Trip Report Avalon Felicity Romantic Rhine Basel - Amsterdam

[YoungDubFan]

Glad that my review helped you some. It's too bad that you were delayed sailing the Rhine Gorge and Koblenz. I really enjoyed both cities. I really think that Avalon does a wonderful job and I look forward to cruising with them again.

[blingbling]

Many thanks to both YoungDubFan and Whitemocha for sharing your experiences. Helps with our 7 Oct planning and expectations for Visionary.

Karen

[Mooneydiva]

Thanks YDF and WM for your wonderful reviews. I've been debating this trip on Avalon and you may have pushed me closer to it.

[YoungDubFan]

For the person asking about bikes - I read that Avalon is offering on some itineraries for 2013. Check out their webpage. I'm not sure if they are putting on all ships or not.

[peterdkiwi]

Have also read that Avalon will have bikes at 2 ports only in 2013

[Riversanddale]

Such a terrific report with all the helpful details. Can't thank you enough.

[stretchcruz]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do the review, We are doing Amsterdam to Basel in April, our second Avalon cruise, and we are so looking forward to it.

[peterdkiwi]

A brillant trip report that gave us a lot of information, well done, we booked our cruise today after the 4 of us had all read this report.

Thanks for your time & effort

Kiwipete

[KansasCityGuys]

YoungDubFan, thanks so much for your great review; I read your entire review yesterday as I was watching basketball. My partner and I have booked this cruise for December 2014 on the Avalon Vista. I have a couple questions if you don't mind. If Avalon is using the same hotel in 2014 as they did with you, I really doubt that we would want to stay at that hotel. We would rather stay directly in town a few days before the cruise! Would we the morning of the cruise check out of the hotel we are staying in and proceed to Avalon's host hotel?

 

I was looking at the all-inclusive alcohol package; the cost is $222 per person. Since wine is available with dinner, cocktail of the day at a discount price, and happy hour; in your opinion, would this be an unnecessary expense? We are NOT alcoholics by any means!

 

And a very IMPORTANT question: Is Avalon a Coke or Pepsi line. If it is Pepsi, I would have to carry my own Coke on board! Thank you!

 

Scott

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[YoungDubFan]

KansasCityGuys - if you choose to stay in old town Zurich vs at Avalon's hotel, or in a different city (Basel, Lucern) you would have two options: one would be to check out of your hotel and make your own way to the ship in Basel. The other option is if you purchase transfers from Avalon (you can do even if you do your own air), you would check out of your hotel, drop your bags at Avalon's meeting hotel, find out what time they are transporting to the ship (I think around 3 pm). You could then still explore Zurich on your own or take advantage of Avalon's excursions. In addition to the excursion to Mt. Pilatus, Avalon also offered a Zurich city tour that included transportation to the ship. If you are going in early, you probably don't want to do this one.

 

I did not purchase any drink packages. I was fine with Champagne available at breakfast, wine and beer with dinner. As you mentioned, the drink of the day is discounted every day and there is a 2-for-1 happy hour each day. If I didn't make it clear, the 2-for-1 has to be 2 of the same drink, it's not two separate alcoholic drinks.

 

As far as soda, I'm hoping that someone else can chime in here to answer you. I am not a soda person and instead drank water or ice tea. I'm sure if you sent an e-mail to Avalon, someone will answer you. There was always coffee, hot and iced tea, water, and some sort of juice in the aft lounge, where the espresso machine was. There were usually cookies and fruit here as well.

[KansasCityGuys]

Thanks for the great reply YoungDubFan! I appreciate you explaining the 2 for 1 happy hour since Cory and I drink different things! But still that is not a bad offer.

 

Since we are still about 9 months out until airfare will open up for out trip; we still have time to think about what we are wanting to do pre and post cruise. We still need to decide where we want to spend Christmas Day; We are kind of leaning toward just staying in Amsterdam.

 

Scott

[OkieFive]

Really appreciate the descriptions provided. We are taking this trip in October of 2013. We were trying to decide on the drink package also. Was curious if the dinner was just one glass of wine, two or unlimited.

[stretchcruz]

At dinner they will keep refilling your glass until you tell them to stop. They also would refill it full before we left the dining room so you could take it to the lounge or your room (don't know if they were supposed to but they did!!) Each night they featured different wines. We enjoyed them all.

[YoungDubFan]

Stretchcruz is correct - it was unlimited at dinner. Some nights we lingered in the dining room drinking more wine until they kicked us out. They we had them top off our glasses and we went either up to the sun deck or to the lounge where the piano player was.

