RobInMN

I've seen this reference before, and was curious, so I did a little Google searching. As I believed, they are 2 separate companies. APT is owned by the McGeary family. Ama is owned by husband/wife team Kristin Karst & Rudi Schreiner, and original third owner Jimmy Murphy's share appears to now be owned by his son Gary Murphy. The Wikipedia page for APT indicates that APT was an investor with Jimmy Murphy in starting Ama. The Ama page makes no mention. Apparently last year, APT chose not to renew their 18 year partnership with Ama which ends after this year. It sounds like they chartered AmaWaterways ships? Sounds like this will be the last year. They have launched their own (owned?) ship on the Duro, and it appears that they are launching 2 new (owned?) ships for the Rhine, Main and Danube. I can't see anywhere on the APT site to book, so I can't confirm if they fully charter certain Ama sailings or what. But the APT site says they use AmaWaterways cruise managers.

They did

That sucks! I Google searched your sail dates, and it looks like you got bumped for the Atlantis Cruise group. Now I wish I had used Incognito mode.

No sound or editing. Just straight from the camera. Joby GorillaPod secured with some safety tethers And for the full PC transit, connected to a 10,000 mAh power bank.

If you peruse this forum, just going back to threads even in the last 6-12 months, there are a many threads asking for opinions on or comparisons of various cruise lines. There are fans and detractors for almost all of them. There are things about some cruise lines that people like, and other people don't like the same things. Also note that many people, when they find a line they like, they stick with it. Don't try searching, just go back thread by thread looking at subject titles. Anyway, to answer your question, for us, that's AmaWaterways. We did 1 cruise on them, and loved it, and haven't looked elsewhere. My parents, they love Grand Circle. We did a GC with them and hated it. I've re-hashed the differences between the 2 in a few threads, so I won't do that here. Many, many people love Viking. If they were that bad, they wouldn't have so many ships, but others don't like them. That said, I can't say I've really ever seen anyone post negative things about Ama or Avalon.

Ah! OK. The phone and power bank are not USB-A, the issue is that they have proprietary connection ports, and the only cable you have is for USB-A. That is another option I have seen before, that I neglected to mention. I hated when they did that. While I believe that was common with cameras, I can't say I recall ever seeing a power bank with a proprietary power connector for charging. Interesting. BTW, you can still use a USB-C charger with a USB-A cable with something like this (there's also products without the short cord): Also, what do you use for a phone? Almost any phone camera in the last 4 or 5 years should be able to take better pictures than a compact digital camera. Basically the only thing that will take better pictures is an SLR. As such, I think the whole compact digital camera market has essentially disappeared. Phone cameras are so good, there just no market anymore. My Samsung S20+ takes excellent pictures. It's 4 models old and I don't even have the Ultra one.

Love this shot!

Your older power banks and camera are not "USB-A", they might be MicroUSB. Device inputs are never USB-A. They started as USB-A is mono-directional. In the really old days the other end was USB-B. Then came MiniUSB, then MicroUSB. All mono-directional with USB-A on the source end. USB-C is bi-directional. You can have devices that output and/or input USB-C. My power bank has a USB-C port that I use to charge the power bank as well as use the same port to provde power. You can charge you older devices using charges and power banks that are USB-C, you just have to have the correct cable. You can have cables of the following types: USB-A -> USB-B USB-A -> MiniUSB USB-A -> MicroUSB (most common "legacy") USB-A -> USB-C (common transitional as devices had USB-C as inputs, but still using legacy chargers) USB-A -> Lightning (for those Apple People) USB-C -> USB-C (Ideal - for now anyway) USB-C -> Lighting (again, for those Apple people) But you can also find: USB-C -> MicroUSB USB-C -> MiniUSB(Really? why???) And then there's USB-C Thunderbolt, which can also be used for video: USB-C to HDMI USB-C to MiniHDMI USB-C to DisplayPort Basically, I would sum up the EU law as doing 2 things: Force Apple to switch from their proprietary Lightning connector to USB-C Force consumer devices to abandon the legacy MicroUSB on new products. I'm all for both of these. While I don't use Apple products, it frustrates me to no end to be looking for rechargeable products only to see that they are still using MicroUSB. Seriously. It's been almost a decade since USB-C was introduced, and 6 years since it was really mainstream. Stop using MicroUSB ports on new products! Also, just remembered another device we charge on a cruise: 1 travel lighted makeup mirror

Lots of devices that need charging.😁 2 phones 1 tablet 1 set of earbuds (could be 2, but my wife almost never uses hers on the trip) 1 smart watch (special charger - uses a USB-A) 1 Nook (eReader) - only occasionally needs charging, but needs MicroUSB 1 GoPro - depending on trip 1 power bank 1 laptop - while it can use the PD USB-C, usually use it's actual charger And after we land from a flight, 2 sets of Bose QC45's, and 2 sets of Bluetooth Transmitters (that we use instead of a cord since the Active Noise Cancellation feature only works when in Bluetooth mode.

Yep, hence my comments about height being a factor. When we were on Radiance in April on the PC cruise, the captain straight up said that bridge heights for ports they want to service was a large?/main? consideration in the design.

The same son that did a summer internship with royal and said that the Quest was never coming back after COVID? I think I'll put a bit more weight on what the captains are telling people at the Q&A's. But until there's some official announcement (or a very well sourced leak), it's all speculation.

