ON the Amadagio!

[Buckland]

Hey! I am sitting in the lovely loung at the stern of the ship.

And a wonderful ship she is! You were right, the showers are incredible!

We are dockside in the amazing town of Bamberg right now.

It has been sunny and hot for four days. The start of our trip from

Amsterdam was cool and rainy, especially going through the Rhine Gorge.

Everything is beautiful, the scenery all along the rivers have been

wonderful. Tomorrow we head into Nuremburg then to Passau and Saltzburg.

If it is anything like we've seen so far we'll have our socks blown off.

The Residenze in Wurtsburg is an absolute must. You just won't

believe your eyes! Must go, internet is sketchy here so I have

limited time. I'll try to write more next time.

 

Buck

[jgnova]

Buck:

Wow, sounds like a great trip so far. Even the weather is ok -- typical for the season. Really nice of you to post from the boat, also! Is there wireless available or did you find a cybercafe?We loved Salzburg -- actually, we enjoyed everything -- no town was disappointing in the least. Looking forward to your overview when you get back.

S

[jeffejo]

Hi Buck

Sounds like you're having a wonderful time. If you get a chance to post again can you tell me if you have much time to explore on your own at any of the towns you have visited? Have many peopl;e taken advantage of the bikes they carry on board? Are there enough hangers in the closet or should we bring extras?

John

[AliceS]

We're just thinking about a river cruise for next fall on this line. Where is your cabin located on the ship? Any advice about location? Did you do your own air or use the cruise line? Thanks for posting from the ship.

[AliceS]

OK There are a few of us here who are really anxious to hear how things are going there. What's up? I hope that you are having so much fun that you don't have time to post. An update will be appreciated, a review when you get home will do.

[Buckland]

So far our trip has been fantastic. The only low point for me was the full day excursion to Saltzburg. Unless you are a Mozart fanatic or a big fan of The Sound Of Music, I’d save my Euros and give it a miss. Everything else is amazing so far. Right now we have just left Melk. Which is a lovely little town with a wonderful Abbey and amazing church. The weather has been good to us - mostly sunny up until yesterday, but overcast the last couple days, but little to no rain. I must warn you though - You will be walking on cobblestone streets almost exclusively so wear good walking shoes. The hot water on board is VERY hot so be careful. The food on board is exquisite so you might be like me and have all your clothes shrink. The laundry on board is a little expensive so we have been washing our socks and underwear in our cabin and hanging them up to dry with our outside door open to let in a nice breeze. If you don’t do too much at once it can work out quite nicely.

 

I love sailing down the river watching the beautiful countryside slide by. We go under many very low bridges and the crew has to lower everything on deck to flatten it as much as possible. Even the wheel house shrinks down to make it under. It is really fascinating to watch. Going through a lock that is more than eighty feet high is really a thrill! Must go now, we are docking. Oops, now we are underway to the next stop. Hopefully I can ger this to go before we move again.

[AliceS]

We're going to repeat the same cruise late next August. We have cabin 212 on Cello deck. Is this a good location? Thanks for the tip about the comfy shoes. I've come to wear ONLY comfy shoes. Have there been any dinners that require dressing up a little? Did you stay in a hotel pre cruise with Amadeus? How did that work out? What about the transfers? We wish we were there right now! Enjoy.

[amd1234]

Buck, Thanks for all the updates on your trip. We will be on the Amalegro and I think its has the same cabin location. We are on the cello deck #229 in the back hopefully it won't be a problem being over the engines. We were debating about Salzburg and I am glad to hear your opinion on this excursion. We will be traveling Prague to Budapest. Have a great time enjoy the rest of the cruise...:) :)

[Buckland]

Hi Jeffejo,

In each port of call we had time to explore on our own. At each place there was also a guided walking tour, but if you chose not to participate that was allowed, but you'd miss out on a lot of info. By the end of the cruise we were pretty much 'info-ed out' but went with the tours in all ports of call. These were all part of the cruise package, by the way. The only extra excursions we took were Salzburg, The Schonbrunn Palace, the Vienna concert and a tour to Rothenburg. All were fantastic with the exception of Salzburg.

 

My wife and I did not participate in the use of the bicycles, but several did. A few experienced mishaps from not being on bikes in a while, but they were mostly scrapes and bruises, in varying degrees. The most common injury was a numb bum. Some went on a mike trek of 17 - 20 miles, but that was a first for Amadagio, and I am not sure they would let that happen again. Several people asked if they could get off at one of the many locks we went through and ride to the next one to board again, but the lock masters would have nothing to do with that.

