CielBleu

Ama actually has some cabins designed for only one person. As others have said, Avalon has a limited number of cabins that they waive the supplement for. Those are the ones I am familiar with.

That price is awfully high, especially if you have to double it if traveling with a spouse or partner and because you will be on a bus much of the time. If it were me, I would look into taking a train to Salzburg after the cruise is over. That way you would have longer to visit and be able to see what you want.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the last hotel stay of the cruise." Don't you stay on the ship?

We have not done this but, for us, it would depend on the price and length of the extension compared to what we feel we could do on our own.

From what I've seen and heard, my guess is that it's close to 50/50. We book our own. After one bad experience, in case of problems I trust myself more than I trust anyone else. Also, we like to fly business class, and if not business, then premium select or premium economy. I feel like I usually find better rates than most of the cruise lines. As others said, it's good to go a few days early. This year we will arrive three days before the cruise and stay around a week afterward.

Could you list the options?

We haven't been on a river cruise on the Garonne or Dordogne, but we canoed on the Dordogne and loved it. The scenery was beautiful. Unfortunately, I've heard that a lot of people don't enjoy the river cruises in that area as much as others. I know it's heavily wine focused. That would be okay with us! Truthfully, I'd prefer a barge cruise for that area, but a river cruise might be considered. I think a lot would depend on the excursions offered.

If you give us a little more info, we might be able to help more. Where are you flying from? What are Aon and Leon, so we know what country you're flying to? What airline is Viking planning to put you on? Have you checked on what your airfare would be to just do it on your own instead using Viking? If you can use Delta, I would check on Premium Select to see how the price compares to your PE quote. If you book Delta on your own, you can choose one class going over and a different class coming back, when sleeping isn't as much of an issue. We did that last year. Also, I don't know whether Viking does this (we don't sail with them), but the cruise line we use will give the customer a credit if you don't use their airfare deal, and then that credit can be used to make the flight arrangements on your own. It might be worth asking.

I just took a look at the tickets, which are priced around $23 per person for a general entry ticket, $75 for priority entry and 90-minute guided tour, and $85 for a combo ticket with another attraction. Does Viking's tour give you anything above that, like exclusive entry? If not, I'd do it on your own. We've been twice, and I don't remember any difficulty taking the train from Paris to Versailles. There was a nice, short walk through town to the palace.

Is there any way you could just take Viking's free excursion (whatever that is) and then go to either Nuremberg or Munich after the cruise ends and do that town on your own? $300 per person sounds ridiculous.

This is the cruise we took, and it included the Arzviller Inclined Plane (boat lift). It's usually done on the Madeleine barge; however, ours was on the Raymonde.

I read the responses and don't see where anyone mentioned CroisiEurope specifically, so I will try to give some info. We have taken two barge cruises with Croisi. One was the Provence cruise (in 2018), and the other was the Alsace cruise (in 2021). Food was fantastic on both. If we chose one to do again, it would be the Alsace cruise because of the scenery. We thought about doing Burgundy this fall, but have booked a river cruise instead. The Oise cruise would not appeal to us, personally. On both cruises we ended up with 14 passengers. The Provence cruise had a good mixture of French, Americans, and Australians, while the Alsace cruise had 10 French and 4 Americans. The only thing that is a negative to us is the tiny rooms, but still, we plan to do another one. Let me know if you have more questions.

I understand what you're saying regarding "they seem very similar on the surface." I know Viking has great marketing, but when you delve deeper into the river cruise lines, there are things that come out that aren't obvious at first glance. To me, Viking has the worst payment policy out there. Most lines require a reasonable deposit, and then final payment is due 90 days before sailing. Viking almost always requires full payment way before that 90 days, sometimes even a year or more before sailing. Also, Viking puts around 190 passengers on the same-sized ship that Ama, Avalon, and many others put approximately 160 passengers on. Viking has some rooms that are decent sized rooms in general, but their French balcony rooms are some of the smallest in the industry (I realize you're not interested in a French balcony, but I'm just mentioning that because that's one place Viking uses to make room for those 30 extra passengers.) Now, Ama is going to offer you more excursions to choose from with no extra cost, whereas Viking includes one excursion a day, and it usually is a simple walking tour. Most people feel like there's a better selection of wines to choose from each day/evening and better food on Ama than Viking. Also, many people feel a need to purchase the extra drink package from Viking but no need to do so on a line like Ama. I believe Ama also has bicycles on board, a fitness room, and a small pool. Viking has neither. Some people may want those recreational features, while it might not be important to others. To be fair, Viking has heated bathroom floors, whereas I'm not sure any of the others do. You asked, "When you factor in air deals, isn't Viking substantially less than Ama?" Might be; might not be. We prefer doing our own air arrangements instead of leaving it up to a cruise or tour company. I'm going to give you one example. Friends of ours took a Viking cruise last year. They thought it sounded like such a good deal. They paid $150 extra for Viking Plus, then the deviation fees, plus an upgrade for Comfort Plus seats. At some point, Viking changed them to another airline with economy seats and didn't even send them a notification about it. Meanwhile, my husband and I were going to Europe two days after them and purchased a step up in seating category and only paid about $300 more per person. So it wasn't a huge difference, and we got better service and were able to sleep! I guess a lot just depends on what is important to you. I apologize for the length, but I try to be as thorough as possible.

If you are located in the USA or Canada, then I would recommend Avalon, Ama, or Gate 1 since you want middle/reasonable price. It's best to research the information on each company's site and perhaps use the comparisons on CruiseCritic and RiverCruiseAdvisor. We did a lot of research and chose Avalon. It fit best for our wants and needs, and we enjoyed it very much.

We chose Avalon for many reasons and loved the cabin with the huge sliding glass opening French balcony. The only thing I will mention as a negative is when you open up the panoramic window, the air conditioning automatically turns off. We sailed end of August and did not find this to be very bad, but I can see where if you're cruising in maybe July or earlier in August, it might be somewhat of a problem. The mornings and evenings were fine, but if you decide to skip an excursion and are in your room during the afternoon, it could get hot in the room. That said, we wouldn't hesitate to take Avalon again and there are plenty of places to sit and enjoy a glass of wine and beautiful views on both sides of the riverbank. I hope you aren't making your decision solely on the veranda aspect. There are a lot more advantages to both Ama and Avalon than there are to Viking. If it's only between Ama and Viking, I'd definitely choose Ama.