RobInMN

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 🤣

To quote Captain Kate: "It's not a boat". Whether we are talking about river or ocean, these are ships. I beg to differ on a couple points: Even the largest ocean cruise ships can have a larger per person square footage than a river cruise ship. Yes, there's a lot more people, but there's a lot more places those people can be spread out to. If you don't want crowds, you can almost always avoid them (unless you want to watch something like a parade). While ocean cruise ships can be "all about the ship", they don't have to be. If you are cruising the same Caribbean islands over & over, yes, it's probably about the ship. But we like ocean cruising for much of the same reason we like river cruising. Unpack once, and your hotel comes with you. Ocean and Expedition ships can get you many places a river cruise is not. In addition to many Caribbean island (very few repeats), we've done the Western Mediterranean. Norwegian Fjords and Norway up to Honningsvag, Iceland & Ireland, and most recently, the Panama Canal. We've even gone to a couple different Mayan ruins (including Chichen Itza) in Central America from a cruise ship. This fall we will be doing Greece & Turkey (which was originally booked as "Holy Land" with 2 stops in Israel). None of the things we've done and seen could be seen as part of a river cruise. Oh, and then there's the whole category of World cruises.

Duplicate

Adding to to previous answer, the RC FAQ: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/gbr/en/faq/questions/can-i-take-my-hair-straighteners-curling-iron-onboard (not sure why this is only found on the UK site) https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/prohibited-items-onboard-policy and the Health and Safety Policy https://www.royalcaribbean.com/guest-terms/guest-health-safety-and-conduct-policy/english/

https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/ocean-tech/moorings-buoys/ https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/ocs/moorings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island "The depth of the seabed beneath the Soul buoy is around 4,940 metres (16,210 ft)."

Same:

While I can't say we've split off from a tour early, in Trier we left the ship early and walked to the Baths and the Amphitheater on our own and then caught up with the walking portion of a bus/walking tour. 🙂 There have also been walking tours where the tour ended, and the tour guide gave the option of wandering on our own or following them back to the ship.

Technically, Ovation is a Quantum Class with Odyssey being a Quantum-Ultra Class. So step-sisters? Cousins? I've never been on any other Quantum/Ultra other than Odyssey, so other than things mentioned, I'm not sure what the big deal was that made them give Spectrum and Odyssey a slightly different class designation. According to Wikipedia, Odyssey has the smallest gross tonnage of the 5.

While I've done a few Ama cruises, bringing my own wine was never anything I needed to look in to 🙂 I did a google search and there is nothing on the Ama site itself. It's a bit difficult since so many cruises talk about wine! But anyway, I did find a couple statements from peoples reviews (one was on CC somewhere). One stated that you can bring your own wine and open it in the room. The other added that you can bring your own wine to dinner. Since wine with dinner is included and not charged extra (unless you're picky I guess), they don't mind if you bring your own. Don't see anything about bringing it to the lounge and drinking it there. But since wine in the lounge is not included, that might not be appreciated? Anyway, sounds like you should be able to bring your own and enjoy it in your room at least. And since you were wondering about buying in a port, there is opportunity to confirm where they would prefer you enjoy it before you do. BTW, from other posts, I recall that you can definitely buy alcohol to take home and keep it in your cabin. They don't hold it for you. So based on that, I can't see how they'd care if you also drank it.

To add the companies I'm familiar with: GC - River Adagio/Aria - 418' x 38' - 162 Passengers AmaWaterways: Older ships: 360' x 38' - 140 Passengers (4 ships) Newer ships: 443' x 38' -152-162 Passengers (15 ships) AmaMagna: 443' x 72' - 196 Passengers

I'm guessing a 4(?) week cruise, nice! I think it would be very cool to do that in one continuous trip. After we do the cruise next spring, we'll have covered basically that same itinerary, but it will have taken us 4/5 different cruises (had some overlap 🙂). Rhine - Amsterdam to Moselle - Enchanting Rhine (Ama) Rhine - Moselle to River Main - Enchanting Rhine (Ama) & Rivers & Castles (Ama) River Main - Rhine to Main Danube Canal - Rivers and Castles (Ama) Main Danube Canal (to Nuremburg) - Rivers and Castles (Ama) Danube - Nuremburg to Vilshofen - Christmas Markets (GC) Danube - Vilshofen to Vienna - Christmas Markets (GC) and Grand Danube (Romantic Danube/Magna on the Danube) (Ama) Danube - Vienna to Budapest - Grand Danube (Romantic Danube/Magna on the Danube) (Ama) Danube - Budapest to Bucharest - Grand Danube (Gems of Southeast Europe) (Ama) and the Vantage one

To add one note to clarify @Sunshine3601's response, the specialty coffees at the cafes (like cafe270) are Starbucks brand coffee.

