Andromeda93

We sailed on a TA on Marina in 2013, and were very glad we had chosen a balcony cabin. However, this was not because of the ability to use it during the crossing.

We had flat seas (thankfully) that June but had several straight days of heavy fog which condensed on the balcony, the chairs and on us due to the ship's forward motion. It was cold and damp the entire crossing, and no one sat in unprotected areas outside except in the hot tubs.

However, we did greatly enjoy the ability to watch the send-off musicians in several ports from the balcony. On a perfect, sunny, warm day in Cork (Cobh) a large band showed up to 'play the ship off', and we had bagpipers in another port (Quebec) and various welcoming/departing events in others.

Although you never know on which side of the ship will be shore-side ahead of time (at least I did not), we were always pleased when we ended up on the land side with something special happening. It was an unexpected bonus and thoroughly charming.

It is true that you can stand atop the ship and get a similar experience. However, the luxury of having it literally at your doorstep was unforgettable.

I feel for you in this situation. From what I've read AMA does have better luck than some of their competitors in terms of a shallow draft allowing them to continue where other ships can't pass, but it's not a guarantee.

If you or a friend have a Facebook account, you might try posting a question there. I don't know if they would respond but I do see that someone has been posting on their behalf in the past few days (on the AmaWaterways Facebook account). It might be more for general PR than operating conditions however.

Or you could try calling your travel agent (if you used one) or AMA directly. They may not know yet themselves what the situation will be two weeks from now, which of course does not help you decide whether to cancel.

In general passengers seems to feel AMA does a great job if challenging circumstances arise, but I understand you not wanting a bus trip when you paid for a river cruise. Good luck; I really hope you are able to take the trip. The shoulder season sailings always have their risks (which is why the prices are somewhat lower than peak) but when it works out it's great - fewer crowds and cooler weather. Happy sailing I hope!

I can completely understand why you want to visit Vienna. Our first visit there we looked at each other after a day of architectural touring and an amazing dinner and said 'why doesn't anyone mention this city in the same breath as Paris, Rome, etc?' It's fabulous. Great museums too, in a concentrated area which makes it easy to select a hotel that is nearby.

I agree with others that extending a cruise trip before or after in Vienna is the way to go. In our case we took a Danube cruise (with AMA) that stopped in Vienna only one day (mid-itinerary, between Budapest and Bavaria) and we had a sense that wouldn't be long enough. We flew to Munch ahead of the cruise, then took a train to Salzburg, then Vienna, then Budapest and finally got on the ship after staying in each city for several days.

When the ship came back through Vienna on its way upriver, we were so grateful we had allowed several days to tour that magnificent city rather than the little taste that was featured in our port stop there (which was only part of one day and evening). It also gives you more flexibility in terms of evening concerts and events on the ground in Vienna.

So, don't feel hamstrung into choosing a river cruise line or itinerary based on its port time in Vienna, if you think you will want more. Select the cruise that appeals most to you - if it happens to allot the perfect Vienna stop, great. If not, just arrange to visit the city on your own at the beginning or end of your cruise.

We went to all three cities on our last river cruise (Munich, Budapest and Prague) and Prague was our favorite of the three. They are all interesting and enjoyable however.

We found the language to be the most difficult in Budapest in terms of our successfully speaking a bit in the native tongue. We did leave people laughing in all three cities with our attempts.

One thing to do wherever you go is hire a private guide to show you around the city, if it's your first time there. We had two half-day private tours for our party of four in Prague and it really brought the city to life for us. It's much less expensive in non-Euro currency cities. Totally made our visit there.

I concur with all the posters who are recommending the Rhine / Mosel trip as a 'first foray' into river cruising. We've done two trips so far with AMA and have a third coming up soon, all on different rivers.

We found the scenery on the Rhine gorge section to be so beautiful (the 'castles' everyone is talking about) it really made our trip very special. The Mosel valley is also beautiful; slopes of shale planted with impossibly steep vineyards where grapes are hand-harvested by pickers hauled up via a cable system. It's amazing and the towns visited on those cruises usually cover the whole range from tiny villages right on the river to larger cities.

