AMA Vietnam

Thanks for all the info. I have my Visa for Viet Nam and wondering if we should get E-Visa for Cambodia. Did you scan your passport picture in to get Evisa? I'm not so good at that.I know when we went to Bali and I think it was Egypt we got Visa at the airport and it just took a couple of minutes. Would love to know how others did it. Thanks

Donna

Thanks for all the info. I have my Visa for Viet Nam and wondering if we should get E-Visa for Cambodia. Did you scan your passport picture in to get Evisa? I'm not so good at that.I know when we went to Bali and I think it was Egypt we got Visa at the airport and it just took a couple of minutes. Would love to know how others did it. Thanks

 

Donna

We scanned the photos and then uploaded them to the site. There were step by step instructions on how to do it. I recall that I had a slight problem but after a few tries it worked. You can do it!

2FlTravelers.....My Heroes!

Donna

Thanks for all the info. I have my Visa for Viet Nam and wondering if we should get E-Visa for Cambodia. Did you scan your passport picture in to get Evisa? I'm not so good at that.I know when we went to Bali and I think it was Egypt we got Visa at the airport and it just took a couple of minutes. Would love to know how others did it. Thanks

 

Donna

On our recent trip with AMA (Nov 15) almost everybody had our cruise director handle the Cambodian visas....we just gave him our passport size photos and $20.00 each. Worked really well and sure was simple!

Susan

Susan,

Thank you for the informstion about the Cambodian Visa, Are you sailing on the Ruby Princess? We're doing the Transatlantic on the Ruby Princess on Oct 9, 2012 from Venice to Ft Lauderdale.

Donna

Just wondering - when you say that you have the cruise director handle the Cambodia visas, is that because you are on the land tour with AMA also?

I am on my own land package as we wanted to have more days in Hanoi and days on the end in Saigon. So I don't think we will see the CD until we actually get onto the river cruise.

Thanks in advance

Just wondering - when you say that you have the cruise director handle the Cambodia visas, is that because you are on the land tour with AMA also?

 

I am on my own land package as we wanted to have more days in Hanoi and days on the end in Saigon. So I don't think we will see the CD until we actually get onto the river cruise.

 

Thanks in advance

Yes, I forgot that it would have been done by the CD only for those doing the AMA land portion-which was about half of all passengers. I believe those doing only the river portion met up with us in the lounge at the Sofitel Siem Reap-a beautiful hotel.

Donna, yes we are on the Ruby Sept 15th Venice to Barcelona.

As we were traveling independently of AMA before we boarded La Marguerite, we could not use the CD to obtain our Cambodian visas. Rather, we used the marvelous eVisa system offered by Cambodian immigration. One does not need to scan the passport photo from the passport. The eVisa application merely reguires a head shot, as described on the website. We used a couple of digital photos we'd taken last year to send to our guide in Rio so that he'd recognize us more easily at the airport. Once we'd received the eVisa back from the Cambodian Embassy, we printed out several copies in color (you can also do it in B&W) to use when we arrived in Siem Reap. Worked like a charm - we were through Immigration & Customs in a few minutes.

Since we were doing only the cruise portion with AMA, we met up with the rest of the passengers at the Sofitel in Siem Reap. From there, we all took buses to the port on Tonle Sap Lake, where we boarded small boats (capacity of a couple of dozen pax) to take us out to La Marguerite, which was moored out on the lake.

A new port facility is being built at the port on Tonle Sap Lake; so perhaps in the future, La Marguerite and AmaLotus will be able to dock there, rather than use the local tenders.

With regard to hotels, we found the Sofitel Metropole Legend in Hanoi to be a superb facility. We booked it on our own, although AMA uses it as well for the land portion of the trip. It's a lovely hotel, with excellent service and fantastic pastries offered in the breakfast venues. The hotel has a very good patisserie/boulangerie on permises, which supplies both of the breakfast restaurants, as well as the lovely little deli called "L'Epicerie". We bought almond croissants and pains au chocolat for our guides each day at that little speciality cafe.

Other nice things about the hotel in Hanoi: Amazing water pressure in the showers - the rain shower was positively decadent. We had two excellent dinners at the Vietnamese restaurant in the hotel, Spices Garden - a bit expensive but absolutely delightful in service, presentation, and quality of the food.

As we were traveling independently of AMA before we boarded La Marguerite, we could not use the CD to obtain our Cambodian visas. Rather, we used the marvelous eVisa system offered by Cambodian immigration. One does not need to scan the passport photo from the passport. The eVisa application merely reguires a head shot, as described on the website. We used a couple of digital photos we'd taken last year to send to our guide in Rio so that he'd recognize us more easily at the airport. Once we'd received the eVisa back from the Cambodian Embassy, we printed out several copies in color (you can also do it in B&W) to use when we arrived in Siem Reap. Worked like a charm - we were through Immigration & Customs in a few minutes.

