All Things Avalon

[suntan]

Thank you to everyone who responded to my post.  I have re-booked my river cruise to April 2022, upgraded to a panorama suite, on the port side.  

 

Let's hope the third time is the charm!

 

Stay safe everyone, and wishing you all the best this Holiday season.

[Playtennis]

On January 18 Avalon posted a "travel Update.  They have "...suspended operations through March 31 for guests from the United States."

The way that the virus (make that plural!) is spreading and France has a very tight entrance restriction it certainly looks as more cruises in France will be "suspended".  

We are booked on a cruise June 8 and feel that there's a high percentage of chance that it too will be cancelled.

Opinions and information anyone??

Keith

[notamermaid]

I think we are in a phase of rapid change. The US has got new administration which may impact the situation, the industry is reacting to the vaccine roll-out with pondering over "just Covid-19-test or prove of vaccination". One company - Saga in the UK - have just announced that they will start their river operations in May and with vaccination required for all passengers. This is bold ethically perhaps, but doable for a UK company that can benefit from the rapid vaccination roll-out for old folks. The company is designed for the over 50s.

 

If this may be a way for Avalon to go remains to be seen.

 

The other question is whether the country you want to travel to will allow you in or your country will allow you back in. France is still struggling and vaccine roll-out is slow. But things are changing in Europe. Four weeks ago nobody in Germany had a vaccine, now it is over 1 million. There are lockdowns all over and countries are worried about new strains. The situation will not change for the better soon but I think come end of February you will know more from Avalon what may be feasible as regards operating their fleet. This is my humble opinion.

 

notamermaid

 

[Playtennis]

notamermaid,

Good luck with Saga.  We all would like to see the cruises start up with some continuity.

With all of the current circumstances, I don't see a heavy plunge in restrictions between now and May.  We planned our trip/cruise (1 week in Paris & 1 in Dordogne River Valley then cruise) to visit lots of sites with a BIG priority of attending the French Open.  If the tournament is rescheduled or has a limited audience and there are a number of sites which have restrictions then it would diminish the worth.  Add to that the potential of having a cruise which REQUIRES, off-ship excursions be only when you are with a ship's tour, limiting your time ashore, that would affect a decision greatly.

We too will be making a final decision by the end of February to postpone until 2022.

k

 

[Daisi]

@Playtennis, I also have a cruise booked with Avalon, mine is in May.  I seriously doubt that the cruise will run.

 

Avalon has cancelled *all* cruises through to March 31, not just for those in the US.  We had a form to acknowledge last year that said we would have to wear masks in all public areas, however there was no mention of only being allowed off the boat unless you were on one of their tours.

 

We will be booking for 2022, just waiting for them to post the sailings, as they only have a limited number up right now for our cruise.  Hopefully by then, vaccinations will be commonplace for everywhere, and things will be different.  I wouldn't be surprised if the lines all require confirmation of vaccination like Saga has, and airlines as well.  

[Playtennis]

One of the challenge for rescheduling the cruise is loss of money.  If one cancels and reschedules before Avalon does, one loses the "peace of Mind" bonus credit of $200 pp and pays 2022 prices which are increased.  If you wait for Avalon to cancel and rebook in 2022 you do get the bonus BUT you still lose money.  In fact, Avalon is not really doing us a big favor by giving us $400 ($200pp).  Here's why: Let's say your cruise costs $15,000 and you've already paid that for the current cruise which, of course, is left in Avalons pocket.  That means you don't have that $15,000 to invest.  If the investment returns 5% for the year that means you lose another $750.  Quite a change. I would estimate that the poor schmo (moi) is actually losing about $1,400.

All that said, I sigh, take a deep breath and say, "I look forward to taking the cruise in 2022!

k

[Daisi]

@Playtennis, Avalon only wants the deposit upon booking, the rest at 90 days.  The $200.00 is only for those who have already paid their deposit.  Ours is due Feb, but I will just transfer my monies to another cruise and probably another one once they open up the proper dates.  