Another consideration is ease of entry/exit into the major cities for a given river, and how comfortable you are with the relevant languages, currencies, etc. The Rhine is an easy entry because it usually starts or ends in Amsterdam which is a wonderful city to visit and easy for English speakers to navigate. Our Rhine cruise ended with a land transfer to Paris via Luxembourg which made it easy to return home after a stay in Paris. The Danube usually involves starting or ending in Budapest or farther east, which could be more challenging now given the situation in eastern Europe (not knowing how long things there could be in flux).

One consideration as you are researching cruise companies is to look at total capacity of the ship (in terms of crowding) and also their payment structures. Some users on CC have noted that Viking requires payment far in advance of most other companies. Others have mentioned their customer service was sub par to most other companies in crises such as high or low water levels. I'm not trying to Viking-bash, just pointing out that there can be non-cruise-specific factors which may affect your choice of cruise line.

River cruising is an incredible way to see historic and beautiful sights and natural features, and I hope you do book a trip and really love it. Good luck!

We have done pre- and post- river cruise extensions on our own and also used the cruise line (AMA) extensions on occasion.

Generally we prefer to do our own thing; as other posters have pointed out, there is flexibility with accommodations and it's usually less expensive.

One time we used the cruise line transfer from the small town where we disembarked in Germany to reach Paris, because we had two older ladies in our party who couldn't comfortably walk long distances at train stations. The bus transfer was easy and convenient if not exciting, and included a stop and city tour in Luxembourg. The hotel in Paris was not our favorite however; it was somewhat out of the way and more costly than what we would have paid with direct reservations. We did do several of the activities in the post-cruise stay such as a lunch cruise on the Seine, visit to the Eiffel Tower and a city bus tour, but we could have arranged all of these on our own, for less.

In an easy-to-navigate Western European city, I wouldn't hesitate to make your own arrangements. In a place that's challenging (politically or physically) to deal with, using the cruise line's pre and post offerings might bring benefits you can't get on your own.

+1 on the comment about keeping your feet warm. I wished I had taken waterproof shoes or boots along, but I do not have any which are also comfortable for a full day of walking. I ended up with damp feet on occasion but with thicker socks at least they were not overly cold.

If you don't have comfortable waterproof shoes, it's helpful to have at least two pairs of good walking shoes. That way if your trip gets rainy you can leave one pair in your cabin to dry out while you wear the others.

The person in our group who had brought polypropylene long underwear (very thin and warm) was the envy of all when it got really cold. Hopefully in November it won't be overly chilly, unlike the Christmastime cruises when it can be seriously cold.

Wow! Looks like I'm going to have to buy a lot of stuff I'm not going to wear again, or wear much at all. Isn't waterproof stuff hot? How does everyone pack all this fleece, down, quilted stuff? Doesn't it take up a lot of space? Is the weather really that bad? Now you're scaring me!

 

Roz

No, no, don't worry at all. Your original idea of an all weather coat with a zip out liner would still be fine, if that's what works best for you. The benefit of the layering approach is you can wear the fleece or down jacket on its own if it isn't rainy, where liners of coats are not usually styled to be worn alone. In both cases you could wear the waterproof outer jacket alone if it wasn't cold but was wet.

Fleece is not overly expensive and weighs nothing - almost literally - and is very squishable and easy to pack, just like down. Both make good pillows on airplane or train rides.

You could have glorious fall weather or it could be cool and rainy, or most likely will be a combination. Budapest is a similar latitude to southern Canada, after all. Just think about what you would wear if you were outside walking around in Nashville in December or January, and plan accordingly. You'll have a blast!

We are big fans of layering fleece for warmth under waterproof outer layers for flexibility. We had snow in Vienna on Easter and subfreezing weather in Salzburg, but later in the same trip it was 80F in Prague. So layers are key in spring or fall.

We have found that windproof fleece vests and jackets, layered under a long waterproof outer jacket, are a good alternative to down which is also nice but can be pricey. Windproof fleece gloves and a warm scarf made a big difference in comfort when it was windy. I don't like the hat hair resulting from waterproof hats, so I go with a jacket with generous hood that's comfortable and has an extended front brim to keep water out of my eyes.

Most of this gear came from the outdoor gear store REI. Be sure whatever outwear you bring has taped seams or is otherwise water PROOF, not water 'resistant.' There is a meaningful difference. Have a wonderful trip!

