I saw every other group walking around and without the little flags you would be hard pressed to guess which ship they were on based on clothing.

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IluvZ Thanks for the information. We were afraid that river cruises are more elite travelers and we are more middle class.Gate One appears to be our level of travel flip

 

Not sure what you mean by "elite". I'm a state civil service employee who's taken 2 river cruises on Uniworld, and found the other passengers to be just regular people like me. I imagine the same is true of other lines.

 

Roz

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lluvz

 

Thank you for the detailed review.

Similar to you - we have quite a few ocean sailings under our belt and gave river cruising a try over the holidays and I am hooked. We sailed AMA and were quite pleased - but would look at Uniworld or Crystal next time for an all inclusive product.

What was the name of the restaurant you discovered in Vilshofen? We left from there on Christmas Day so as you can imagine it was shuttered but looked charming and we would love to go there again when the town was "open".

Durstein was charming - we had one our "best" days there - we hiked to the castle and walked the town (again shuttered because of the holiday) - and then did quick buffet dinner on board and back out to a wine tasting event. I joked with our guide that I would love to retire to a town like that and she laughed as well and said why?

 

I see that your are from Madison WI. My wife has family in New Lisbon (we actually fly into Madison when we attended their wedding 23 years ago!)

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Thanks so very much for the detailed review of your experience with Gate 1 river cruising. I am in the process of booking one for 2019. We, too, are experienced cruisers (25+), but have yet to do a river cruise. Your posts make me excited!

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lluvz

 

Thank you for the detailed review.

What was the name of the restaurant you discovered in Vilshofen? We left from there on Christmas Day so as you can imagine it was shuttered but looked charming and we would love to go there again when the town was "open".

Durstein was charming - we had one our "best" days there - we hiked to the castle and walked the town (again shuttered because of the holiday) - and then did quick buffet dinner on board and back out to a wine tasting event. I joked with our guide that I would love to retire to a town like that and she laughed as well and said why?

 

I see that your are from Madison WI. My wife has family in New Lisbon (we actually fly into Madison when we attended their wedding 23 years ago!)

 

The restaurant is called Gasthof Wolferstetter Bräu. My DH ate the biggest Wiener schnitzel I have ever seen. I should say try to eat it, he only got through half. I had veal in a pepper cream sauce and rösti potatoes.

And I can’t believe the guides sometimes, Durstein was amazing wine country. We got a bunch of gin from their distillery, too, and that was delicious. It didn’t make it home.

Can’t say I get to New Lisbon often, by I drive by on the way to our cabin.

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In Durstein / Wachau Valley I discovered Gruner Veltliner -

was always partial to Spanish Whites and Riesling but this is now becoming a favorite

actually bubble wrapped a bottle and it made it home in my luggage!

 

would love to cruise this valley again in the spring or fall

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