 

I will "lose" the free upgrade (which I never really had, as I never paid for it, it was just in our booking), but right now, they have a good discount out on the 2022 cruises that almost makes up for it.

 

I'm not worried about the $400.00 ($200 for each of us), as in a year with interest rates at what they are I wouldn't make anything close to that.  I'm glad you are getting 5% interest, but our rates here are so low, it's almost not worth putting your money in any investment.....except safer in a bank if you house burns down and it's in your mattress. 🙂 

 

I see the 2022 cruises will come with the same guarantee about Covid, that you can transfer to 2023 if you don't feel comfortable.  I'm just happy they are doing that.  I can't expect them to give me money that I haven't paid for, even if I booked cheaper.  After all, I would imagine their start up is going to be expensive, re-working all the cleaning, masks & gloves for crew, possibly requiring extra staff for cleaning and serving meals if they can't have the buffet....

[Playtennis]

Actually, this change - when it happens - will be the second one.  We originally booked for 2019, then this year and soon now 2022. (Continued sigh......).  We've also had VRBO reservations in Paris (overlooking the Seine & a view of Notre Dame) and a booking in Sarlat-La-Canéda in 2019.  Both of those were transferred to 2021 and will need to be moved up another year.  All of our reservations for tours and for seats at Roland Garros had to be reimbursed.  (I feel like I should be wearing a green visor and cinched up sleeves like old-time CPAs did!)

[Daisi]

@Playtennis, at least you are able to either move or get your money back.  I hate making my TA keep switching everything, as she has to do the insurance as well every time we move our booking...including the cancel & re-book to get the free upgrade even though we kept our date the same.  Worse for her, she was laid off just before Christmas (they are expecting to be back in the spring for Canadian travel), so she has done a lot of checking for me while not "officially" employed!

 

Guess I'll have to see if I can con our room attendant into another set of the L'Occitane products for her.  I hope they still have them, as they have announced that they are trying to go more environmental friendly. 

[jsn55]

On 1/13/2020 at 3:13 AM, Playtennis said:

"Houston we (may) have a problem"😲

Our cruise ends in St Louis France and we fly out of Marseilles.  The description of the last days show  that the leg from Arles to Port Louis is an "Evening Cruise to Port Louis". It also states that ""Flights should not leave Marseille airport before 10 AM"

Our flight from Marseilles to Heathrow has an ETA of 12:00 with a departure from Heathrow scheduled for 1:30. The 90 minutes between flights doesn't seem like enough time!

We are thinking of changing our flight from Marseille to early (7:30ish).  What time does an "Evening cruise to...." actually put the ship into port and can we arrange to debark early?

We much appreciate any ideas and help!

Keith 

Like ours, I presume your cruise was cancelled.  But I can never resist the opportunity to tell fellow travelers about connection times.  Three hours internationally.  Four is better.  There's nothing I dislike more than fretting about making a flight.  When you're there early, you have lots of time to deal with anything that comes up (I could make a list) without stress.  Airports are nice places now, lots of see and do, good walkies.  Two hours for a domestic departure, three hours for international.

[Playtennis]

On 1/28/2021 at 6:36 PM, jsn55 said:

Like ours, I presume your cruise was cancelled.  But I can never resist the opportunity to tell fellow travelers about connection times.  Three hours internationally.  Four is better.  There's nothing I dislike more than fretting about making a flight.  When you're there early, you have lots of time to deal with anything that comes up (I could make a list) without stress.  Airports are nice places now, lots of see and do, good walkies.  Two hours for a domestic departure, three hours for international.

I agree with your connection times...to a degree.

About this flight (arrive in LHR at 12 & next flight depart 90 minutes later) I spoke to the BA rep and she said that looking at my fights one is practically the next gate over and 90 minutes is a cinch.  Also, we live outside of Charleston SC.  If we get to the check-in counter 60 minutes before the flight boards we will usually have 30 minutes to sit near the gate.  