For our trip to FP in January, I bought a 3 pack of something called a "wine diaper" on amazon (got the idea here on the cc boards) which turned out to be reusable long bags with bubble wrap lining inside. They were in a checked bag among our snorkeling gear and arrived without problem. We did not seem to have been TSA checked on this trip but in the wine diaper reviews, the one negative review said that TSA did not close the bag carefully and there was some spillage. Many others said they never even had a bottle break inside these bags. That was our experience and I used the bag returning for some jam and special oils that I got. I will be using them again on our next trip. If you cannot get a box that works, these kinds of bags are a good alternative. Ours made it through two long flights and interlining coming and going.

+1 for the Wine Diaper; also made by the same company is a similar product called the Jet Bag. Available individually and in sets of 3 on Amazon. We've used them for traveling w/smaller quantities of wine.

We brought a case of wine/port onboard Marina last year (purchased in departure port), mostly in a rolling backpack. I had bubble wrap packed in my suitcase so just wrapped up the bottles in the wine shop and loaded them into the backpack (9 bottles) and our suitcase (the rest). Do cushion your wine carefully as the porters in the cruise terminal are not O employees and may not be careful w/ your bags. Use extra tape on your baggage labels as they can come off in handling.

If anyone is still thinking about the overall ways to improve the O experience, my votes for the larger ships would be:

1. Glass-enclose the poolside smoking area, and ban cigars entirely. There are operable windows along the side of that area of the ship so 'fresh' air would circulate into the smoking area - and the smoke would have less impact on the starboard pool deck and Waves.

2. Relocate the lovely string quartet out of the 'thoroughfare' of the Grand Bar hallway. We made a point of coming to hear them each day, but the parade of people walking past while talking really detracted from the experience. It's disrespectful to the talented musicians in the quartets, and I think some passers-by were embarrassed by essentially walking through a performance.

3. Give an allowance of a few free laundry tokens per cabin. Start with Concierge and above or longer sailings only if it's too 'costly' to O (?) to provide to everyone on every sailing. It's a small thing, but even the Executive Concierge seemed a bit red-faced when handing me a bill for $8 for four tokens on a $15k+ cruise. :rolleyes:

4. More reasonable prices for ship-sponsored excursions. We usually go private but there are times and places when we'd rather go with O's arrangements, but paying 3X for that privilege grates.

5. Wish list for a retrofit - somehow increase the Terrace seating capacity. There were several times at breakfast and again at dinner when seats were unavailable. When we could wait a bit, it wasn't a problem. On busy mornings, not so good.

Of course O does so many things so well that most of us will keep sailing the line even with tiny imperfections here and there...

If you are in a concierge cabin or a Penthouse or above, you will also have the concierge or executive lounge options for breakfast. We used this more than we thought we would on a port-intensive cruise - our concierge cabin was near the lounge; we popped in and got coffee, yogurt, bagels etc and went back to the cabin for a super quick breakfast. There are no hot items in the lounges, though. Room service would have been fine too, although as taller folks we found the low coffee table not very comfortable for eating meals.

In a PH cabin on a different sailing we had room service breakfast each day, since we had a nice table/chairs at which to eat it. We still used the Exec Lounge on that trip, albeit less for breakfast and more for tea or late night coffee.

We tried the Terrace 3 times for breakfast on two different sailings but never got a table inside. I think it was just our bad luck as most guests didn't seem to have that problem. Perhaps we were just arriving at the most popular time. On those days we took our Terrace breakfast items out to Waves and ate there, although it could be a bit chilly/windy.

We used Silverfleet last June for three couples transferring from Southampton to London and had a good experience. Tony Hayter at Silverfleet was very helpful and the driver could not have been more pleasant or courteous.

Our group paid a lot more than the standard private transfer price, because we wanted to sightsee for two hours along the way to London. Even with dropoff at three different hotels in central London, the total cost was still less than O's big-bus transfers.

The convenience plus ability to customize an itinerary with private car services makes me wonder how O ever sells any transfers.

I also second the http://www.londontoolkit.com website recommended by kiawahdon. We used it a lot for transportation and touring/day trip ideas.

Yes, and also make sure your name and address tags on your luggage are securely on and accurate so your bag can be identified in case the Oceania tag falls off in the loading process. On our last Oceania cruise one of our three bags arrived in our cabin about 45 minutes after the first two. When it arrived we saw that the Oceania tag had come off and a hand written tag with our cabin number had been placed on the bag by the crew.