 

We brought some hangers but found that there were plenty. If you needed any extras they were willing to provide you with just about what ever you needed.

 

Hi AliceS,

We totally LOVED this cruise! We enjoyed it much more that our ocean cruise two years ago. We were in cabin #203 - a great location! I think all the cabins were good, but there may be engine noise the farther aft you are, but we heard no complaints ourselves from those we met on board.

 

We had to arrange our own flights because trying to do it through the travel agent was a nightmare. Too many connections, tranfers, delays etc. But of course we are coming from Canada and that changes everything. People we knew from the US had no problems at all.

 

Wireless communications from the ship was at best sketchy. It took a LONG time to log on, sometimes 45 minutes! But it's the most economic way of doing it. From the cabins you could book one hour, one day, one week, or the whole cruise - but it's expensive. If you booked one hour for 5 Euro the clock started ticking the moment you signed on and would not stop until the hour was up. The same thing applied for the other time periods as well. I got on wirelessly and paid 5 Euro for one hour. It started when I logged on with the user name and password they gave me and stopped when I logged off. If I was on for two minutes it registered just two minutes and when I logged on again it displayed the time remaining. It took a little more than a week to go through the one hour I ordered. It worked best when we were docked as the antanae were lowered to go under the bridges along the way.

 

We were prepared to get dressed up for dinner twice, but the captain is pretty laid back and only wanted one dressy night. For that night there was everything from sparkly dresses and expensive suits to printed shirts, dirndls and lederhosen! But almost every night there was someone that was dressed up just because that's what they wanted to do, but most of us just came as we were.

 

We did not stay extra nights in either Amsterdam or Budapest but the transfers went off like clockwork. They were really organized and everyone did as instructed so nobody tried to buck the system. Even those that had no plans had things arranged for them. Just let then know well enough in advance and they would bend over backwards for you.

 

Hi amd1234

You lucky dog!! The Amalegro is the baby sister ship to the Amadagio. She is being built right now and will have a lot of improvements to her over the Amadagio - not that the Amadagio had any faults. Some designers and engineers came aboard the Amadagio to see where there could be improvements made and took tons of notes. The Amalegro has a very good reputation already and she has hardly seen water yet! Depending on the dates of your cruise, you may very well be on the Amadagio. I looked at cabin #229 and it's not bad. Regardless, you'll have a great time. It's starting to get cool there now, although we saw daily temperatures in excess of 22 Celsius. I was WAY over dressed - I did not bring any shorts and I noticed it!

 

Wishing all you sailers the very best of trips!

 

Buck

[Coral]

Buckland - thank you for your comments! I am trying Amadeus next year on the Tolstoy (I know, a totally different beast). It is good to hear good things about Amadeus from you.

[TataTom]

Buck:

Thank you very much for the information about your cruise on the Amadagio. My wife and I will be on the Amadagio Oct 15 thru 29 from Budapest to Amsterdam. This is our first river cruise, so we have had a lot of interest in whether we chose well or not. From what you report, we have chosen VERY well. Considering this was not the result of experience but just dumb luck, we are quite pleased. Your reports have alleviated a lot of our questions and concerns. I just wanted you to know that your report was really appreciated!

 

Thank you!

[Buckland]

Hi TatoTom

My wife and I really loved this cruise. By now it might be getting a bit cooler, which means that the fall colours should be showing now. We saw a hint of them near the end of our cruise. If you get any where near the sun we did you should get some spectacularly colourful photos! When we came through the Rhine Gorge it was quite cold and windy, so you may have to bring a sturdy wind breaker. If you don't get to use it - oh well, it means it's warm - if you need it and don't have it, well you'll be really cold. I braved the chilly winds and went out on deck forward of the lounge and took photos of castles in the mist. It was really thrilling to think of what it must have been like for those people so many years ago.

 

When you get to Amsterdam one of the most important things to remember is that the bicycles have priority - more so than the cars. They have their own lane alongside the road and it looks like it might be a walking path, but it's not. If you walk there you WILL be run over by a bike. When we walked in groups across these lanes we had to be very careful and watch out for cyclists. Be prepared to holler out when you see one, because they travel quite fast and assume that you know the rules of the road. In Amsterdam you'll see the world's largest bicycle park - more than 10,000 bikes - and I'm not kidding! I was there a couple years ago and it floored me. We were there last month and it floored me again! The weird part is - someone owns each and every one of them.