 

Since we were doing only the cruise portion with AMA, we met up with the rest of the passengers at the Sofitel in Siem Reap. From there, we all took buses to the port on Tonle Sap Lake, where we boarded small boats (capacity of a couple of dozen pax) to take us out to La Marguerite, which was moored out on the lake.

 

A new port facility is being built at the port on Tonle Sap Lake; so perhaps in the future, La Marguerite and AmaLotus will be able to dock there, rather than use the local tenders.

 

With regard to hotels, we found the Sofitel Metropole Legend in Hanoi to be a superb facility. We booked it on our own, although AMA uses it as well for the land portion of the trip. It's a lovely hotel, with excellent service and fantastic pastries offered in the breakfast venues. The hotel has a very good patisserie/boulangerie on permises, which supplies both of the breakfast restaurants, as well as the lovely little deli called "L'Epicerie". We bought almond croissants and pains au chocolat for our guides each day at that little speciality cafe.

 

Other nice things about the hotel in Hanoi: Amazing water pressure in the showers - the rain shower was positively decadent. We had two excellent dinners at the Vietnamese restaurant in the hotel, Spices Garden - a bit expensive but absolutely delightful in service, presentation, and quality of the food.

The company we have gotten prices with (which said after the first of the year we are to pay the deposit) included our hotels, airfare from Hanoi to Siem Reap, Junk boat, tours, and many of our meals. So we will have to do our visa on our own. How long in advance did you do it? But you didnt' send in your passport correct?

We are going to have to get a India visa for our May 11th trip (and heard Malaysia requires one to but we haven't checked) as we are doing a repositioning from Dubai to Singapore at that time. So that doesn't give us much time between returning on May 29th and then leaving again June 22nd. WE had heard you dont' want to get VISA for Vietnam before 3 months prior so that only gives us less than a month between May 29th - June 22nd. (we also need passport from April 14th - April 25th for a Transatlantic cruise Florida to Barcelona)

Anyway - we realy booked to many things during a short time and now worry about getting these passports. We have held off of booking anything in Feb and March to try to see what we can figure out on Visas. But no matter what - we won't be canceling this River Cruise. :)

Denmom - Neither the Cambodian eVisa process nor the Vietnamese Visa-on-Arrival process requires you to send your passport anywhere other than your own bedroom dresser drawer!! Indeed, the Cambodian process does not require anything that you cannot supply yourself. For the Vietnamese Visa-on-Arrival you will need a letter from your tour agency called a Visa Approval Letter. You use that letter to obtain your visa at the airport in Hanoi. The authorities at the Hanoi airport are a bit (to say the least) disorganized; but it all works out in the end; and you will likely get through that visa procedure just in time for your luggage to arrive at the luggage carousels. We were somewhat annoyed by the lack of organization but discovered that it was: either wait a few minutes at visa control or wait a few minutes at the luggage carousel. Total time elapsed was well less than an hour.

Then, we were whisked off by our driver to the lovely Sofitel Metropole Legend Hotel in Hanoi.

Thus, visa issues for Cambodia and Vietnam should not occupy any part of your mindshare in planning for this trip, irrespective of where else you might be going on the same trip.

Denmom - Neither the Cambodian eVisa process nor the Vietnamese Visa-on-Arrival process requires you to send your passport anywhere other than your own bedroom dresser drawer!! Indeed, the Cambodian process does not require anything that you cannot supply yourself. For the Vietnamese Visa-on-Arrival you will need a letter from your tour agency called a Visa Approval Letter. You use that letter to obtain your visa at the airport in Hanoi. The authorities at the Hanoi airport are a bit (to say the least) disorganized; but it all works out in the end; and you will likely get through that visa procedure just in time for your luggage to arrive at the luggage carousels. We were somewhat annoyed by the lack of organization but discovered that it was: either wait a few minutes at visa control or wait a few minutes at the luggage carousel. Total time elapsed was well less than an hour.

 

Then, we were whisked off by our driver to the lovely Sofitel Metropole Legend Hotel in Hanoi.

 

Thus, visa issues for Cambodia and Vietnam should not occupy any part of your mindshare in planning for this trip, irrespective of where else you might be going on the same trip.

I hadn't heard anyone mention this but our flight goes from St. Louis to New York to Tokyo to Hanoi. So I guess there isn't a problem flying into Tokyo since we will be in transit correct?