My wife and I were on a 2 week cruise by ourselves and were never bored. We socialized when we wanted, and kept to ourselves when we didn't. (We like Ama) We did a Christmas Markets with a company we have less experience with, and so I can't really do a direct comparison, it seemed to me that with the Christmas Markets there were more evening activities, like extra time to go back to the Christmas Market in the evening after dinner where they might not have something normally scheduled. Coincidently, did you see @notamermaid's post in "The ever increasing popularity of River Cruising"? Ama is working with Celiac Cruise to provide gluten free cruises. https://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/AmaWaterways-partner-celiac-cruise-gluten-free-cruises?ct=river

We've done 4(5) so far: Danube - Budapest to Bucharest on Vantage in 2005. My sister, our spouses and my parents. Vantage is no longer, but it was basically just like Grand Circle. We were the youngest on board by far. I think my parents were actually on the younger end "Rivers and Castles" - Danube-Main Danube Canal-Main-Rhine-Moselle - Nuremburg to Luxemburg on AmaWaterways in 2019. Same as before, but with the next generation (10, 13, & 19). We were a family of 9, and there were 2 larger family groups and a few kids younger than my niece (10). This is probably my favorite port stops so far, as I am all about "Cathedrals, Castles, Forts, and ruins" 🙂 This also turned us on to Ama. I would highly recommend this one (even if a different company) to anyone as a first cruise. The reason we chose this is that their minimum age was like 7 or so, and when you look at river cruises on Disney Vacations, they fully charter AmaWaterways cruises. Figured if they held up to Disney standards, it should be good enough for our 3 generation family, and they held up. Only complaint would be that we sailed end of June to beginning of July, and it was unusually hot. The ship was not designed to handle that kind of heat, curtains on the south side of the ship had to be kept closed to help. "Christmas Markets Along the Danube" - Danube - Nuremburg to Vienna - Grand Circle in Dec 2022. Same group as before minus our daughter who had just started her first post-college career job. My wife and I hate the cabins, the pullman beds are a no go for us. Crew was nice. Ship was ok. Food meh. My parents love GC. Passenger age skewed higher, but there were a few families and younger kids. I believe the crew said this was the most kids they've ever had on that ship. December, so it was cold and snowed a few times. But we were prepared. "Grand Danube" - Danube from Vilshofen to Bucharest (2 weeks plus extensions) on AmaWaterways Spring of 2023. Just my wife & I. We actually booked this prior to my dad springing the whole Christmas Market thing on us. This can be booked as a B2B as "Romantic Danube" (or "Magna on the Danube") with "Gems of Southeast Europe". If you are considering Ama and Danube, I highly recommend taking a close look at AmaMagna. The ship is amazing! However, I almost don't recommend it as a first river cruise, only because nothing else will live up to it if you do more 🙂 . There were no kids. The first week (Vilshofen to Budapest) ended up being a wine cruise and the ages skewed a bit younger (40-60) than the second week (Budapest to Bucharest). Food was probably a bit "too fancy" for our pedestrian tastes, but everything we ate was very good, and we didn't go hungry. For a first time cruise, I would not necessarily recommend the Budapest to Bucharest portion. Do it someday, but it's not quite what you would picture for "River Cruise", it's a lot older former communist eastern block countries. Do the Nuremburg to Budapest first (or with) as it is more like what you are probably picturing. Weather wise, we went last week of March to middle of April. A couple cold days, mostly cool days. maybe 2 really nice days. I have a review on here, as does @CastleCritic, just search this forum for "AmaMagna". Next up for us for river cruises is the "Enchanting Rhine" from Basel to Amsterdam in May 2025 on Ama. We will be taking our daughter and her fiancé (both will be 25). Hopefully the weather will be nicer than the Danube was in March-April. Ama ships have fewer passengers and bigger cabins than something like GC. More like what you would be used to coming from an ocean cruise ship. Other comparisons between these 2: Ama has a single Cruise Manager that coordinates the local expert tour guides. GC divides the whole ship between 4 CMs and they lead all tours that are not visiting a location that has their own. Ama has multiple excursion options, some ports have biking options. Walking tours are usually broken up into easy, normal, and active groups. GC has 1 "option" (do it, or don't). Ama uses multiple local guides even if doing the same excursions to keep groups small. GC's groups are 1/4 of the ship. We are big on ocean cruises also. D+ on Royal Caribbean. We love the Oasis class ships and really liked the Western Mediterranean (Symphony in 2018) that you must be on. We did a week in Rome prior (we did the Rome to Rome interporting).

The only other one we've done so far is Nuremburg to Luxemburg. AmaWaterways calls this 'Rivers and Castles'. I would highly recommend this in general. Have the Rhine booked for next spring. That said, other than the Mississippi, everything mentioned are ones we'll look at doing at some point. We've lived within an hour of the Mississippi our entire lives, currently a 10 minute walk. It's not that exciting to us🤣 BTW, the Danube is usually split into 2 distinct sections by Budapest They are pretty different. You didn't say which section you did, or if you did the whole thing, but doing the other section could go on your list. Depending on which one, not as high as others.

I didn't see Nuremburg to Luxemburg? Ama calls this "Rivers and Castles". If you do that, you'll have completed Amsterdam all the way to the Black Sea (minus the last few miles, and possibly Vilshoffen to Nuremburg). This was our first Ama cruise, and we loved it. Ama has also started 2 Columbia cruises that look interesting. There are river cruises in Southern Africa that are usually combined with safaris. My dad was looking at some Amazon river cruises, but eventually never did one...yet, there's still time.

Just an FYI. That is the first cruise post amplification. She will be in Dry Dock from Feb 23rd to April 10th. You might want to be mentally prepared to switch sail dates. If things don't go as planned, I think this 4 night (and the following 5 night) is the buffer cruise(s) that can be "easily" cancelled before starting the regular 7 night Western Mediterranean itinerary (interporting with Rome). Also note that it's possible that there are some things that might not be 100% complete. Things that they can complete on the move and don't require the dry dock facilities.