Boogwoog

Hi all,

 

I've just booked my first River Cruise and the information in this post was very helpful!

 

Kathy Q

Hi Kathy, good luck with your first River Cruise. I cruised with you and other Tuggers in Alaska, 2006. My wife and I are cruising with AMA on October 10th from Budapest to Rousse, with a pre-cruise on our own in Vienna and a post-cruise stay in Istanbul. This is our second River Cruise with AMA (Paris-Barcelona was our first one in 2014). We had wonderful experiences with AMA on our first cruise and hope to replicate this on our second cruise.

With Marriott timeshares, frequent flyer miles and reward points (which we learned a lot over the years from the Tug Bulletin Board and FlyerTalk) we're able to front or back end our River Cruises with enjoyable land stays as well.

We hope you have a pleasurable experience with AMA.

Chris

Hi Kristin,

Thanks so much for making AMA and yourself available to field questions here. We're about to take our second AMA cruise (Gems of the Southeast) this October 2016, with the 4 day post-cruise stay in Istanbul, which we were so looking forward to enjoy. We booked our airfare separately a while ago. When some of the turmoil occurred in Istanbul this year, we seriously considered changing our itinerary for the post cruise. Before we made final payment on this booking in July, we had the opportunity to change our post-cruise with AMA to Bucharest and make adjustments to our airfare, with no additional airfare changes. But we were assured by our travel agent that AMA was still going to proceed with the post-cruise tour to Istanbul and we've already procured our Turkey Visas and can't really change our airfare plans from Istanbul to the USA, without incurring any change fees.

So, we haven't received our paperwork from AMA for this cruise, and we're now within 60 days of departure. We've checked-in online with AMA and we've noticed that there are no limited tours offered for Istanbul. With the recent terrorist attacks in Turkey and the failed coup, are there any recent changes to the post-cruise excursion to Turkey, which we have already paid in our booking? And when can we expect our cruise package from AMA?

Just wondering and any information you can provide would be most appreciative.

We plan on using ff for our air. Why was everyone board with ride to Barcelona? Not pretty countryside? It is a long way but they stop for a lunch break from what they advertise. Good price for Barcelona hotel and tix.

 

This is one trip I just want to sit back and be directed and not think. We did a British isle cruise the year before and I headed a few private excursions and was exhausted. Parts I truly didn't enjoy because of it. Need to relax and sit back this time. Thanks for the info!

I'm sure not everyone was bored on the ride. I didn't find the countryside pretty or interesting. It was primarily highway driving. For those with challenging knees or hips, the ride on a cramped bus can be a pain. The leg room for many of the buses was not good, except for small or petite people. Yes, there was a lunch break stop at a border gas station (where we changed French buses and drivers for Spanish buses and drivers under existing protocols.)

We did this cruise last year in the beginning of September. We did the land portions on our own, but used AMA for land transfers from Paris to Lyon and from Arles to Barcelona. (We stayed 5 nights in Paris and 2 nights in Barcelona and then to Mallorca for 7 nights.)

We booked our own flights (from CLT to CDG, from Barcelona to Mallorca, and Barcelona to CLT), and leveraged hotel points and a timeshare exchange for lodging. (Breakfasts were free for us at the hotels with our reward membership status.) We're not good at keeping meticulous score of our spending, but in Paris we probably spent around $1000 (Exchange rate was $1.40 to 1 EU when we first obtained currency), which included Museum Passes, Taxi/Uber, dining -- eating out a few times at Bistros, Metro fare, and gifts/souvenirs. We also did a Paris by Mouth tour which we highly recommend. If I had to do it over again, we probably try to do the rail transfer from Paris to Lyon on our own, as it did not seem complicated.

From Arles to Barcelona, the bus ride was rather long and boring -- around 7 hours. Many on this cruise were annoyed by the length of the ride. We probably spent around $250 for our 2 nights in Barcelona, which included hop-on-hop off bus tickets, La Sagrada Familia tickets, shopping, and dining out.

WOW & thx for your blog & photos. DH & I are lurking on the River Cruise board. I have narrowed the choices to Tauck & AMA but leaning > to AMA for France next Summer. Will follow your postings. Really interested in age/activity range on river cruises. DH & I are working ,active in early 60's. Have zero problem with older cruisers but do not want to be

on the "assisted living" cruise ( Boy, I'm going to get nasty notes for that).

 

Carole

I was on an AMA Paris-Barcelona cruise, Sept 4-11, 2014. And I didn't see anyone of us in the group to be "assisted living" types, though several of us were afflicted with bad knees, titanium knees or hips, or were generally not as quick footed as someone 40ish. I'd say half were still working and the other half gainfully, and actively retired. The loud group on the cruise were 40-50 y/o types, hell bent on being annoying the rest of us during dinner or in the lounge. Someone already blogged about this cruise in July of this year, and I recommend you read his posting: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2068657&highlight=amadagio.

You will likely be surrounded by people with different physical capabilities.

Choose the group your most comfortable. And of course, you're free to engage in a lot of touring on your own.

Thanks for posting this wealth of information about your trip. We're doing this cruise, September 4-11, and it's our first river cruise and only our second trip to Europe. Your information has been helpful to us.

Chris