 

We walked around Amsterdam in the evening - it's very pretty there at night with the lights reflecting off the water of the canal - very romantic.

 

There are so many great little places to see along the way from Budapest - very low bridges, very high locks and very beautiful scenery. I'd do it again tomorrow!

 

Have fun,

Buck

[amd1234]

Buck, Thanks for the great review and also thanks for checking out our cabin location. If we wanted to change our cabin to midship it will be an additional $200 a couple. I don't think so!! Also if we don't take the Salzburg excurision do we stay on the ship? We are not staying any additional days in Budapest and hopefully we can spend a few days in Paris. What did you like about Budapest? Also I didn't realize that the Amalegro was in the process of being built. We are leaving May 30, 2007. Do you know when she is supposed to be finished?

 

Did you enjoy the food? My husband is a bit fussy a very plain eater. Thanks again...Ann

[Buckland]

Hi Ann,

The food we had on board was marvelous. There was a menu with each meal that had a few choices for Appetizer, Soup, Entre and Dessert. That can be found on the right side of the menu. On the left side there was the "Chef's suggestions". I went with the chef on every meal except one and was very pleasantly pleased with everything. The entres were presented in a way that you would find in a very expensive restaurant. Very elegant and colourful and TASTY! If you husband is more of a "meat and potatoes man", like my dad was, you could select from one of the items on the standard fare. There was one in our party that had a hamburger most nights, sometimes a hotdog. But I went with the meals as they were offered and did not suffer one single hunger pang. If desired you could order two entres if you wished, I'm sure they would not flinch. One in our party did just that. The soups I found to be unbelievable! You could have more than one of those too, which could easily have. Breakfast was buffet style with some choices from standard fare as well. You could get pancakes or fried egg if you like. Most of the time there was bacon, sausage (the best I have ever had), scrambled eggs, omelets, etc. There was a lot of choice, including cereals yogurt juices as well. By the way, at dinner the wine is complimentary and not cheap wine. A lot of it is from the local winerys and is really top quality. The budget for wine is more than $15 per bottle. On our cruise we went through well over 700 bottles of wine for dinner for the duration of the cruize.

 

We went to Salzburg from Passau, then met the ship in Krems. Those that did not go to Salzburg had a tour in Passau. We were pretty tired after the Salzburg trip so we did not go on the tour in Krems, and apparently we missed out on some good stuff both in Krems and in Passau. I would not recommend Salzburg unless you really wanted to go there. The two things talked about most was Mozart and The Sound Of Music. Being from the film industry, for me it was like a busman's holiday as they spoke a lot about the film and what was shot where etc. Also the two hour bus ride each way was not my cup of tea either. Depending on which way you were traveling you would either leave from Krems or Passau.

 

The shopping in Budapest was pretty good. If you compare prices you can get some good deals. The money in Budapest is weird. Gas is 282.9! We took out 10,000 Florents, which is $53.26 Canadian. With that we bought all the gifts we wanted to take home for our friends and grand kids. You cannot use that money anywhere else so you might as well spend it all while you are there. There is a really big market place which is in a big warehouse - that is where the best buys are. Something in the street might have a price tag of 3000, but in the market you can find it for 2000. We had 4000 Florents left over so we spent it all on little bottles of booze. Szilva, the cheapest at 120, and Unicum, Vilmos and Futyulos at about 380. The girl at the counter just about flipped when we told her that we wanted four grand worth! That's the quickest ten grand I've ever spent - about and hour! Budapest is still recovering from things in the past - huge history there. A lot of buildings have been left to fend for themselves, but a lot have been purchased and are being restored. I think it will be another ten years by the time all is up to snuff. In two or three years they will be on the Euro as well, so that will effect the prices of things too. The good thing there is that they have quite a few bank machines from which you can get more money if you need to.

 

I'm not sure when the Amalegro will be completed, I'm sure it's very close now. If she is anything like the Amagagio, you'll love her. They did not spend a ton of money on the decorations on the ship - they put most of it into things for the passengers. Our room was pretty spartan, but we only saw it when it was bed time and when we got up. There is so much to see on the way, we did not spend any time in our cabin at all. We didn't even watch TV or movies or anything like that. At one port of call we picked up a bottle of scotch so we could have a nightcap in our room which was a very nice end to the day.

 

Just for fun before we left I went on to Google Earth and traced the route we were to take all the way from Amsterdam to Budapest. It was pretty interesting.