Yes, this is a thing for some European river cruises. We have sailed on AmaWaterways, and they have a number of bikes and even have bike tour options for some ports, and when we were in Amsterdam, we saw some river cruise ship docked among the many river ships that appeared to be some sort of all biking thing. It's definitely not all companies, and not sure if this is a thing only in Europe or if you find it elsewhere.

Yes, all Royal Suite Class perks are the same on all ships (except Spectrum sailing the China market) https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-is-royal-suite-class https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-are-the-benefits-of-royal-suite-class

While I think it's largely a ridiculous thing to want to do. Lugging a folding bicycle around. I do find the response from the ship puzzling, since I have seen crew member YouTube videos that show that the crew has access to bicycles (full size) that they can check out and ride in (some?) ports.

I am not sure where you are getting you information, but every time a captain has mentioned anything about size at a Q&A, they have mentioned Voyager class, and even freedom class. While I would personally love a Radiance class size ship with the modern amenities, I really don't think that the economics of a new Radiance class size ship will work for RCI. There are a couple threads where this has been discussed quite a bit. The length and beam of Voyager vs. Radiance is not that great: Voyager class: 311m x 48m, 64m above the water, Freedom 339m Radiance Class: 293m x 33m (can't find an official stat, but an estimate of 52m) Radiance was specifically built as a PanaMax, which is 290m x 33m, 58m above the water line. NeoPanaMax is 366m x 51m, and still 58m. The 58m limit is not due to the locks, but the bridges. Bridges appear to the the limiting factor for a number of ports. Maybe more so than pier. We went on the Arctic Circle on Jewel (Radiance class), and in Flam, the ship is longer than the pier, and in Honningsvag, I swear the pier is less than half the length, maybe closer to 1/3. So I am not sure how much pier length/width is a true limiting factor. My guess is that we will see something close to the length and beam of Voyager, possibly longer, but limiting the height to something that can get under the bridges that they need to. So probably 58m max, and probably using retractable stacks. It will meet other Panama Canal requirements, like the life boats being within the hull line. and likely a self-contained tendering ability like the current Radiance class.

@Daisi. I highly recommend getting a charging station. Then you can charge everything with even just 1 outlet. You don't have to worry about changing what's charging. This is the one I have, but there are many out there. I recently upgraded from one that was all USB-A to this one that has 5 USB-C (including 2 65W PDs) and 2 USB-A's. Plus, something like this will charge a lot faster than the low powered built-in USB ports you'll find on any ship or hotel room. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BX3V6ZZX I also bring a few of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058EG0KC And a couple of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YDF8GCT I also bring a 10 foot USB cable. This combination of adaptors/chargers should make it so that you don't need to worry about layout.

OK, I realize this is over a year old, but I only recently discovered this sub forum. 🙂 These were actually over 3 weeks, but it made more sense to me to put them in a single post rather than resurrect 3 threads. These are all from the Grand Danube river cruise on AmaMagna. Took almost 1000 pictures 🤣

From our Radiance of the Seas Panama Canal cruise. One picture is from the next week. Ship: Excursions

Just found this thread. 2024, April - Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Radiance of the Seas Other side, with Norwegian Encore, Radiance of the Seas, Neu Amsterdam 2024, April - Panama Canal - Radiance of the Seas (from the canal web cams) Miraflores Locks Pedro Miguel Locks 2023, September - Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico - Allure of the Seas 2023, April - Golubac (Fortress), Serbia - AmaMagna 2023, March - Linz, Austria - AmaMagna 2022, November - Catalina Island, California - Navigator of the Seas 2022, June - Flam, Norway - Jewel of the Seas 2022, June - Honningsvag, Norway - Jewel of the Seas 2022, March - Willemstad, Curaco - Odyssey of the Seas 2022, February - Coco Cay, Bahamas - Odyssey of the Seas, Jewel of the Seas 2019, December - Basseterrre, St. Kitts - Symphony of the seas, MS Azura 2019, July - Trier, Germany - AmaDante 2019, July - Cochem, Germany - AmaDante

Here's my first time-lapse video I did as a test prior to the Panama Canal. It's of us arriving in Cartagena, Columbia. Not sure if it qualifies as a "Sail In", but here's the one I took of our Panama Canal Transit. GoPro 10 using linear and a picture every 2 seconds. So 1m video = 1hr time

Thought I'd add my video. This is my second time lapse. The first one I did was a test video of us arriving in Cartagena, Columbia 2 days before, GoPro 10 using a picture every 2 seconds (so 1m video = 1 hour time), linear. We had a couple delays to get started, so it took us 13 hours total. I used a JOBY GorillaPod, secured it with a safety tether and attached a 10,000 mA Power Bank

Technically, it's a helium balloon. as far as I know, it's permanently inflated. It's also permanently tethered and just goes up and comes back down. No idea how long it stays up. Never done it, and not sure it was even operating the 2 times we went to Coco Cay. It's not a hot air balloon like you might be picturing. My opinion would be that if you are interested in doing a hot air balloon ride, I'd look for something local on a real hot air balloon. We did this with my grandmother when I was a kid, and it was pretty cool. We watched them fill it, got in, drifted for well over an hour and came down. A chase car followed us to give us a ride back. That could be well worth the money.

If you are interested in descriptions/reviews of the port stops on Ama, I did "Magna on the Danube" which is essentially the same as "Romantic Danube", as the first week of the "Grand Danube". This has a very similar itinerary to the one you are doing. (The second week is "Gens of Southeast Europe"). Review is here:

Us too. But we split most of it between Costco and Delta Amex. Costco has the cash back and Delta Amex is for Medallion status

You should pop over to the RC board when "free" vs. "Included" is debated 🤣