We're back!!! Avalon's Affinity 1st cruise ... Windmills, Vineyards and Paris

[webfoot]

We got home late last night from the first cruise of Avalon's newest ship, Affinity ... it was a wonderful trip on a beautiful new ship ... as I get back into the swing of things here, I'll post a review ... but for those who can't wait ... the ship is beautiful ... much better laid out than the other ships ... food was excellent ... all in all we thoroughly enjoyed the trip!

[crusinbanjo]

Glad to hear the ship was better than expected and that your cruise was wonderful! Can't wait to read your review.

 

Mrs Banjo & I leave for Amsterdam on Friday, (after a small hicup... ...see the other posting). We are looking forward to this cruise, now more than ever, and will report back when we return!

 

Leaving on Friday.... ....YIPPY

[BigGuy25]

We really enjoyed our Avalon Scenery (new last year) trip on the Rhone and Seone last October. I'll be looking forward to reading your review!!

[hcross888]

THANKS! We are booked on the Affinity during July. I can't wait!

[webfoot]

As promised, here is a review of our trip. I decided to list the city where we were for a particular day and the optional trips with their cost. If anyone has any questions about what we toured in each city, I'll be happy to let you know. Also, some folks had mentioned that on the ships launched last year there was a smell of diesel fuel. We noticed a 'wiff' once or twice but it went away within minutes.

 

Warning: This is long!!!

 

Avalon Affinity

 

Newest ship in the fleet … holds 138 passengers. Officially launched in a formal ceremony on Saturday, May 9th.

 

Updated design:

1.From the entry doors, there is a reception desk and two computers for internet access.

2.Towards the front of the ship there is a lounge which is outfitted with comfortable chairs, sofas, and sturdy tables.

3.A short flight of steps up from the reception desk are the Royal Deck and Suite rooms.

4.At the end of the hallway from these rooms is a beauty shop and a small lounge where the coffee, tea, etc. are served 24 hours a day. This is also the location of the Early Riser and Late Riser breakfasts.

5.A short flight of stairs down from the reception area are the Sapphire Deck rooms.

6.A short flight of stairs down from the Sapphire rooms is the Dining Room. The buffet area is much better ‘presented’. Two tables are set up for 8 people while the others are for 4 or 6 people.

7.A short flight of stairs down from the dining room are the Indigo Deck rooms along with a fitness center. The center has two bicycle-type machines along with a treadmill.

8.Top deck has a hot tub for 6. There are two areas that are covered by a canopy for those sunny days. There are more chairs, tables, and lounges than the Artistry had last year.

9.Staterooms are similar to the other ships. I found the bathrooms to be better thought out than on Artistry. More storage area in the vanity area.

10.All other room storage remains the same. I actually had a lot of room left over.

11. Elevator is located in the corner of each floor.

 

The ship and its furnishings are very attractive. The ship is maintained well during the trip. The floors are spotless. The dining room has good soundproofing.

 

When arriving back from touring, the staff meets you with a cold drink and a hand towel.

 

The maiden voyage had a few ‘glitches’ but nothing that caused anyone to be inconvenienced.

1.The elevator was not working for several days. The engineers worked on it to fix it as fast as possible.

2.The ship was scheduled to go through a large lock in Rotterdam. However, the lock wasn’t working and what was left was a smaller lock. After several hours, the captain and the lock master agreed to give it a try using the smaller lock. The lock doors closed with only inches to spare. Great job by all to recover from that.

3.The ship got ‘caught’ on a sandbar leaving Rudesheim. The captain was able to get the ship off the sandbar without any damage. However, this delay caused the scheduled events for the day to be delayed.

4.Due to delays at some locks, the tour busses picked up the group or delivered the group to a location other than where we were scheduled to depart or arrive. It gave us a chance to see other towns that we might have not seen otherwise.

 

These delays were handled very professionally by our wonderful cruise director, Isabel Heimann.

 

I’m listing our itinerary below along with the optional trips (and cost in Euros).