 

I'm excited for you, you'll have a wonderful time, I'm sure.

 

Buck

[amd1234]

Buck, First of all thanks for the good wishes! I think the anticipation of our up coming trip is as exciting as the actual trip. I love this forum and people have been just wonderful answering all our questions. We haven't secured our airfare as yet and I am constantly looking for a fare reduction. Everything else is in place... Your review was greatly appreciated...Ann:)

[Buckland]

One thing I forgot to mention was that each evening the cruize director gave a brief talk on what was happening the following day. There was also a one page briefing on the upcoming tour. Then in the evening, when we went back to our cabin we found a two page leaflet outlining in more detail what we were going to see in the morning. In this leaflet was an itinerary outlining all that was scheduled for the day and sometimes it also contained a map. With each tour we were given maps and very clear instructions on how to get back to the ship when we were on our own. It really made it wonderful to have so much information at our fingertips.

 

Buck

[Buckland]

I keep thinking of other things to mention - this is the latest. The power on the Amadagio is 220. We had an old adaptor that was purchased years ago. It is a 1500 watt adaptor so it was good for just about anything. There are different plugs required depending on where you are. In London it was three pronged and looked very much like the 220 volt plug for a dryer or stove in the US/Canada. The one on the ship is two pronged, about an inch apart. The receptacle on the ship is recessed so you'll need an adaptor that has a long reach or use an extender, which is what I used. I didn't bring my battery charger because somewhere I read, or heard, that it didn't do well with adaptors and power converters. I found a really great battery charger in Rothenburg. It is designed for 220 Volts and has a nice long reach so it fit into the recepticle just perfectly. It cost about 39 Euro. My laptop power supply uses a grounded plug here at home - the three pronged type - but my adaptor for 220 provided for only a standard two pronged plug. So I had to buy an adaptor for that too. Here at Home Depot I could get one for about a buck and a half. In Europe, it's something that is not standard and so is not the price. I had to pay 10 Euro!!! So It would be a good thing to bring along some options for your power requirements. Best to have things you don't need rather than needing something you don't have.

 

Buck

[amd1234]

Buck, I assume there is a hair dryer in the cabin. I am not bringing my lap computer anything else I would need an adaptor for? No electric razor for hubby...Thanks...:confused:

[Buckland]

See, there is still things to talk about. Yes, there is a hair dryer in the cabin. And it's not permanenty wired in either, so you can move it to any plug you'd like to use. I used the old-fashioned method of shaving. Suds and a blade. I don't do well with electric razors. Anything you plug in will need a power converter and / or adaptor.

 

Buck

[jeffejo]

Hi Buck

Thanks for all the great info! We arrive in Budapest Friday October 13 (unlucky day) and board the Amadagio on Sunday October 15 for our trip to Amsterdam. All your positive comments adds to our anticipation for this trip. Thanks again.

John

[TataTom]

Buck:

I just checked my power convertor and the plug on it protrudes 11/16 inch (17.5 mm) from the back of the convertor to the start of the prongs. Adding the prongs the plug is 1 3/8 inch (35 mm). Are the outlets on the Amadagio inset more than 3/4 inch? If they are, I will have time to get an extension cord with European plugs. If they aren't, I won't bother.

 

Thanks!!

[AliceS]

Hi Buck,

 

Thanks for the great information. We are on the Caribbean Princess right now. Please keep this post going until we get home. I have lots of questions for you about the new Amalegro. We leave next August and are excited about this trip.

[Buckland]

Hi TataTom,

I just looked at the battery charger I purchased over there and the prongs extend 1 3/8" from the charger. It worked really well. The recepticles on the Amadagio are recessed approximately 3/4" and are approximately 1 1/2" in diameter. The prongs on my converter were only 3/4" long and the converter body was about 2" square so it would not fit into the recess. I had to use one of the extenders that came with my kit - they extended the prongs to about 1 1/2" and it fit. It sounds like your converter should work well.

 

Buck

[TataTom]

Buck:

Thank you for the converter information. You've saved me the time and trouble of finding a European extension cord, either here or there. When I have one of the beers or wines on the Amadagio, I will toast you!

[AliceS]

We're back from our cruise and we had a ball. I was just reading about oppinions on River Cruising and I saw a thread saying that they didn't get enough to eat for dinner. Buck, you said that the food was marvelous, right? I would rather quality than quantity. What's the truth? Guess it's all a matter of opinion though. It's the first I heard that someone didn't enjoy the food.

 

Here's the thread about the food

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=424064