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AMAWaterways Rhine River Christmas Markets blog

Valley Girl of VA

By Valley Girl of VA,
in River Cruising

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Valley Girl of VA

Valley Girl of VA

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I've begun my blog post about my recent (December) Christmas market cruise on the AMAPrima.  I'm about half way through the trip so if you are interested in reading it all, you should keep checking back for newer entries or just subscribe to the blog.  Here is the first blog and you can go on from there:  https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/02/river-cruising-during-a-drought-in-europe/

 

Enjoy!

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phabric

phabric

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Thanks for your review.

 

I am thinking on doing AMA Christmas Market for Dec 2020.

 

How is the weather?

 

Can you post on Cruise Critic again when you post on your blog as I might miss your blog?

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orchidj5

orchidj5

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3 hours ago, phabric said:

Thanks for your review.

 

I am thinking on doing AMA Christmas Market for Dec 2020.

 

How is the weather?

 

Can you post on Cruise Critic again when you post on your blog as I might miss your blog?

  Are you looking at the Rhine or the Danube-I am looking at the Danube for 2020. We were on an AMA cruise that departed Basel two days after Valley Girl-the weather was cool and damp.  I live in Colorado and thus do not consider 30s to mid 40s cold but it rained a good deal and was cloudy and misty most of the days it did not rain. We saw the sun for part of our Freiberg excursion, the Heidelberg day and one of the days we were independent in Amsterdam. It poured rain most of the two days we spent pre-cruise ( on our own) in Basel. We dressed appropriately and still enjoyed ourselves but plan ahead for that.

 

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Valley Girl of VA

Valley Girl of VA

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9 hours ago, phabric said:

Thanks for your review.

 

I am thinking on doing AMA Christmas Market for Dec 2020.

 

How is the weather?

 

Can you post on Cruise Critic again when you post on your blog as I might miss your blog?

W had rain only part of one day and that was during our first stop where we went to Riquewihr, France.  The other days it went from about 40 degree to 28 degrees.  Dressing warmly I was not bothered except for my hands. My hand warmers didn't fit well enough into my gloves and I keep taking them off to take pictures.  My travel mate wore ski gloves and she was fine.  I purchased some fleece lined leggings at WalMart and wore them under my pants and that was great.  I also wore one of the micro-loft down jacketsfrom LL Beana that I had purchased earlier for a trip down to Ushuasia, at the tip of South America.  A good warm hat worked and it needed to be wool for me.   I wore Smartwool socks and it kept my feet warm and dry.  Some days we had a breeze and a good scarf around my neck helped and I could lift it to cover my chin if needed.  Finally, I wore turtlenecks and a wool sweater to assist in keeping me warm.

 

I will try to post additional episodes of my river cruise blog as long as I am able to.  I suggest signing up for the blog so you can get it in your email.  Also, you can go to the first blog and at the bottom click on the arrow for the next post.

 

Thank you for reading.

IMG_1684.jpeg

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Valley Girl of VA

Valley Girl of VA

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7 hours ago, orchidj5 said:

 

 

 

10 hours ago, phabric said:

Thanks for your review.

 

I am thinking on doing AMA Christmas Market for Dec 2020.

 

How is the weather?

 

Can you post on Cruise Critic again when you post on your blog as I might miss your blog?

 

Here is the next blog post:  https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/basel-switzerland-pre-cruise-visit/

 

then:  https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/amaprima-on-the-rhine-our-journey-begins/

 

then: https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/riquewihr-france-our-first-christmas-market/

 

next: https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/strasbourg-france-the-oldest-christmas-market-in-france/

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Valley Girl of VA

Valley Girl of VA

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Thank you for your kind comments about my blog - doing my best to express my opinion, though others may have a different point of view.

 

This one is just how I stayed warm, which was a question I have received from many.  For the most part I was warm and not uncomfortable:

 

https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/how-i-stayed-warm-during-winter-travel/

