Gate 1 - Monarch Baroness - Rhine River - Review

We are an Australian couple and thought you might like to hear our thoughts on our recent Rhine River cruise.

First off, we booked Gate 1 taking a bit of a chance on a relative unknown brand....with great prices. Our cruise was Amsterdam to Basel in July 2017.

Embarkation....we arrived about 2pm at the dock and went straight on board. After the formalities,we were directed to the lounge for a drink and snack while awaiting our rooms . Quiet a nice and well kept ship, Monarch Baroness, for its age. The only real sign of wear was the furniture upholstery in the lounge. It really needs a change.

First night was welcome drinks, meeting the Captain, Staff and then dinner. All very civilised. Next day was a bus and boat tour of Amsterdam, before cast off.

Meals were buffet breakfast and lunch, and single sitting dinner. A full cruise can make it a bit of a squeeze in the dinning room. Beer and wine flows freely at dinner time. Coffee, tea and biscuits always available in the lounge. The food was always interesting, with a number of options, and very yummy...so, in short, no issues with food or drink.

The rooms go over three decks. The bottom deck is below water line so cabins have small windows high on the walls . Both the other decks have cabins with full height sliding glass windows which, when open, form a balcony. The rooms are fairly spacious and have all the usual facilities. No issues there .

The top deck is all free for sitting and relaxing. It has a small jacuzzi and shade sails...which were raised and lowered as required for bridge clearances.

Excursions....at each town visited, the ship provided free walking tours with local guides. The rest of the time was free, with paid optional tours in a few ports. All the free tours were quite worthwhile.

Disembarkation was equally efficient.

Overall....great value for money. I don't know what you'd get extra from the higher priced competitors....but we wouldn't hesitate to book a Gate 1 trip again.

Thank you for the review, we are doing a Budapest to Munich on the Monarch Princess in 2018 and were not sure of this company. This relieves my worries.

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If it's any further consolation for you, we met passengers who were on their 3rd cruise with Gate 1 and some who had done many land tours with them...and we're very happy campers.

Thank you, really appreciate the information. Now I am looking forward to this cruise.

I have done the Rhine on Viking and the Danube on Gate1. I found Gate1 to be every bit as good as Viking at a lower price point.

Thank you very much for your review of the baroness. We are on 22 October 2017 sailing Amsterdam to Budapest. We hope to arrive at the boat about 10.30 - 11 ish then leave our luggage before going to Anne Frank house. I will buy the tickets on line and aim for something around 12.30 - 1 pm. Taxi or bus/tram from boat to house depending if we are pushed for time.

Do you think this will work ok? Not all our group are going to Anne Frank house so I guess if we can't drop the luggage at the time we arrive, those not going can deal with the extra luggage. Was there a time that you needed to be registered as a passenger? I am thinking as we also have our first night in Amsterdam on the boat, do we have to be officially on board at a certain time or could we do more exploring after our time at Anne Frank haus, maybe forget about dinner on the boat and come back 8 - 9 pm ish?

I really appreciate any info you can give us. I did this itinerary 10 years ago on APT but first time for the others of our group.

Cruising October 1, Basel to Amsterdam on the Monarch Baroness. Anyone else going on that date? Any information about that cruise would be appreciated.