I do worry about VISA because as I think I have said before, we had to cancel our trip to Brazil once due to not getting a visa in time. Sounds like this trip is going to be easy to get them which will be great.

Denmom, Denmom, Denmom - You are a bit of worrier, are you not??!! Flying into Hanoi via Tokyo really does not have anything to do with visa issues for Vietnam. As long as you are in transit to another destination, the transit in Tokyo has no visa issues whatever. You need simply focus on your visa issues for your arrival into Vietnam. Those issues are simply addressed as we have discussed previously on this thread. Relax and have a wonderful visit to Vietnam and Cambodia. (And please believe that this message is coming from a seriously O/C person ;) , who leaves nothing to chance. ) Cheers, Fred

Denmom, Denmom, Denmom - You are a bit of worrier, are you not??!! Flying into Hanoi via Tokyo really does not have anything to do with visa issues for Vietnam. As long as you are in transit to another destination, the transit in Tokyo has no visa issues whatever. You need simply focus on your visa issues for your arrival into Vietnam. Those issues are simply addressed as we have discussed previously on this thread. Relax and have a wonderful visit to Vietnam and Cambodia. (And please believe that this message is coming from a seriously O/C person ;) , who leaves nothing to chance. ) Cheers, Fred

lol lol lol I will have to give you the short version of our "in transit" story. lol We walked thru the wrong door and cost us $18 a piece to go back thru the door. We learned our lesson to not believe the airlines people and to read the signs thoroughly. lol I most definitely would hate to put out this much money on the trip and lose it so a little bit of a worry. Also, we have never been on a river cruise. I am worried about everything. lol I am a picky eater, now after reading all this post, worry about getting sick, worry about what to pack since I am hearing it is super hot - well, yes, I do worry. lol lol lol

But before that - I need to get hotel for the Disney cruise and shuttle so will figure out the Vietnam/Cambodia visas in February or March. lol

lol lol lol I will have to give you the short version of our "in transit" story. lol We walked thru the wrong door and cost us $18 a piece to go back thru the door. We learned our lesson to not believe the airlines people and to read the signs thoroughly. lol I most definitely would hate to put out this much money on the trip and lose it so a little bit of a worry. Also, we have never been on a river cruise. I am worried about everything. lol I am a picky eater, now after reading all this post, worry about getting sick, worry about what to pack since I am hearing it is super hot - well, yes, I do worry. lol lol lol

 

But before that - I need to get hotel for the Disney cruise and shuttle so will figure out the Vietnam/Cambodia visas in February or March. lol

Lol, I am a big worrier too, I think because I planned the whole trip , as well as shuttle arrangements, Hanoi kids, Zoom, Korea Stopover etc. etc. I wanted to make sure everything went off without a hitch and it did!

Only thing that went wrong, (except for dh being sick for a few days), was I lost a good book on the flight over.

On another note here's a little story from our recent trip:

On our AMA Danube river cruise in May 2010 we met 2 couples with whom we hung around/ate dinner etc. ..then when the cruise was over we exchanged emails and agreed to keep in touch, but we never did.

Just last month, in the elevator of the Sofitel in Hanoi, guess who we met! One of the couples from our Danube cruise, they were on our same Amalotus cruise. It was great to see them, and now we figure we absolutely must stay in touch!

Susan

asked this in another post,,but got lost.

When quoted,AMA gave me one that was less than I can find on own,,,wonder if this is firm??asked 3 times and said YES,,but my TA,,who only handles air thru cruiseline said,,,too early FOR SURE,,,can t find any fee to pay to have a say as to whats offered,,and DONT want to end up flying too long,too far,,etc...any ideas,,,?? as a last resort can pay more and book on own,,but ?????????????:confused:

We've just returned from our marvelous adventure in S.E. Asia, including an excellent cruise on La Marguerite from Siem Reap to Saigon. I will post more observations later; but we are at present concerned with inquiring about the one element of our cruise that was far less than excellent - that is, the extremely noisy dining room, particularly at dinner.

On most evenings, it was simply impossible to converse with anyone other than the person on one's immediate left or right. The others at our usual table for six were pretty much hors de combat (or at least hors de conversation).

We are wondering whether this unpleasant phenomenon is due to the basic design of the dining room or rather may have been related to the presence of a large group of passengers from Oz who were on an APT tour and were exceptionally loud and raucous in all venues on the boat. It appears that, since APT is a part-owner of AMAwaterways, people on APT tours sometimes have a rather insensitive sense of entitlement. That dynamic was reported by several passengers on AMA cruises in Russia this past summer, as well.