 

Day 1: Amsterdam, Holland (Embarkation). We met the group at a hotel where a local host checked us in and then offered the following optional tours:

Rijksmuseum – 25 Euros

Zaanses Schans – 29 Euros

 

Day 2: Amsterdam, Holland: Tour of the canals was included. Optional tour is:

Voldendam – 29 Euros

 

Day 3: Gouda–Dordrecht, Netherlands

 

Day 4: Antwerp, Belgium. Optional tour:

Brussels – 39 Euros

 

Day 5: Maastricht, Holland. Optional tours:

Aachen – Aux Le Bains – 39 Euros

Excursion Underground Maastricht – 24 Euros (not enough people signed up for this so it was cancelled)

 

Day 6: Arnhem, Germany

 

Day 7: Cologne, Germany. Optional tour:

Bonn – 29 Euros

 

Day 8: Koblenz–Rhine Gorge–Rüdesheim. Optional tour:

Excursion to a German Dinner – 44 Euros

 

Day 9: Cochem

 

Day 10: Bernkastel. Optional tour:

Idaorberstein – 79 Euros (not enough people signed up for this so it was cancelled)

 

Day 11: Trier–Remich, Luxembourg. Optional tours:

Battle of the Bulge – on the footsteps of General Patton – 37 Euros

Excursion to Luxembourg – 34 Euros

 

Day 12: Remich (Disembarkation)–Paris, France. Optional tour:

 

An evening at the Artists Quarters of Montmartre – 39 Euros

 

Day 13: Paris. Optional tours:

 

Mona Lisa’s Smile at the Louvre – 44 Euros

The Palace of Versailles – 59 Euros

Moulin Rouge Dinner & The Greatest French Cabaret – 159 Euros

 

Day 14: Paris – leave for home (for most passengers)

 

 

Some thoughts: Some of the local guides had limited English capability. This was something that I noted on my evaluation.

 

We had several evenings of entertainment. The first was a string trio, La Strada, who played classical music. We had seen this group last year on Magnificent Europe on the Artistry. The BURG Theater was an announced entertainment. It turned out that Isabel had put together a play that included members of the audience. It was a lot of fun. And, of course, we had the staff talent show. Each evening Vesco played music in the lounge. He is quite versatile and uses other musical instruments in addition to the piano.

 

For a maiden voyage, everything went quite well. Many of the crew members had never worked together prior to this trip. Certain members of the crew are going to spend this year launching the newest ship, Creativity, in July. For a crew that hadn’t worked together, they seemed to mesh well.

 

Our cruise director had to make a lot of last minute changes due to the timing of the locks, but she handled it well. Yes, some of the people were critical but that’s to be expected.

 

The housekeeping staff did a great job keeping the ship and our rooms clean. I had two of my husband’s shirts laundered for a total cost of 5 Euros.

 

The food was excellent. Lots of variety and all well prepared and served. The reception desk staff put out a booklet for us with each day’s lunch and dinner menus. The favorite luncheon menu item that was offered two different days was a cheeseburger and fries. They really were good. Each day for lunch there were two menu items that you could order or just go to the buffet, which had two soups in addition to two meat options and one pasta option (vegetarian).

 

My husband and I spent a day prior to the embarkation in Amsterdam and then stayed for an additional day in Paris.

 

We both loved the trip. It was nice to see so many new-to-us cities. Please let me know what other questions you may have on this trip.

[letsgo39]

Hi Pat,

 

How would you compare this cruise with your Magnificent Europe cruise last year?Did you enjoy it as much?

 

We had Isabel in 2007 on our Magnificent Europe cruise. I thought she was really good at handling unusual situations. Did you know that she had worked for Globus for many years as a tour guide? When we had her as our cruise Director in 2007 it was her very first cruise. I was very impressed with her. On that cruise she was really enjoying her new job and not having to pack and get on a bus everyday.

 

So what is your next trip? We are thinking about France next year.

 

Judy

[webfoot]

Hi Judy ... I think I enjoyed this tour more than last year .. mostly because we got to see areas we weren't that familiar with. I had already been in Vienna and Budapest so seeing them last year was just catching up on what I didn't see previously.

 

Isabel told us that she had worked with Globus for 15 years. She is really good at what she does. Some of the folks complained that they would have liked her to be more 'warm and fuzzy' ... but I never saw that side of her. In my previous life, I had a job where I was a process improvement specialist. I often look at things to see if and how they can be improved ... and I think that Isabel looks at it very similarly. We got a nice hug from her when she was getting ready to leave the hotel. We had stayed an extra day ... had lots of fun in Paris.

 

As for our next adventure, I'm not sure ... we have already started talking about maybe a small ship cruise to Alaska ... or maybe the Greek Islands ... or maybe back to France ... who knows ....

 

Take care!!!

