Joseph Mok

Several of us ate at Khmer Kitchen (around the corner from the Blue Pumpkin, and across from the Old Market). The food was inexpensive and excellent. In the evening, we took a tuk-tuk to Abacus, an upscale French restaurant. Make sure you make reservations first, though.

Are any of these tips part of the land portion of the cruise??? I most definitely will be printing this off but we are not booked on the land portion of the trip - just the river cruise. We are doing the land portion with another company so we could design it on exactly what we wanted to see. I am sure a lot is the same but we did have some specific things we wanted to see that were not on the list so we thought this would be better. And we have more days scheduled versus the land portion offered thru AMA Waterways. (even though we are paying about the same price)

 

Thanks for all your information.

Yes, my father and I did all the land add-ons, both before and after the cruise. If you're only doing the river portion with AMA, that will accordingly reduce the recommended tipping (though you will need to judge for yourself how much you tip the land portion you book with another company).

Here are the numbers for just the river section:

National guides: $18

Boat/Bus Drivers: $6.50

Local guides: $6

Ship's crew: $80

Cruise Director: $16

Total: $126.50

Remember that most tuk-tuks or taxi rides will only run about $1-3, depending on the distance, so you should bring small bills to pay that. Also, after hard bargaining a purchase down to $4, do you want to pay with a twenty and hope for change? You can't have too many small bills.

Is that amount per person or per couple?

I tried to work out on the ship how much in tips I gave out. Here's my best guess per person (the number in the parentheses are AMA's recommended amounts; many people tipped higher):

Land Guides ($2 per day):

Hanoi/Ha Long Bay - 3 days: $6

Siem Reap - 3 days: $6

Ho Chi Minh City - 1 day: $2

River Guides ($3 per day):

Amalotus-Cambodia - 4 days: $12

Amalotus-Vietnam - 2 days: $6

Total Guides: $32

Bus/Boat Driver ($1 per full day)

Hanoi - 1 day: $1

Hanoi to Ha Long Bay - half day, but it's a long drive: $1

Ha Long Bay - 1 day: $1

Ha Long Bay to Hanoi Airport - half day, but it's a long drive: $1

Siem Reap - 2 days: $2

Siem Reap to Pred Kdam - 5.5 hour transfer: $1

Boat excursions from Amalotus - four days: $4

Phnom Penh - 1 day: $1

My Pho to Ho Chi Minh City - 1 day: $1

Total Drivers: $13

Local Guides ($1-2)

Hanoi Rickshaw: $2

Oxcart Ride: $2

Tan Chau trishaw ride: $2

Total Local Guides: $6

Ship's Crew ($10 per day): $80

Cruise Director ($2 per day): $28

Total tips at AMA recommended rates (per person): $159

If you put the crew's tip on your credit card, you need only bring $79 in cash, but remember, you will still need additional small bills for making purchases and for paying for tuk-tuks or taxis back to the hotel or ship.

As you can see from the daily tipping, simply bringing four $20s won't do you much good as so many of the tips are in very small amounts.

Hope that helps.

Allow for a correction. In order to reduce the issue of reclining seatbacks "intruding" in the space of the passenger behind, modern seats are moving to the mechanism of having the seat pivot. In this method, the seat cushion moves forward which results in the seat back leaning back at an angle from its "upright position". There is recline, just not like traditional seats.

 

Most people tend to prefer this design, as it removes the seatbacks coming far back into the space of the row behind. Makes it easier for passengers in window/middle seats to get to the aisle, as well as the psychological effect of not having a seatback closer to your face.

 

Of course, there are the traditional non-reclining seats which can be found in the rows directly in front of exit row seats (cannot have reclining into a possible escape route).

Unfortunately, that was not my experience. By having fixed seats, the airline was able to narrow the space between the rows to the point that getting out to the aisle was quite difficult.

Furthermore, when I attempted to sleep by moving the cushion down and forward, it put my head and neck at such an awkward angle that my neck was sore for days afterward.

you mentioned snafu in airport with transfer prob..did you book air thru AMA or own? Still deciding about this,,if you did,,was price similar,,time good,,etc...?? What airline did you use?

 

Looking forward to whole review.

We used our local travel agent to book through AMA. When we arrived at Hanoi and found they didn't have us on their list, we had to sign something and then we contacted our travel agent to work out the issue.

When we were about to disembark for Saigon, the Cruise Director still had the same out-of-date list, but he promised to get in touch with the company, and sure enough, he had our transfer voucher for us when we met him at the Sofitel.

We flew with Cathay Pacific and, other than the fact that their seats in coach no longer recline (they slide forward and down), it was alright. My father handled all the financial details, so I don't know how much any of it cost.

We just got back from our Mekong cruise last week (on board from Jan 2 - 9), and I've submitted a review, but in the meantime, here are a few quick comments.

The audiovox equipment isn't the best. We ended up wasting a lot of time because individual boxes would suddenly go off with no explanation.

As someone noted already, about 40% of the guests were from Australia, about 50% were from the US, with the rest being Israelis and South Africans.

Because of the policy of keeping us all within the same color groups on excursions, the only opportunity to meet others was at meals or on the sun deck. (We were on the "green" team)

AMA and our cruise director handled everything on our entrance to Cambodia; it went very smoothly. We did have a small snag on our arrival in Vietnam, as AMA goofed and didn't have us down for a transfer from the Hanoi airport, but we were able to find the guy anyway.

In Phnom Penh, the Amalotus was moored next to La Marguerite, so I took the opportunity to explore the sister ship. Like Amalotus, the ship has beautiful woodworking and features. It's somewhat smaller, and while it looks like it has plenty of Wifi, I couldn't see any computer terminals. Amalotus had four terminals, though one stopped accessing the internet after the first day. People with Ipads had no trouble accessing the Wifi, but I couldn't get my Iphone to work.

I don't remember hearing any din or loud talking in the dining room, but then again, I have often been told I lack an "indoor voice," so perhaps I was a culprit.

People will naturally differ in their tastes for food. We were disappointed in many of the meals on board. Personally, I enjoyed the fish and soups the most and meat and desserts the least. We were very happy with the meals in the Sofitels. We didn't eat in restaurants that often, but here are my recommendations:

Hanoi: The Hanoi Press Club - just across the street from the Sofitel. Posh, elegant, all dark woods and hush, very good French food.

Siem Reap: Abacus. Not exactly a recommendation. If you go, make reservations. We didn't and were seated outside with the mosquitoes. We both ordered the entrecote, which was excellent, but then my father got food poisoning. AYOR

Saigon:

The Rex Hotel Roof Top Bar - supposedly one of the "1000 things to see before you die." It has beautiful views and somewhat overpriced, but good, drinks.

Vietnam House - about three blocks from the Rex Hotel. Fantastic Vietnamese food at very reasonable prices.

Augustin - one block from the Rex Hotel. Small, intimate, French restaurant. Very, very good.

One last piece of advice: Very few people on our tour brought enough $1s and $5 to handle the amount of tipping that was necessary. I would recommend bringing $100 in singles and $150 in fives; that way you'll have enough for tips and for the occasional shopping purchase.