This happened to us too - the O luggage tag was torn off by the port luggage folks. Luckily there was a 'regular' name tag so the port staff could research which ship the bag should be on.

The ship next to us was an NCL behemoth sailing in the opposite direction, so we were glad our bag made it to our cabin even though it took a long time. Next time I'm bringing extra tape to make sure the O tags stay put.

As a beer drinker from a beer loving country I agree the beer on oceania is REALLY poor, but what can I do about it?:confused:

Agree totally with you and PinotLover; O's beer selection is woefully limited. The only thing we can hope to 'do about it,' I guess, is to continue to mention it until someone at O notices.

Given that beer does not 'age' well in bottles for the most part, perhaps the issue is inventory-management-related. But even diet soft drinks have a 'shelf life' and O doesn't seem to have trouble providing those.

There's so much great, interesting and varied beer being made in the world today; it would sure be nice if O made an effort to have a decent selection available in at least one or two venues. This goes double for cruises where O is visiting ports with a great local beer tradition.

I believe Oceania has a program where you can roll your paid reservation to another cruise. This way you are effectively extending the time period for your paid reservation. So find a cruise our farther in the future, you may be ineterested in, and roll your current paid reservation to that cruise.

I think PinotLover is correct, or at least this was an option the last time I checked. However, I think it's a one-time-only rollover option.

So if there isn't a chance you would want to book a future cruise within the time window of cruises available for booking just before the date your deposits expire, you may wish to cancel and obtain the refund.

Let's face it, Oceania has to at least pretend to be impartial in all this or else every other Agency except the top few would hate them.

 

Where is your sense of fairness anyway? If you owned a small business, would you like all of the referrals to go to the top dog? :cool:

Totally agree that Oceania should not discriminate among agents who can accurately represent the product. If smaller agencies make an effort to responsibly sell the brand, they should not be excluded in favor of the O heavy-hitters.

I was just taken aback that two of the four agencies O's search tool identified did not have any agents who actually had been on an Oceania cruise or ship, and who had to look up the answers to basic questions (e.g. 'not an O specialist'). These were agencies with large rosters of 'partner cruise lines' and seemed like brick-and-mortar versions of the Internet cruise discount websites. A third agency specialized in group tours of all sorts (land, ocean, river, adventure etc), rather than being a cruise-first agency. When they found out I was only booking one cabin for one cruise, their interest in helping me waned. The fourth didn't list O as a 'preferred partner' cruise line on their website, and never returned my call.

Of course, employees turn over and businesses evolve, so maybe agents who knew O had moved on before I called. No doubt O periodically vets the agencies to whom prospective guests are referred. I must have caught them late in the cycle. And of course O doesn't have any control over the customer service experience an individual has with an agency on any given day.

On the plus side, I later got a great referral from a fellow Marina guest to a TA who knows O well, and have been very happy with the TA experience in subsequent bookings. Not because we got a big pile of incentives (we didn't); rather because we got prompt, accurate answers to any questions, and we felt valued for our booking even though it's small potatoes.

Wow, wish I could use those tickets.

I remember seeing a thread on SeatGuru about luggage shipping. Not sure how old this information is, but in case it's helpful:

http://www.seatguru.com/articles/luggage_shipping_services.php

Some of the services mentioned were airline-based (which wouldn't help you) but some were not. Good luck.

Sadly, it appears the Oceania website's "Find A Travel Agent" tool does NOT return results for travel agents who specialize in booking Oceania cruises.

When I began research for booking an O cruise I used this tool and contacted four of the suggested agencies. Although they were relatively near me (geographically), not one of them had any special relationship with O in terms of being a 'top agent' or specialist in booking for Oceania. It appeared they were 'recommended' strictly by virtue of the zip code I entered, with no regard for the agent's production volume for Oceania.

If the OP wants to find an Oceania-expert TA for future bookings, asking repeat O cruisers on board is a great method. An alternative is to Google "Oceania Cruises Top Producer Travel Agent" or "Oceania Cruise Connoisseur Club travel agency" or similar. You can contact resulting agents to see if they offer you a better deal than an O-recommended agency.