[letsgo39]

Hi Pat,

 

Warm and fuzzy Isabel was not but she was very good at her job.We had one very unpleasant woman on our cruise who was yelling that she was going to sue Isabel and Globus because our buses somewhere(don't remember where) did not have good air conditioning.Horrible woman but Isabel handled her very skillfully. Isabel in one her talks said she was not "warm and fuzzy but she was German and Germans are not warm and fuzzy". She got a pretty good laugh on that. I've taken 6 land tours with Globus and their guides are ALWAYS excellent and but some are more personable than others. I don't care as I am not planning on living with them anyway!:D I just want to be guided.We do most things on our own anyway. Also I have never had any Globus guide push the optional tours at all. I have heard that some other companies really do push their optionals for added income.

 

If you have not been to Alaska it is just beautiful.

 

Judy

[webfoot]

Hi Judy,

 

As our trip was the 'maiden voyage' for the Affinity, many of the optional trips were new. There were two optionals that not enough people signed up for and one that we could not do due to timing (Bruges, which is one I really, really wanted to do) but the ones that I went on were quite good. The dinner in Rudesheim was not great but the entertainment was a lot of fun.

 

Each tour or cruise we tell ourselves that we aren't going to take many of the optionals ... but when we get there, we figure that we may never be there again ... we didn't take all of the trips ... but came close to it ...

 

On a 'maiden voyage' there will always be issues that come up. If you plan on taking such a voyage, then passengers have to understand that things will occur and just roll with the punches. Unfortunately, we had several that weren't happy with things ... but we went with the expectations that things happen ... and just enjoyed ourselves ..

 

You meet such interesting folks. Mel is a geologist and last cruise he was the only one on board with that profession. This time, in a group of 130, there were 3 geologists. He actually had done some work with one of them years ago. Small world ...

 

Let me know what you and DH decide to do next year!

[huskercruiser]

Hi Pat,

 

My husband and I are on the Affinity in August and have a couple of questions. The itinerary is different but we do stop at some of the same places.

 

If I go on the Avalon website they list the optional tours for our cruise but there are very few listed. I notice some of your optional tours for the same stops that we have are not listed on the website for our cruise. Do you know if all the optional tours you listed were listed on Avalon's website? Any information you have on the optional tours you took would be appreciated.

 

How did you handle tips? Would they put tips on your bill or do you need cash? Euros or US$s?

 

I am most concerned about power for my curling wand and camera/phone battery chargers. I have converters as well as the various adapters or prongs that might be needed. I understood that converters weren't needed but adapters might be. Is this true? (I DO NOT like to use a converter with my curling wand as I have singed my hair! I'm also concerned about using a converter with my camera battery charger.)

 

Anything else you could think of would be appreciated!

 

Ruth

[huskercruiser]

Pat,

 

I thought of something else.

 

Does internet access cost? If so how much? Do they have wireless available in the cabins?

 

Ruth

[webfoot]

Hi Ruth,

Yes, they do have wireless throughout the ship. I am not sure what the cost is if you have your own computer. I bought 5 hours of time for 10 Euros ... which was all I needed. They have a pricing plan for 1 hour, 5 hours or for a week.

In some areas, the signal wasn't very good ... but most of the time we were able to get on to check e-mail ... but it was slow ...

[webfoot]

I have just finished uploading pictures of the Affinity to Snapfish ... please feel free to browse them ... I did not take pictures of the staterooms as the layout of these rooms is similar from Avalon ship to Avalon ship.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions!!!

 

http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=581442012/a=102724469_102724469/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

[missyal]

Hi Webfoot~~Thanks for all the info! We are doing this itinerary in September. I can't wait! If I may ask, what time did you disembark on the last day? Our hotel is asking for an estimted arrival time. We are doing Paris to Amsterdam, but I am just trying to get a "guesstimate".

Thanks again.

Missyal

[webfoot]

We left the ship at 9 and went directly to the train. We got to the Paris hotel by 2 pm ...

 

When we were in Amsterdam, we all met at a hotel and then were taken to the ship. We took an optional tour that day so we got to the ship by 5 pm ...

 

With doing the reverse of what we did, I'm not sure if this helps or not ... if not, let me know ... thanks!

[missyal]

Thanks Pat. I figured it had to be around 8 or 9 at the latest. I appreciate your help.:D

What trip is next?! lol!

 

Missyal

[webfoot]

We were just talking about the next trip ... so many places yet to see ... we just hope that our portfolio looks better towards the end of the year so that we can do another trip. We both love River Cruising and and would love to do another one ... but time will tell.

