beachbumsns

I cant name agents but it doesn't really matter, Travel deals are out there if you take time and look for them.

 

The free air is an Ama waterways promotion for November on selected sailing. I thought that was a good deal in itself

The rest was by driving to my local branch that sometimes has member benefit vacations of which this happened to be one.

The upgrade was generosity from Ama which were are very thankful.

 

Last May we went on Viking and received free air with transfers, $400 obc, Premium beverage packages, champagne with glasses and a google dot. We booked that at a travel show.

Fayew, I tell my travel agent which river we want to sail on and she tells me when a 1/2 price sales comes up. There were quite a few of these last year, starting in November for sailings from November to May. If you have a TA that works for you,he/she should be able to find you something that is a great deal you won't see advertised on the web sites. It sure makes this type of travel more reasonable for many travellers.

What was your weather like in May?

 

 

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Looking forward to boarding Amastella in Basel on August 20. A couple of wine questions:

 

I read somewhere that prosecco is served during breakfast. Is this true?

 

Sip and Sail sounds great. Is there a charge?

No charge for sip and sail, there is a menu that you can choose a drink from, and they have the cocktail of the day. Also, there is a prosecco table with a table for freshly squeezed orange juice. You are treated very well on this cruise line.

Our cruise isn’t until June 2019 but airfares will be on sale soon.

Does AmaWaterways sell transfers from Munich to Nuremberg? We are not doing a pre-cruise or post cruise tour.

 

We will arrive two days early to prevent the near disaster we had last year when we missed our connection in Atlanta due to thunder storms. We arrived at our cruise ship just an hour before the ship was to sail.

We bought transfer from Nuremberg to airport but not sure about Munich. We had issues with weather but the airline provided us with taxi to Frankfurt when flights couldn't leave from Nuremberg.

Thank you both very much for the quick replies, beachbumsns and LTC! I will contact my travel agent and ask him to let me know about future unadvertised specials for AMA!

 

I am also from NS, originally. Living in Ontario now. It would be fun to cruise with people from "home". They might run out of beer, though ;)

fayew, our cruise in May, on the AMADante, Medieval Treasures had 130 people, 60 were Canadian and 1/2 of them were from Nova Scotia and our hometown. We all knew someone that knew someone. It was one big kitchen party. Had a great time and made new friends from here. The waiters were busy at the new "Sip and Sail" pre dinner cocktail time, lol.

We are planning our first ever cruise(s): A Mediterranean cruise on Royal Caribbean "Rhapsody of the Seas", and the Rhine and Moselle Splendors on AmaDante. The original thought was that we would take 4-5 weeks in Europe and do both cruises at that time, to celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2020. We've been saving our Aeroplan miles for YEARS expressly to take this trip, but now I see that some cruise lines sometimes have specials for free or discounted airfare, which means that maybe we could look at doing the cruises over two holidays. Does AMA ever run that kind of offer and if so, has anyone here taken advantage of it? Perhaps I am better off to have my travel agent keep an eye out for the "half of" offers instead?

OK, our first river cruise is about to start, AMA Dante, Aug 09, Nuremberg to Luxembourg, with precruise in Prague and post cruise in Paris.. Suitcases come out on Aug 05 and we will pack, as light as possible (that will be interesting). Catch our flight for Prague on Aug 06, for our short precruise stay there.

 

We are looking forward to this trip on AMAWaterways, as we have heard many good things about this line. Bringing lots of shorts and sunscreen, as temps are quite high, 80s/90s. Fingers crossed that we don't run into any itinerary changes/long bus rides due to the low water levels on the rivers.

Have a wonderful trip and hope you enjoy cruising with AMA Waterways as much as we did.

I sailed with AMA back in 2016. It was my first river cruise and I LOVED IT...…..now reading this thread it makes me want to sail with them again:D…….I am looking for 2019 (finally) going to take my 2nd river cruise. I have been researching ALOT lately and was thinking of trying Crystal but everyone on here who has previously sailed with AMA makes me re-think the Crystal choice...…...I am going to look at AMA again:D My cruise was TULIP TIME and just not sure what to do this time! Fun trying to figure it out. I just remember it was so good! Everything was top notch......food, service, tours,......I LOVED IT!:D

We are beginning a cruise in Basel next year and am curious about your time in Lucerne? Did you take an Ama extension? Or, did you do it on your own. If on your own, did you go there from the Zurich airport? How did you get there? Where did you stay? Tours? etc.

