Cruising the Rhine : Viking, Ama or Avalon

Hi everybody;

We are new to river cruising and are looking at the 8 days cruise on the Rhine (Amsterdam to Basel, or reverse).

We are debating between Viking Vidar, Avalon Visionnary or AmaStella. We would like a veranda on any of these 3 ships.

Lucerne pre cruise or post cruise is also something we are interested in. Only Viking offers the Lucerne package that fits our travel dates. But doing Lucerne independently by train from Basel or Zurich seems quite easy.

We like good food and are in 51 and 60 respectively.

Any suggestion regarding which cruise company?

Thanks

See if your library has the Berlitz River Cruising in Europe (2016-2017) guide and compare the different cruise lines and ships in detail. The upshot: AMA is rated as having the best food (p. 112), customer care (p. 24), and all 10 of the top 10 ships are AMA.

But most reports on Viking and Avalon on these boards are very positive, and if river cruising is right for you then almost every river cruise will be a great experience.

Love Lucerne. I'd do Lucerne on your own if you feel comfortable. The train station downtown Lucerne is nice with lots of easy connections to Basel. Lucerne is easy to explore on your own. BIG saving$ doing it on your own, especially on optional tours (Viking). Be prepared for pricey meals.

All those river companies offer fine excursions so just pick the date, price and your totally subjective liking/disliking of the room & ship.

Hi everybody;

 

We are new to river cruising and are looking at the 8 days cruise on the Rhine (Amsterdam to Basel, or reverse).

 

We are debating between Viking Vidar, Avalon Visionnary or AmaStella. We would like a veranda on any of these 3 ships.

Lucerne pre cruise or post cruise is also something we are interested in. Only Viking offers the Lucerne package that fits our travel dates. But doing Lucerne independently by train from Basel or Zurich seems quite easy.

 

We like good food and are in 51 and 60 respectively.

 

Any suggestion regarding which cruise company?

 

Thanks

We sailed Amsterdam to Basel via Avalon Tranquility II Sept 2017. Beautiful ship with great crew. This was our 2nd trip with Avalon. We did a few days in Switzerland via car (met up with DD/SIN). Switzerland is a beautiful country. We also did pre-cruise in Amsterdam on our own - easy city to explore. Have a great trip !

Since you've never been on a river cruise, you can't go wrong with any of the 3 you've narrowed it down to. Compare itineraries, cost, and inclusions, and pick the one that fits your budget and schedule.

Roz

We just returned from a AmaWaterways cruise on the AmaKristina (new ship) from Basel to Amsterdam and it was wonderful. Although we were on the bottom floor with window it was good for us as we didn't spend much time in the room except for sleeping. At this time of year it gets dark around 5 pm. Great food, wonderful cruise director, good music and entertainment. Will look for another AmaWaterways cruise. :)

Hello Stefanny28!:D

How exciting for you that you are planning a Rhine Cruise.

We took our first river cruise a little more than a year ago on the Rhine on Avalon and we LOVED it!

Here is a link to my "report" with lots of pictures. Maybe this will help you decide.

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2422694

Enjoy!

Depending on your itinerary and time of year (darkness and cold as you get to the end of the season), you may find a veranda a waste of money. Contrary to what the Viking TV ads show, very little time is spend onboard during the day just cruising along and seeing all kinds of wonderful scenery. You move between towns at night, and days are filled with shore excursions, sometimes 2 in one day. I've done 2 river cruises on Uniworld. The first one I had a Cat. 3 with a French balcony. The 2nd one I booked a Cat. 4 on the bottom deck and was perfectly fine with it. Next year's cruise is in a Cat. 5 (I keep getting cheaper and cheaper ;)).

On my latest Eastern European cruise, there was a 50 mile stretch of the Danube where we cruised thru what is called the Iron Gates during the day. It was cold and windy, and most of us just huddled in deck chairs under blankets on the top deck. That was really the only truly scenic stretch we sailed.

Roz

We returned in September from a river cruise on the Rhine and Moselle. Uniworld... River Queen... Amsterdam to Basel...It was a third cruise with Uniworld. A few years ago we cruised the Castles on the Rhine itinerary on the SS Antoinette (Uniworld) a new ship...This trip was 12 days and it was a repeat of the Rhine which was ok but the Moselle is simply beautiful...We like Uniworld because of the all inclusive aspect ...there were a few optional excursions that you can pay for extra.. We loved the cruise but cabins were exceptionally small but price was right ...enjoy..

What you need to compare on a river cruise is things like:

1. Are any beverages included with lunch and dinner?

2. Are other beverages included?

3. How many tours are included?

4. What kind of food is served onboard.

5. What does the ship look like? Is it new or old? Is is a style of decor you would enjoy?

6. What other things are included with your cruise?

7. Will your ship be rafted? That means tied together with other ships. If so, your balcony is essentially useless unless you wish to look into the ship next to you.

I have not sailed on Viking, but have seen many reviews where people said the food was mostly American type foods. They had things like a hot dog, spring rolls, BBQ ribs (which they mentioned as some of the best food onboard.) For some people this is a huge plus, but for me, this would be a big negative as I prefer only eat food from the area in which I'm traveling. My husband and I like to drink wine with dinner, so having wine included in the cost of the cruise is important to us as well as the wine actually coming from the region in which we are cruising. On some ships, they serve different regional wines each night. Other ships have one red and one white wine that is poured at every meal. What you hope is that they are serving a moderately priced wine and not cheap wine. Some ships include all beverages. If you are a real foodie, you are going to like a line such as Crystal or Uniworld - and I am sure there are others that serve great food. The article here are very helpful in understanding the differences between the river cruise lines: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2233868

This is also a helpful:

https://www.rivercruiseadvisor.com

My husband and I went on Uniworld's SS Antoinette and we found the experience absolutely fantastic in every way. We are both foodies and like a luxurious environment that reflects the area in which we are cruising which is what Uniworld does so well - their ship's decor actually reflect the area where you are cruising as does the food. What we found was that most of the crew members were married to someone onboard, so there was a real feeling of being guests in a huge country estate onboard. The staterooms are absolutely gorgeous as were the public spaces. Tours were excellent, however, for some people, they don't like the pre-scheduled tours - so that can be a real downside of river cruising. We were only rafted one time and that was on boarding day. We walked through another cruise lines river ship to board ours and let's just say I was REALLY glad we were not on that ship as it had definitely seen better days! So you might consider the age of the ship as well. Newer usually means it will be in better condition - at least that's what you hope.

I read a blog a few months back by a young couple on their honeymoon. They went on Viking but did not do any of the included tours at all and other than breakfast, didn't really eat on their ship. Instead they went into whatever town they were at and had pre-arranged reservations to eat at various Michelin starred restaurants for lunch and often an early dinner and also stopped at various food emporiums for vinegar tastings, wine tastings, beer tastings, cheese tastings, candy tastings, dessert tastings, and all sorts of other foodie things specific to each place the ship stopped. They had a ball! But a lot of people feel the negative side of doing something like that is you have paid for all your tours with the cruise fare and not taken advantage of those tours you paid for. However, there are some river cruises that don't include many tours at all. So you need to think about what you like to do on vacation and what kind of river cruise suits you best. Do your research in detail and find what suits you and your spouse the best.