We are booked on AMAWaterways Europe's Rivers & Castles 10/12/21 - Anyone else?

[MeganM]

We (finally) made a decision and are booked on AMAWaterways Europe's Rivers & Castles from Luxembourg to Nuremburg departing 10/12/21.  Anyone else booked on this cruise?  Anyone traveled this itinerary and would care to share?  So very excited!  Have been planning/dreaming about this trip for 10 years!

[notamermaid]

Just butting in briefly to say Congratulations! Of the North American itineraries/companies combination this is one of my favourites, if not the favourite. For info on the Moselle, if you like, roam around here:

 

 

My tip: do a search on each page for specific words like Remich or Trier. I am sure you have no time to look at every post 😉.

 

Moselle in Autumn? Lovely! Rhine valley in Autumn? Great! Main river definitely great in Summer, I hope to explore in Autumn some time.

 

Know all three rivers from land trips and partly boat day trips.

 

Enjoy!

 

notamermaid

 

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by notamermaid

[Wings55]

@MeganMWe have not done that itinerary with Ama, but we've sailed the Moselle twice and the Rhine three times. The Moselle is my all time favoriteriver and I'm sure you'll have a wonderful trip. Trier, Bernkastel,  Cochem, Rudesheim ..... they are all terrific. Enjoy!!

Paul

[RobInMN]

We did this itinerary (but in the opposite direction) Summer of 2019 on AmaDante with my family (9 - 3 generations, youngest 10). I think everyone had a great time. We only had 2 complaints. Summer 2019 was unusually hot and the first half of the trip, the boat had problems keeping the temperature comfortable. They did the best they could, and kept the blinds on the south side of the ship closed during the day, but the A/C was underpowered for the heat. The other issue we had was on going from Rüdesheim to Lahnstein through the Rhine River Gorge with all the small villages and castles, a barge got stuck on a sandbank upstream and we were delayed in Rüdesheim for 3-4 hours waiting for it to clear. This meant that the sun set on us part way through this area, and for probably half of it, it was too dark to see anything. The staff was great, especially the hotel manager. The captain was fun. Tour guides were very good, and the on-board entertainment was enjoyable. Food was generally good to very good. The history of the cities visited was amazing. In Trier, the official tour bused you to a starting point. My sister's family, my daughter, and I left early and walked up to the baths and the amphitheater on our own before catching up with the tour where the busses dropped them off. I don't know if it's typical of all Ama itineraries, but there was a lot of wine tastings!

My wife, daughter (19 at the time) & I did 3 days in Munich before and 3 days in Paris after. Munich was amazing. Unfortunately, this was post Norte Dame fire, so that was out.

You'll love it! I sincerely hope that COVID does not impact your trip.

 

[nursinadream]

"My wife, daughter (19 at the time) & I did 3 days in Munich before and 3 days in Paris after. Munich was amazing. Unfortunately, this was post Norte Dame fire, so that was out."

You'll love it! I sincerely hope that COVID does not impact your trip.

Hi Rob.  That sounds like great pre and post cruise visits.  Did you arrange those on your own?  If done by AMA I'd like to know what was included.  We're doing our first river cruise Mar 2022.

Deb

Edited August 2, 2021 by nursinadream

[RobInMN]

5 hours ago, nursinadream said:

Hi Rob.  That sounds like great pre and post cruise visits.  Did you arrange those on your own?  If done by AMA I'd like to know what was included.  We're doing our first river cruise Mar 2022.

Deb

Hi Deb! (that's my sister's name lol)

While I do believe that Ama might have had a Paris post tour, the pre & post tours were done on our own, with some help from a TA. She gave us some hotel recommendations, arranged the rail tickets, and recommended a tour company in Munich and we booked the Munich tours through her with them. We booked our Paris tours our selves.

 

For Munich, we used Radius Tours (https://www.radiustours.com/tours-in-english/) for all tours:

• Munich Bavarian Beer Tour
• Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site Tour
• Third Reich Tour – Munich’s cruel history
• Neuschwanstein Castle Tour

We really liked this company and would recommend them. Unfortunately, the way the tours fell, and with our short time, the only window of opportunity we had for the Holocaust Museum (NS-Dokumentationszentrum Muenchen) was the day that it was closed. This was highly recommended to us, but it just didn't work out. We were able to get lunch at the Hofbräuhaus München, and dinner at Augustiner-Keller the next day.

Hotel was within walking distance from the main train station. We took the subway from the airport to the train station, and when we left, we took the train from Munich to Nuremberg, and a cab to the ship.

 

On the back-end, the normal dock/port that is right next door to the commuter rail station had construction or something, so we had to use a different location. So we took a short cab ride to the commuter rail station to the main rail station, then took the high speed train to Paris. Took a cab to the hotel, which was about 2 blocks from a metro station, which we used the rest of the time. I think we might have taken a cab to the airport after?