[tillys mom]

Thanks for the wonderfully detailed reviews. I am with a group of friends who meet on cc when we did a British Isles cruise 3 years ago. We are booked on the Avalon Visionary for April 12, 2014; there are 22 of us so far!

 

Your review has answered several questions we had:) Thanks again.

[sadiemay]

Whitemocha, your additional comments are very helpful to our upcoming trip on 6/2/13. We are also staying in Lucerne prior to our cruise. I was concerned about how we would get to the ship. Our TA said we could not meet at the airport, which is what we hoped to do. She said we would have to find our own way to the hospitality hotel to meet them there. Did you get an OK from Avalon to meet at the Zurich airport or did you just go there and take your chances that Avalon would transfer you to the hotel? Has anyone else had this same situation? Any advice is most welcome.

[ctw345]

We have not gotten our itinerary from our TA yet, (my friend has been the contact for our group), but we are flying in the same day. (I know, may be risky! :rolleyes:)

Is it reasonable to expect that Avalon would take care of getting us from the airport to the dock, as we are not staying extra days?

How far ahead do you typically get the itineraries?

 

YoungDubFan, your trip review was very thorough, and extremely helpful. Thanks so much for taking the time!

[ctw345]

Just double checked the info I do have, and it appears the TA has booked us on BA, not through Avalon. So, I guess we will be getting ourselves to the meeting place hotel.

 

Is it the Movenpick at the airport that is traditionally used as the meeting place? If not, which hotel is it?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!!

[atlasali]

Thank you everyone who reported and commented. I always learn so much from this website. We will be on a 2 week Rhine and Mosel, Amsterdam to Basel in in less than 40 days.

 

Lindt chocolate - Mmmm, glad to find out about that shop! Since we are headed in the opposite direction, and doing our own post cruise extension; our chocolate purchases probably will not make it home. Hopefully, they will have restocked the shelves for those of you who arrive later in the season.

 

Charge card choice "Euro or USD" - That is a valuable tip!

[YoungDubFan]

I'll try to answer some questions from above.

 

1. For 2012, Avalon used the Movenpick Hotel in Zurich as the meeting place. The Movenpick has a free shuttle from the Zurich airport. You should be able to contact the hotel to get directions as where to meet the shuttle.

 

2. For those staying in Lucern pre-cruise, just make your own way to the ship in Basel. Lucern is about a hour away from Basel and it doesn't make sense to travel an hour back to Zurich to travel an hour to Basel. If you post on TripAdvisor in the Lucern forum, someone should be able to give you suggestions as to how to get to Basel. You should be able to take a combo of train / cab or there may be a suggestion for private car hire.

 

3. As for credit cards, apply for a Capital One card that doesn't charge a foreign transaction fee.

 

Hope this answers everyone's questions. If not, post again and I'll do my best.

[ctw345]

Thanks, YoungDubFan!

Hopefully, when we get our itinerary,we will see that the meeting place is still the same. That would make our life so much less complicated. :)

[Got2Cruise]

This thread has a wealth of information. Thank you! Does anyone have anything to add from the 2013 sailings?

 

As far as I can tell Avalon still uses the Zurich Airport Movenpick as their transfer to Basel station. I am hoping this is still the case for 2014 because it makes it very simple for those of us who are not flying in early. I understand there is a free shuttle tram to the hotel from the airport.

 

I would also be interested in hearing about the option excursions on the day of embarkation.

[ctw345]

Hi Got2Cruise.

We went in May, 2013, and the meeting place was still the Movenpick. A representative from Avalon met us at the airport (she had a sign), and took us by bus to the Movenpick. Then, when everyone had arrived, bussed us again to the embarkation place.

If you arrived early enough on embarkation day, there were 2 tour offered...Zurich: Excursion to Mount Pilatus (59 euros)and Zurich: Sight Seeing.(31 euros). Both were called an afternoon feature, we did neither.

[Got2Cruise]

Hi Got2Cruise.

We went in May, 2013, and the meeting place was still the Movenpick. A representative from Avalon met us at the airport (she had a sign), and took us by bus to the Movenpick. Then, when everyone had arrived, bussed us again to the embarkation place.

If you arrived early enough on embarkation day, there were 2 tour offered...Zurich: Excursion to Mount Pilatus (59 euros)and Zurich: Sight Seeing.(31 euros). Both were called an afternoon feature, we did neither.

 

Thanks for responding. Anything else you can think of, let me know.