Not sure whether O is deliberately not steering guests to its top producing agents, or if it's just inattention on their part. But whatever the reason, it's not a great web tool.

I just wish they'd quite advertising the 2014 voyages and hurry up and release the rest of 2015. Most of the 'competition' has done so and I'm impatient to see the offerings for Q3-Q4 2015. Someone indicated elsewhere on this board that the second half of 2015 would be released sometime in Feb. Sure hope so.

JimandStan, your brochures remind me so much of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr's interactions on the SS Constitution in 'An Affair to Remember,' when ladies traveled with trunks and a man would NEVER go to dinner without his jacket! Thanks for the great images.

Like Caviargal, we have also sailed with AMA (twice: AMS to Paris and BUD-Prague) and Oceania (ocean cruises - also twice). We chose AMA as we had the impression from reviews that it was the most upscale in food and accommodations of the river lines. The exception is Tauck, which is also apparently quite upscale but was over-inclusive compared to what we prefer.

We typically book our own air to arrive early and stay longer to do touring on our own. Ditto for the pre-and post-cruise hotels; we always do our own thing and do not need the Tauck door-to-door type service. Of course, it's super-easy to make your own arrangements in Paris, thanks to the Internet.

AMA was very, very nice - newer ships for the most part, well maintained and with wonderful staff. The meals were quite tasty and the included wine varied from 'meh' to pretty good. They do have a wine list so you can purchase other wines if what's on offer any given night doesn't work for you. Their Normandy cruises look lovely, and since it's a less-heavily-traveled route than the Rhine or Danube, hopefully less crowded.

FWIW both of our AMA trips were in the spring (April and May) and the weather was cool and somewhat rainy most days. It snowed in Vienna on Easter one year. We were lucky in that there was no river flooding on either trip. Also Paris was crazy crowded even in early May but I think that's pretty much the case all year long there (but totally worth it!).

Despite the PH cabins being 'one big room' which is correct, the extra space is extremely welcome if you are going to be in the cabin for a good amount of time. The type of itinerary you are considering might make the difference.

On port-intensive itineraries where you have only one sea day, you may rarely be in the room and won't miss the space. On our recent TA cruise which included SIX sea days (two unplanned) we were very glad to have the extra elbow room.

No one's mentioned the table and chairs at the foot of the bed in a PH cabin yet, which we thought were really great. We ate breakfast in the cabin every day, delivered by the butler, at this little table. The coffee table that's in the standard cabins and the PH units is really too low to be seated at comfortably; the foot-of-bed table and chairs in the PH were wonderful for breakfasting by comparison.

We didn't make use of our butler except to have him bring and set up the breakfast each day - which was not inconsiderable. The walk-in closet was HEAVEN compared to the 'regular' bedside closet.

In contrast to Brian_UK, we did make our specialty dining reservations exactly 75 days out, and even so found that some of the best dates/times were already taken. Sea days tend to fill up faster. Whatever cabin category you choose, I HIGHLY recommend making as many reservations as you are permitted ahead of time. We found it was much easier to switch around an existing reservation than to try to get one 'from scratch.' Good luck.

Our preference when traveling in Europe is to go by train, unless the trip is 6 hours or more. We travel as early as possible so as to maximize our time in the cities we visit.

 

We purchase tickets well in advance on http://www.bahn.de/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml. I do recommend first class for a longer trip and make sure you are there and ready to board at least 15 minutes prior to departure. Storage is limited to pack accordingly. Huge suitcases are not practical.

Good advice and worth trying, although I don't know if you will be able to buy these tickets online.

For a 2012 river cruise from Budapest to 'Prague' (we ended in Regensburg and got ourselves to Prague via rail), we bought tickets through the Deutsche Bahn or OBB (Austrian Rail) websites for all the legs of a pre-cruise rail trip from Munich to Budapest (Munich to Salzburg, Salzburg to Vienna and Vienna to Budapest), and tried to buy tix for Regensburg to Prague as well. We found that we could not purchase the leg from Regensburg to Prague online; we got an error message whenever we tried.

Perhaps for a rail trip originating in Prague and ending inside Germany you will have better luck. In the end, we went to a DB rail ticket office in Munich and purchased the Regensburg to Prague tickets in person at the window in the station. We already knew which train we wanted so it was quite easy to buy the tickets from the station agent despite our atrocious German.