 

Thanks

We did Lucerne and Basel on our own. Just my opinion but I find the AMA extensions very pricey although they do include your transfers and your hotels and some meet and greets with other guests and a tour I believe. We like to explore these cities pre and post cruise on our own to have some down time with no structure. We flew into Zurich from Halifax. Layover in Montreal. Our flight arrived at 7:15 AM. We walked out of the airport after picking up our luggage and across the street to the train station. We picked up our tickets on the direct train to Lucerne. It was a one hour train ride. We stood in the line up to make sure we got the right tickets for the train as the ticket machines were in the language of the country, Swiss/German. We were were advised not to buy tickets in advance in case our flight was delayed which is was by 1 hour. Went downstairs to the platform and found our pickup spot and boarded the train. I was a little concerned about the travel method having not travelled by train with luggage before but it was really easy. In Lucerne, we were there early, so our hotel which was one block from the train station and one block from Lake Lucerne, Hotel Central Lucerne kept our luggage and we went out exploring. We were able to check in around 1 pm. A lovely hot breakfast is included with your stay and the staff were excellent. Hotel rooms were very modern although not air conditioned. We travelled in May so it wasn't too bad and we were able to open our large windows fully for air flow. In Switzerland the hotels give you a pass that gives you free transportation on the bus system. Very modern busses. We walked over to the Tourist information booth, another block from hotel and purchased our ticket to take us to Mt. Pilatus round trip, which included bus to Mt. Pilatus, Gondolas up the mountain, Cog Railway down mountain and boat trip on Lake Lucerne. It was a beautiful day and was a wonderful tour. The next day we took the little train around town and we walked everywhere else. This hotel location is very central, thus the name I guess. Highly recommend it and the tours we did. Great markets across the river by walking the Chapel Bridge. The bar areas there are nice too. If you need anymore information let me know. We also stayed at a great hotel in Basel if you don't have that picked yet. Hotel Restaurant Resslirytti. A great spot for catching transportation and walking the Rhine River and close to grocery, restaurants, etc including the hotel pizzeria. Have a great trip.

Where does this cruise begin and end?

We are doing the AMA AMADANTE Rhine and Moselle trip this fall. This is our first river trip. Welcome any suggestions. Should we bring binoculars? Flexibility with excursions. We are meeting two other couples for this trip and plan to eat meals with them.

We are on the cruise right before you and would love to hear more information.

Question; Do most people change for dinner like they do on river cruises? I know there is no FORMAL NIGHT but is a change of clothes necessary.? As stated before we are trying to keep things uncomplicated and one change of clothes a day would be great. Don’t want to be the odd couple:o BTW. Our cruise is November 2018

Thanks:cool:

Quick question about the AMA App, AMAcruiser. I can not get it to work on an Ipad, no login screen after being downloaded. Has anyone gotten the app to work on their Ipad.

 

It works fine on our Iphones. FYI, AMA Dante is now on the App.

The AMA App worked great on our Ipad. It is a very useful tool. Perhaps remove it and reload it and if you have any other problems call AMA for some technical support. It may be just a little glitch that they can help you work through.

Thanks for the information! Our cruise for 2019 is not yet on there but I was able to check out the same cruise for this year. This is our first river cruise and we are very excited!

We fell in love with river cruising last year and took another this year after many ocean cruises. Such a different experience. Really cannot compare the two types of cruises. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

We are cruising on AmaLea Melodies of the Danube in a few weeks.. I see the excursions generally last up to 3-4 hours. Is the time after the excursion free for exploring on your own? Do most people eat lunch on the ship or should we plan to find a place for lunch while in port? What time does the ship usually leave the port each day? Thanks.

Its hard to answer the question about what time the ship leaves port each day. Sometimes you are sailing in the AM and others in the evening or afternoon. There will be a sailing schedule in your Itinerary guide that AMA provides that gives you all the times the ship sails.