As for Heathrow, if we had to change terminals I certainly like to have 3-4 hours between flights.

And yes, the cruise was cancelled.  It looks like this year's cruises in May will be cancelled too.  As of February 1 Avalon canceled cruises up to April 30. So we will wait another year to enjoy Bon Repas!

[Daisi]

42 minutes ago, Playtennis said:

 It looks like this year's cruises in May will be cancelled too.  As of February 1 Avalon canceled cruises up to April 30. So we will wait another year to enjoy Bon Repas!

We just re-booked our May cruise for next year.  I'm going to watch for the 2023 ones to be posted, and if we are still in limbo (Canada doesn't expect to have vaccines out until Sept or so...keeps getting later, and I don't qualify for the earlier shots), I will change to then.  

 

If you are thinking of waiting, we did have the option to push our final payment back to March.  I like a certain room layout, and figured I should go ahead in case the ones I wanted were taken.....glad I did, as the cruise has received a lot of bookings in the past 2 days.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Daisi

[SCBarker]

I thought I'd bump this up to keep up with Avalon's travel updates.  The last one was issued April 26, which canceled their cruises thru June 30th.  I was fully expecting a new one today as it seems they moved from monthly cancellations, to two weeks at a time.

I'm booked for July 3rd on the Rhine.  I'm giving this a less than 2% chance of happening.  But we're at 7.5 weeks out so I'd like to hear something sooner than later at this point.

Or who knows, I may be doing the first post-covid river cruise review here! 😎

[Loreto]

9 minutes ago, SCBarker said:

I thought I'd bump this up to keep up with Avalon's travel updates.  The last one was issued April 26, which canceled their cruises thru June 30th.  I was fully expecting a new one today as it seems they moved from monthly cancellations, to two weeks at a time.

I'm booked for July 3rd on the Rhine.  I'm giving this a less than 2% chance of happening.  But we're at 7.5 weeks out so I'd like to hear something sooner than later at this point.

Or who knows, I may be doing the first post-covid river cruise review here! 😎

We have a Sept. 22 Rhine/Moselle  13 day cruise booked with Avalon with 2 precruise days in Zurich.  Air is booked with miles that we would never be able to duplicate if we wait another year.  I was glad that Avalon pushed our final payment from June to August.  Each year delayed we are another year older. Our ship is about 2/3rds full, a lot better than some of the other sailings.  We will just hope for the best!

[copyace]

Hi Loreto. Wondering how you found out how full your ship was -- is it online somewhere or did you get the info from Avalon/your TA? We're booked on the August 11 Danube Jewish Heritage cruise scheduled to start on land in Prague, assuming Czechia is open to visitors by then! Have already booked air, but wouldn't be surprised if we have to skip Prague and go directly to Nuremburg.

[SCBarker]

38 minutes ago, copyace said:

Hi Loreto. Wondering how you found out how full your ship was -- is it online somewhere or did you get the info from Avalon/your TA? We're booked on the August 11 Danube Jewish Heritage cruise scheduled to start on land in Prague, assuming Czechia is open to visitors by then! Have already booked air, but wouldn't be surprised if we have to skip Prague and go directly to Nuremburg.

You can just go online and act like you are booking the cruise again and see the rooms available.

 

I just did that to my cruise scheduled for July 3rd.  Out of the 83 staterooms, 74 were available to book! WOW...

[Kenster]

4 minutes ago, SCBarker said:

 

 

I just did that to my cruise scheduled for July 3rd.  Out of the 83 staterooms, 74 were available to book! WOW...

It’s kind of a Catch 22, isn’t it. Everyone likes a cruise that’s not too crowded.  But we don’t want to wish for a virtually empty ship.  That’s a good way to have our cruise cancelled. 
Plus, we want the cruise line to remain profitable! 