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orchidj5

orchidj5

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 This is a lovely blog. I am thoroughly enjoying the difference in perspective of the same experiences and you are an entertaining and informative writer-thank you.                                                                                                                                                                                       I would say that I am learning that the experience one has can be greatly influenced by the level of experience and knowledge of the cruise manager-We were on the AmaStella which departed Basel on Monday. Our CD was experienced and calm in a crisis and it made a huge impact.  The shooting in Strasbourg occurred while we were having dinner after we docked at Strausbourg. Sonja managed to keep the Tree decorating happy and upbeat while she dealt with the implications of that shooting for her guests and made an alternate plan. We woke up dock on the other side of the river at Kehl and did an alternate excursion to Baden-Baden. While I was very sad to miss Strasbourg Baden-Baden was lovely and she handled it very well. Also originally we had made the decision to forgo Gegenbach in order to have additional time in Strasbourg. With the change in circumstances we did that trip and it was a fun and unique experience we thoroughly enjoyed.                                                                               Looking forward to the rest of your blog!  I was also interested in your cold weather gear and might take some of it to heart. Being from Colorado we did not purchase additional cold weather gear-we went with thermal underwear, microfiber tees over layered with cotton sweaters and lighter weight fleece lined jackets with heavy rain slickers for the days we had serious rain.  I did purchase a wool hat with a fleece band at the Market in Heidelberg-I commonly go bared headed in much colder weather but we do not have the damp here and I needed the hat unexpectedly.

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Valley Girl of VA

Valley Girl of VA

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Thank you Orchidj5 for your kind comments.  Our CD was a very nice person and helped in any way he could but he was inexperienced in the role of a cruise director and inexperienced in these ports of call.  He was confusing and did not give us clear concise information.  I have had two other wonderful CD's and would travel with them in a heartbeat - they made it fun,  In fact with the CD I had on the Rhone (Rachel) I had some last minute legal drama that needed to be done immediately.  She made her computer available, would fax signed documents out for me and let us go to an activity that those doing the post cruise were doing before they left Lyon - at no charge.  

 

I'm sure you were so disappointed in missing Strasbourg.  We did not dock the night before as you did - seems like our cruise, though alike were very different.

 

The shooting made me think - what if it was the day we were there and not 24 hours later.  Does the cruise line(s) have some kind of emergency plan to get us back.  We knew when the shuttles left but would we have had to wait around till that appointed time.  I wish there was some kind of emergency signal we could receive that would tell us to go to the meeting point or somewhere else.  It will probably never happen again, but you don't know.

 

Jane

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hbr777

hbr777

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We were on the AmaStella (it was supposed to be the Kristina) Basel to Amsterdam, leaving 12/3/18.

 

It rained every single day. It rained so much the weekend before the cruise that we didn't have to deviate.  We were also able to get through the gorge.

 

We had a couple of weird deviations - we had to move from one side of the river to the other to dock - quickly - due to water levels. Which killed being able to go out and about.

 

We also did not get to be in Rudesheim on our own. We only had an afternoon there.

 

We did have to change ships, which involved packing up everything and having it out at our doors early in the morning. It also involved a 1.5 bus ride to get to the Kristina. They told us it was due to low water - technically that was not true since all the other ships were passing through. They needed to position the Stella and the Kristina, though, for future cruises.

 

The Rhine Valley is temperate. It doesn't get bone chilling cold on a regular basis (or so were told, they grow grapes so...) nor does it snow very much.

 

The good news is for all the weirdness, we got a large credit to use by 2021.

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Coral "Live from...." Rare

Coral

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On 1/11/2019 at 12:28 PM, Valley Girl of VA said:

 

The shooting made me think - what if it was the day we were there and not 24 hours later.  Does the cruise line(s) have some kind of emergency plan to get us back.  We knew when the shuttles left but would we have had to wait around till that appointed time.  I wish there was some kind of emergency signal we could receive that would tell us to go to the meeting point or somewhere else.  It will probably never happen again, but you don't know.

 

Jane

We were in Bratislava during a fire at the Christmas Market in November. I sort of wondered the same thing. I know 3 individuals who were very close to the fire when it started - 1 in the cafe in the next building and 2 right in front of the fire. Thankfully only 1 person was hurt and it wasn't anyone on the ship

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Coral "Live from...." Rare

Coral

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On 1/11/2019 at 8:45 AM, Valley Girl of VA said:

Thank you for your kind comments about my blog - doing my best to express my opinion, though others may have a different point of view.

 

This one is just how I stayed warm, which was a question I have received from many.  For the most part I was warm and not uncomfortable:

 

https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/how-i-stayed-warm-during-winter-travel/

Your blog should be your opinion! Write away.

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Valley Girl of VA

Valley Girl of VA

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Here is our last day on the boat  in Amsterdam and our tour there.  Also, we went to Centraal Station to purchase train tickets for the next day:  https://airlandandsea.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/arriving-and-leaving-amsterdam-what-we-did-and-saw/?fbclid=IwAR3LvfnkvCkABtqjXgBU0XiLDi5ixETgFwlAJIun9IrSZa6EKR7zLPjEfZQ

 

Coming up will be my comments about the cruise and whether I would recommend it or do it again.

 

 

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