[webfoot]

I have been notified that my review of the Avalon Affinity and the tour is now available in the member review area. Here is the linK:

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=55395

 

Feel free to ask any questions that the review doesn't answer. Thanks!!! :D

[missyal]

Great review! Thank you for all the details. Glad to hear the food was good. DH was a bit worried about that.;)

[huskercruiser]

Hi Pat,

 

I don't think you saw my earlier post where I asked the following questions.

 

My husband and I are on the Affinity in August and have a couple of questions. The itinerary is different but we do stop at some of the same places.

 

If I go on the Avalon website they list the optional tours for our cruise but there are very few listed. I notice some of your optional tours for the same stops that we have are not listed on the website for our cruise. Do you know if all the optional tours you listed were listed on Avalon's website? Any information you have on the optional tours you took would be appreciated.

 

How did you handle tips? Would they put tips on your bill or do you need cash? Euros or US$s?

 

I am most concerned about power for my curling wand and camera/phone battery chargers. I have converters as well as the various adapters or prongs that might be needed. I understood that converters weren't needed but adapters might be. Is this true? (I DO NOT like to use a converter with my curling wand as I have singed my hair! I'm also concerned about using a converter with my camera battery charger.)

 

Anything else you could think of would be appreciated!

 

Ruth

[webfoot]

Hi Ruth,

For the optional trips, there are some that are listed on the website but the cruise director often adds optionals that they have done previously. For our tour most of the trips were listed, but several more were added by our CD.

As for tips, I put the trips for the crew on my bill which I paid by credit card. I'm not sure if the CD was taking a credit card or not. The CD last year did ... but we had quite a bit of US$ with us and we just used that. We did a 'generous' conversion rate.

As for the curling iron and chargers, I just used an adapter plug. My 'appliances' are fairly new and will automatically adjust for the power. I used the adapter plus with my cell phone, camera battery, and curling iron. I did find that the curling iron did get a little bit hotter than it does here in the states, though. I found that a converter wasn't needed at all ... just an adapter.

As for anything else, there is a hair dryer there that does a very good job of drying the hair. The rooms have more storage than the rooms on the Artistry. Suitcases fit nicely underneath the bed. We put our passports and extra cash in the in-room safe.

Please let me know if you have any other questions. The ship is beautiful. The lounge on the 3rd floor has coffee, tea, etc. all day long. There is usually a plate of cookies there, too. That is the lounge where the early-riser and late-riser breakfasts are. That lounge has a bookshelf with books that can be borrowed. I wound up donating two books that I had finished. There is another bookshelf filled with games.

[missyal]

Hi Pat~~How were the shops/eateries/locals in ports? I'm curious to hear if you found things to be commercialized like on large cruises and very touristy, or was it a more quaint and realistic?

As our trip gets closer, more thoughts pop into my head, I hope you don't mind me asking:D.

 

Missyal

[webfoot]

We saw a variety of shops in the towns. Of course, there were always the tacky souvenir shops, but also a lot of quality shops. For an example, in the German city of Bernkastel I just walked by a clothing store where they had some beautiful sweaters outside. I looked at the price and saw that they were 10 Euros each. I tried it on ... and as I was trying it on several other folks from the cruise came by ... I think there were either 4 or 5 of us who bought the sweaters. I also puchased a tank top and scarf with a slde and only paid a little over 20 Euro.

 

This town had a lot of jewelry stores also. Some of them had the high-end Jewelry and others had jewelry that was made in the region.

 

And, of course, these towns were proud of their 'American' fast food places: McDonals's (referred to as the US Embassy), Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin Donuts, etc.) We tried to stay away from those and eat and have coffee at the local outdoor cafes.

 

Let me know if you have any more questions.

[missyal]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like some nice shopping. I can't wait for the trip. I'm sure it will be a totally different experience overall from the traditional ocean cruises.

What were the age ranges on your trip? We are 48 & 50. DH is a bit leary of a geriatric crowd(LOL) but I couldn't care less.

What was your favorite meal onboard?

[webfoot]

The ages on the trip ranged from early 40's to 82 ... it was a fun experience and the young couple in their 40's were always talking to some of us older folks (I'm 61 and my husband is 67) ... you meet people who have traveled all over and some that have traveled very little. We had a great mix.

 

As for my favorite meal, it would be hard to say. I had some wonderful salmon dishes which came off of the Standing Order menu. I didn't have a meal that I didn't like. For lunches, twice they offered Cheeseburger and Fries. We sort of turned our noses up at that until people started raving about them. My husband tried it and gave me a bite ... I wish I had ordered it.