 

In Pairs, we used a mixture of tour companies. After our Rome vacation, we were big fans of City Wonders (https://citywonders.com/) and tried to use them where we could make it work.

• Private Tour : Notre-Dame, Ile de la Cité and St Severin Church (individual via Trip Advisor)
• VIP Evening Eiffel Tower Tour & Seine Champagne Cruise (CW)
• Versailles Palace and Gardens, Skip-the-line by Train from Paris (Guidatours via Trip Advisor)
• Private Comprehensive Louvre Masterpieces Tour with Mona Lisa (CW)
• Loire Valley Castles Day Trip from Paris with Wine Tasting (CW)
• Ghosts, Legends and Mysteries – An Eerie Evening Tour in Paris (CW)

Originally, we had booked 'Notre Dame Tour with Towers and Île de la Cité' through CW, but after the Notre Dame fire, that was obviously cancelled. That's when we booked the walking tour with the individual via Trip Advisor. Our private guide for the Louvre was amazing.

The only one we didn't like was the Guidatours to Versailles. Our guide was terrible, the heat was terrible, and honestly didn't think we got anything more out of it than had we watch some History channel show on Versailles. Plus, "skip the line' just puts you in the slightly shorter "skip the line" line (in the sun & heat).

 

BTW, by "3 days", this was: the arrival day, of which we had somewhere between 1/2-3/4 of a day, then 2 full days, then leaving first thing the next day!

 

Hope this helps, and maybe gives you some ideas. Have a great trip!

 

[MeganM]

Thanks everyone for the input!  Rob - great info -we are super excited.  We are also hoping that by traveling in the fall we'll avoid the heat and low river problems.  I'd be devastated to miss that part of the Rhine (it's a large part of the reason we're going!).   Great tip on Trier- we'll probably do that as well.  Fingers crossed that we'll be able to experience some of the tours.  The brief searching I've done shows a lot of places closed internally for tours (i.e. the Residenz Palace).

 

Thanks Notamermaid for the additional info, I'll be sure to read through!

Thanks Paul!

 

 

[MeganM]

Oh, we are also arriving a day early to do Luxembourg.  I was just reading through  the posts on the Moselle (again thank you Notamermaid) and am so excited to share with my partner the info about Patton!  He's a huge history buff!  And macarons!  Yummmmm,  one of the reasons for starting in Luxembourg (for me) was to get some French food!  Having traveled to Paris numerous times, I'm very much looking forward to a good French meal prior to boarding.  Escargot anyone?!

 

 

[notamermaid]

Glad to read you find the thread helpful. For special history in Luxembourg be sure to see the Bock Promontory and Casemates: https://www.luxembourg-city.com/en/place/fortification/bock-promontory

I hope they will be open when you go.

 

I have had another look at the itinerary: https://www.amawaterways.com/destination/europe-river-cruises/2021/europe-rivers-castles

Oddly, it does not mention your embarkation port. Luxembourg City is a bit of a distance from the Moselle, it will either be Remich or Grevenmacher, both are in Luxembourg state. You will find some info in the Moselle thread, I may have linked to this there as well: https://www.visitluxembourg.com/en/moselle/remich

 

Escargot in Luxembourg? I am sure that is possible. Luxembourg is a mix of 'French, German and special stuff all of their own, so if you want to be adventurous you could try these things: https://www.visitluxembourg.com/en/what-to-do/shopping-luxembourg/local-products/luxembourgish-specialities-and-recipes

 

Are you doing the pre-cruise at Paris? Travelling on the TGV?

 

notamermaid

 

[MeganM]

@notamermaid- again thank you for all of this wonderful information!  Based on my research the port is about 30 minutes drive from Ville Haute, which is where we have booked our hotel.  This is my SO's first trip to Europe and I thought staying in the center of the old city would be a great way to start out for him.  

Per AMAWaterways this is the port location:

 

Looks like I've got some more reading to do today!!  Again, thank you for the plethora of info!

[notamermaid]

Oh, you will dock in Wasserbillig! That is new to me, thanks for the info, did not know AmaWaterways does that.

 

Some trivia: As you can see in the map, Wasserbillig is the first town in Luxembourg when you have crossed the border from Germany. So in times past - and it continues to a just slightly lesser degree today - this town was/is the go-to place for cheap petrol, coffee, etc.. It is very much visible in the infrastructure . But it is a pleasant place, not to worry. The setting cannot be too bad as even the famous painter William Turner was here even if that was around 200 years ago...

 

As far as I know, the embankment has been updated in recent times. This is the town:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserbillig

 

1 hour ago, MeganM said:

This is my SO's first trip to Europe

Wow, that will certainly be exciting for him . And he will be immediately thrown into the culture mix French/Luxembourgish/German .

 

notamermaid