The excursions are either morning or afternoon. Sometimes a wine tasting at night. None of ours went over a meal time. We always ate our meals on the ship. It depends on which excursion whether or not you have a bit of time left over. We did have a small amount of time in most of the places we visited. Some of the places the ship docks are right in town and you can walk to and from the ship having a few hours to enjoy on your own.

Thinking the same thing!! We have done many ocean cruises and are familiar with the dress code. Hoping to keep it light packing for our Nov 2018 river cruise. Any help appreciated.

 

Cellagirl

Dress code is very casual. On the Captain's Farewell Dinner night people dress a little more, some women may wear a dress but most wear a nice dressy top and pants. Most evenings men wear a collared shirt and casual pants. Some even wear jeans. My husband took a dress shirt and tie with a dark khaki style pant like Dockers. He really was one of the only men with a tie on that night. There are a few older men that do take a sports coat but they are few and far between. I take my dressier tops and a pair of black dress pants. In November you may want some light sweaters. Hope this helps.

Really interested in knowing what you thought of the Medieval Treasures itinerary. We are thinking about it for this Oct due to special pricing. Would be our first river cruise.

Re: adapters. There are USB ports by the bed and European plugs. They do have a few adapters available at reception to borrow if you don’t have one. With the USB plugs I haven’t needed to pull out my own adapters.

I had taken my own adapters but I had to borrow the one from the ship. We found in Switzerland, our adapter didn't work in the hotels as they had a different shape sort of the shape of an eye for the plug in and my European adapter wouldn't fit in. There were a few like this on the ship so I just borrowed theirs for my curling iron. Lots of plugs in the extra power bar that is kept in the little cabinet under the mirror in the bedroom.

We are booking this tour in reverse for 2019. Is there a better side when traveling the river where there is more to see? Really looking forward to our first river cruise.

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We were on the Starboard and our travelling companions on the Port side. When we were in our room, we always had the camera on to see what was coming up. If we noticed it was on one side or the other, we just walked across the hall to the friends room and they did the same. But really we weren't in the rooms enough to worry we were going to miss something. Weather was great so we were either on the top deck or in the lounge area. That way you see it all. Enjoy your trip.

Has anyone noticed binoculars available for use on AmaKristina? So many castles was thinking a small pair might be nice to have a long to get a closer look.

Glad to finally find the AMA thread. My daughter in law and I will be on AMACerto Gems of Southeast Europe. Arriving in Bucharest 9/19 for 3 day pre-cruise package then staying an extra 2 nights in Budapest on our own. I did a AMA Christmas Market on the Rhine in 2016. Enjoyed it so much, will never go back to the "big cruise lines". Look forward to hearing from anyone else booked on this cruise or any "tips" from those who have done this trip.

We loved Budapest, did the hop on hop off bus and spent lots of time at the Fishermen's Bastion. It is beautiful. If you get a chance to see the Illumination of the Parliament buildings in Budapest, (maybe this is part of your cruise to Budapest) it is amazing.

Has it been published yet? Haven't see it yet but not exactly sure where it will be posted.

Here is the link to the review that I had written. It was published today. Hope you enjoy our experience on the AMADante. If the link doesn't open, you can do a search for a review on the AMADante and there are 13 that come up with mine being the newest. Thanks

https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=621624

Can anyone that has been on AmaKristina please confirm what power is on the ship? Do I need a convertor for iPhone wall chargers? Are you also able to confirm there actually was hair dryers. The site says there are and that everything is 220V so think I don't need to bring a hair dryer and think I must bring a convertor for our wall chargers but would love to confirm that with someone having been on the ship. Thanks everyone.

Beachbumsns and seniormom thanks for the information. Sounds like such a nice way to mix and mingle with other guests. Beachbumsns looking forward to your review and hope you had an amazing trip.

I submitted a lengthy review on Sunday, June 3rd, 2018, but I've yet to see it posted. I did receive the email from Cruise Critic saying they received it, and it would be published when it had been checked for content, but that was six days ago and nothing yet. It did not take that long in the past to have a review posted. Has anyone had a similiar experience in not having the review posted in a timely manner? Thanks