The funniest part of that whole trip was that our 'direct' (same train beginning to end) rail journey from Regensburg to Prague left as planned, but once we were inside the Czech Republic the train rambled to a stop at the town of Pilzen and we were all put off the train by workers yelling in Czech. Apparently the operators had decided they just didn't want it to go any further, and someone came out and started washing the train cars while we stood around.

There wasn't any info in the station about when the next train to Prague would come along. We just ended up going 'with the herd' and watching the same people who had been put off the train with us, to see what train they reboarded. Eventually a few trains later everyone seemed to 'mobilize' and clambered onto the next arrival...so we did too. At some point we could tell by the GPS on our cell phone map that we were once again headed toward Prague.

The trains wholly within Germany and Austria, OTOH, were all quite prompt and operated as planned. The advice about not bringing a lot of baggage is a good one too; it can be unwieldy although on the DB cars there were luggage racks mid-car as well as overhead (at least in first class).

I envy your getting to go to Berlin; it's on my bucket list. Enjoy!

You can use the Cruise Critic reviews as well as member reviews to get a sense of which river cruise line will best suit your group.

Be sure to think about things such as whether smoking is permitted anywhere (if you have any smokers in the party) and whether there are accessible cabins if anyone has mobility limitations. Some river ships have elevators but many have areas - or whole decks - that cannot be reached without at least a few stairs.

I went through a similar exercise in 2009 planning a family vacation; we needed several cabins so we started a year in advance and even so we didn't have full choice. Going in the 'shoulder' season helps in terms of availability. There will be fewer kids traveling if you go in May or earlier or Sept and later. We've gone twice in late April and late May and never saw any guests under 40.

Many of the river ships do not have tables seating more than 6 people. On AMA Waterways we sailed two different ships which each had 2 tables for 8 people; one was consistently used by the officers and their guests. The seating is typically 'open' too, where you have a choice of whatever tables/seats are unoccupied by the time you enter the dining room, so you will probably never all end up seated together.

Whatever you do, please try to arrive earlier than the day of embarkation if at all possible. Of course, if you are using air provided through the cruise line they may fly you in on the day of arrival. But if you are coming from outside Europe, it will be well worth your while to arrive a few days earlier to get over the jet lag and to let any wayward bags catch up with you. On a 2009 Rhine cruise from Amsterdam there were several people who didn't get their luggage til two days after the sailing; it was misplaced by the airline, and since they flew in on the day of sailing they had no time to shop before the boat left. And three couples MISSED THE BOAT and had to catch up at one of the ports, two days later. They were on a flight from Australia that had mechanical issues.

Once you've decided which cruise line interests you most, do some Google searches for 'Top Travel Agent for XXX Cruises' and similar search terms. You can usually find an article or post about which agencies produce the highest volume of business for a given cruise line. You do want someone who does a lot of business with your chosen cruise brand, as they will be able to negotiate hard on your behalf. You can also research on websites like Conde Nast Traveler to see if they have any special river cruise agents to recommend.

In terms of travel direction, we've done one way each and had changeable weather both times; but it was in the spring so that may have had a lot to do with it. I think mid-Sept would be ideal. Good luck!

We were also bothered by smoke from the 'outside' smoking area on Marina, both just from walking by (on deck 12) or above (on deck 14) as well as trying to use the starboard side of the pool deck under the overhang (we prefer shade). We even smelled smoke occasionally in Waves when eating outside; I assume the forward motion of the ship led to the smoke drifting back in the direction of Waves.

I wondered why O couldn't 'glass in' the covered smoking area on deck 12? There are existing operable windows on the windowline, so there would still be fresh air in that space. A glass window wall to separate the smoking area from the pool deck and the public walkway, with an automatic door operable by a push button to provide access, would really cut down on collateral smoke wafting into the nearby pool areas as well as the elevator lobby/stairwells.

I will say we once had a deck 10 PH cabin almost underneath the deck 12 smoking area and never smelled smoke on our balcony, but being two decks down may have lessened the chance.

Perhaps they can put this on the list for the next Marina retrofit. It would make the starboard deck 12 public spaces more appealing to the nonsmokers, who do seem to be the majority of the O demographic.