In any event, I would invite (indeed, implore) responses on this matter from anyone who has recently cruised on La Marguerite or AmaLotus on a full boat. We intend fully to enthusiastically recommend the AMA Mekong River cruises to anyone who asks our opinion, but wish to have a better sense of the necessity to warn potential passengers of the likelihood of a dining room din. Our "Bible" on AMA Mekong River cruising, the wonderful review of 2Flt, does not mention dining room noise as a problem.

Please understand that we would not tell people not to take this cruise because of this issue; but we were delighted to be able to have dinner off the boat on the two evenings we were in Phnom Penh, simply to have a quiet, peaceful dinner experience.

BTW, we found the food offered at dinner on the boat to be quite good and did not choose to dine in town in PP because of the food offerings on the boat.

Thanking you in advance for your observations on this issue, Cheers, Fred

I really don't recall the dining room being overly loud. My husband and I usually sat in a corner (near the entrance of the dining room) a booth like arrangement and it was quite pleasant--away from the mainstream crowd.

Hi Fred:

The noise in the dining room is not something that we experienced at all. While we had a large group of bridge players from Canada, there was no problem with noise. We also did not have any group from the partner tour company that we were aware of. We also had a full boat so I don't think it ws that. Sorry to hear about the noise but I think it may have been just the particular group that thought it was ok to be rude.:(

I am truly flattered that you refer to my review as "The Bible"! I am curious if you found anything that was no longer accurate that you would change or add. That would be helpful to others. I'm glad that you otherwise enjoyed the trip.

We've just returned from our marvelous adventure in S.E. Asia, including an excellent cruise on La Marguerite from Siem Reap to Saigon. I will post more observations later; but we are at present concerned with inquiring about the one element of our cruise that was far less than excellent - that is, the extremely noisy dining room, particularly at dinner.

 

On most evenings, it was simply impossible to converse with anyone other than the person on one's immediate left or right. The others at our usual table for six were pretty much hors de combat (or at least hors de conversation).

 

We are wondering whether this unpleasant phenomenon is due to the basic design of the dining room or rather may have been related to the presence of a large group of passengers from Oz who were on an APT tour and were exceptionally loud and raucous in all venues on the boat. It appears that, since APT is a part-owner of AMAwaterways, people on APT tours sometimes have a rather insensitive sense of entitlement. That dynamic was reported by several passengers on AMA cruises in Russia this past summer, as well.

 

In any event, I would invite (indeed, implore) responses on this matter from anyone who has recently cruised on La Marguerite or AmaLotus on a full boat. We intend fully to enthusiastically recommend the AMA Mekong River cruises to anyone who asks our opinion, but wish to have a better sense of the necessity to warn potential passengers of the likelihood of a dining room din. Our "Bible" on AMA Mekong River cruising, the wonderful review of 2Flt, does not mention dining room noise as a problem.

 

Please understand that we would not tell people not to take this cruise because of this issue; but we were delighted to be able to have dinner off the boat on the two evenings we were in Phnom Penh, simply to have a quiet, peaceful dinner experience.

 

BTW, we found the food offered at dinner on the boat to be quite good and did not choose to dine in town in PP because of the food offerings on the boat.

 

Thanking you in advance for your observations on this issue, Cheers, Fred

Hi Freddie,

On our recent cruise on the Amalotus we did not notice the dining room to be especially noisy.

We usually sat at a table for 4 but never had any problems. The group from APT numbered about 30 I would guess, and on the last night they all sat together at a long table quite near us. They were a nice, friendly bunch and did not seem overly loud.

Susan

Hi Freddie,

On our recent cruise on the Amalotus we did not notice the dining room to be especially noisy.

We usually sat at a table for 4 but never had any problems. The group from APT numbered about 30 I would guess, and on the last night they all sat together at a long table quite near us. They were a nice, friendly bunch and did not seem overly loud.

Susan

What does APT stand for?

Google APT and you will find that it is a huge travel agency from Australia and has been in business for many years. They are now partners with AMA.

Sheila

Just found this site whilst researching our cruise booked on the Amalotus on Feb 20th next year. Wondered if anyone else is on the same cruise.

Cathy :)

I am Fred's partner, the "we" part of his narrative. I will amen his comments and add a few of my own. On the positive side, I thought the ship was absolutely beautiful and the food well above anything I expected. The chef was excellent. On three occasions I sought him out to offer praise. He seemed a bit surprised. Guess he doesn't get such treatment all that often. Other than the noise, my one criticism of the dining room is they are a bit too slow in replenishing exhausted dishes on the buffet line. An empty scrambled egg dish four days out of seven doesn't cut it. The crew were sensational. We occupied an Indochine suite. The suite was beautiful, a cabin we wanted to spend lots of time in. Unfortuntely, the two easy chairs adorning the suite were selected for appearance rather than function. They were simply impossible to sit in. So much for spending big $$$$ for a premium suite. The only place to sit comfortably in it was to prop up pillows on the bed. And then there was the issue of reserved tables in the dining room. Our literature said no reserved tables. Fine! Since we were six traveling together we each took turns standing by as the dining room doors opened to grab one of the few six person tables. That worked well for us. And then, five days into the cruise, we saw a "reserved" sign on a table nearby. That stinks! Allow reservations or don't but be consistent. We also had an issue with the cruise director. He was a very nice man working exceptionally hard to please everyone and was very popular with the majority of the passengers. He had to serve as our "orange group" guide on the Vietnam excursions because the guide who was scheduled "missed his train." He was an excellent guide. Our issue with him was his style, a style I would characterize as "scout camp director." I don't think we're the least bit stuffy, but we did graduate from the scout camp stuff many years ago. We would have appreciated being led by a symphony director rather than a cheer leader. Ours was, apparently, a minority opinion. It was a good riverboat cruise, well worth doing.

2Flt -

I will try sometime soon to reread your wonderful review again to determine if there are any items in particular which might have changed. Until then, I will offer a few random observations based on our experience:

As for the APT group from Oz, they weren't really as much deliberately "rude" as they were simply clueless as to the effect that their talking (yelling) between tables and cheering in the dining room had on the rest of the passengers. We are pleased to read that most other former cruisers on the two AMA boats have not had a similar experience.

As my partner mentioned above, we were not happy to see "Reserved" signs on the APT tables, which signs were directly contrary to the clear statements in the AMA "Welcome Aboard" brochure, in which the following sentence concluded the Dining section: "Table reservations are not accepted." Hmm, they must have forgotten to include the small additional phrase, "unless those reservations are for members of our APT groups, who have the privilege of dominating these cruises, irrespective of the rights and experiences of the other passengers who have paid for an experience that is not subordinate to that of the APTers." Frankly, I would suggest that AMA work out its relationship with APT so that all passengers are treated in an equal fashion, irrespective of whether they are part of a specific tour group.

Ah, to switch to a more exciting topic, booze, here is some info: Quite decent Vietnamese beer, a reasonable lager, is available all day long at the bars for no additional cost. Similarly, one can get drinks made from several Vietnamese spirits any time. These include a "London Dry Gin" (perfectly acceptable for g & t's), a Scotch (a bit more dicey), and a Rum (very sweet and probably okay when mixed with Diet Coke). The "included" wines are, sadly, pretty bad. Both are from the principal Vietnamese winemaker, Dalat. The white is pretty thin and a bit astringent but drinkable. The red, however, is (in the humble opinion of the six of us in our little group) quite ghastly.

For most lunches and all dinners, we either bought wine from the wine list or brought out own. The wine on the wine list is pretty expensive in most cases, although each day there was a featured wine that was offered at a decent (usually discounted from the regular price on the wine list) price, normally at about USD 20 - 25 per bottle. One can also, as we did, bring wine into the dining room. We were never charged a corkage fee, perhaps because we opened the wine before bringing it into the dining room or because we also bought a lot of wine from the wine list. In either event, there are good places to buy wine for acceptable prices in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. In the former, we had good luck at Lucky Supermarket, on the main drag, close to the Night Market. In PP, we were very happy with Red Apron, at #15, Street 240, in the Chey Chumneas area, just east of the Royal Palace complex. Very easy to find using a tuk-tuk, which will then take you back to the boat with your vino loot. They take plastic, as well.

If you like flowers in your cabin, there are marvelous arrangements available at the Central Market in Phnom Penh, on the outside section at (I think, but am not sure) the south side. Dollars work everywhere in Cambodia; so it's easy to buy flowers there. No plastic (credit cards), as far as I could tell.

Cheers, Fred

Just returned from cruise. In fact, I am writing this while waiting for the plane from LAX to SFO.

I would like to put in a word for Zoom. We booked him a few days ago in Saigon. We did were unsure if we would get Zoom or one of his employees since he had to go to Hanoi to supervise.

We did have Zoom in the end and really enjoyed the day with him.

A nice DVD of our tour was delivered to the Sofitel the next day. We couldn't figure out why Zoom was taking all the pictures during the tour until he hold us his motive at the end of the tour.

The weather was HOT and HUMID during our last day in Saigon but we had 6:00pm checkout of the hotel and were able to shower and rest before our 9:00 pick up to the airport.