[Daisi]

One thing to keep in mind, a lot of Avalon's cruises were open to solo travellers.  Also, I was worried about the one we are on next May, as it's going to have roughly 40 more pax  than the one we took 2 years ago...until I remembered that this boat is also 20m longer!  That's a lot of extra space.  I estimate each cabin has 2 pax, but since they were holding the solo traveller sales, probably not quite that much.

 

One thing I do like about Avalon is you can book your cabin from the start, so you can choose room layout ( I keep the charging unit on my side of the bed as I am usually on my tablet later and earlier) and see just how full the ship is.

 

[Daisi]

*****Edit for above post, there are 20 extra pax if I count 2/cabin, not 40. Just went back and checked.

[Kenster]

Of the four Avalons we’ve done in the last six years, two were right at capacity (160), one was the smaller suite ship (130ish) but only had about 100.  And the first one was the older, non suite ship. I think it held about 100 and we had 75-80 pax.  The only issue ever on full capacity big ships is a packed dining room every night, so if you like to sit with your new shipmates, you’d better get down there pretty quickly to grab a table. 
If you prefer to “work the room” and meet someone new every evening, it’s perfect.  
 

We don’t worry too much about where the outlets are. We always carry a couple of extension cords and run them between the wall and the mattress to the other side. 

[ljandgb]

We are booked on a September 1 Danube cruise.  Our PIF date was supposed to be the first week in June.  Just heard it's been pushed back to July 18.  We haven't sailed Avalon before, but I've been happy so far with how they've handled things. 

[Daisi]

Yes, I can't complain about our treatment with Avalon. When our 90 day payment was coming close, I contacted my TA to see if we should move then or wait to see if our cruise was cancelled.  I asked her if we could delay payment, and there was no problems.  Because we wanted a certain room, we figured it would be better to go ahead and move our trip as it could have been gone by the time our cruise was cancelled.  Today would have been the day we left, and all but 1 cabin is gone at our level.  

 

 

[Loreto]

11 hours ago, copyace said:

Hi Loreto. Wondering how you found out how full your ship was -- is it online somewhere or did you get the info from Avalon/your TA? We're booked on the August 11 Danube Jewish Heritage cruise scheduled to start on land in Prague, assuming Czechia is open to visitors by then! Have already booked air, but wouldn't be surprised if we have to skip Prague and go directly to Nuremburg.

Hi copyace,

I do exactly what SC Barker does...almost every day.  One day my cruise was no longer listed so I emailed my TA.  She said that the ship was 65% full and Avalon was limiting more bookings to allow for social distancing.  There were 29 cabins left.  It is since back online being offered for bookings at a much higher price than we paid!  I don't know how they could sail with only a handful of bookings on the other sailings.

 

I hope you get to go to Prague.  My family is from the Czech Republic and going through a similar situation as in the United States with lockdowns.

 

In addition to the Avalon cruise we have a rebooked Alaska cruise in July which Holland America has yet to cancel.  A poster on another Uniworld sailing spoke of the stress the delays are causing her, and I feel the same way. 

 

i appreciate all the positive feedback about Avalon and hope we get to sail!

 

11 hours ago, SCBarker said:

You can just go online and act like you are booking the cruise again and see the rooms available.

 

I just did that to my cruise scheduled for July 3rd.  Out of the 83 staterooms, 74 were available to book! WOW...

 

[SCBarker]

My July cruise is officially cancelled.  I'm a bit relieved almost, other than having that money tied up for another year probably.

From Avalon:

Avalon anticipates that international travel access for guests from the United States will expand in the coming weeks. While access to Avalon’s international destinations are not yet confirmed, we do anticipate our operations will begin soon, starting in France with the July 20, 2021 departure of the “Paris to Normandy” cruise aboard the Tapestry II, including all extensions. This confirmation is pending the official announcement of the France border opening to U.S. travelers, and we will keep all guests scheduled on this cruise informed of that status.

For all other cruises and destinations, Avalon Waterways has continued suspension of operations through July 31, 2021 for guests from the United States.

[Daisi]

Sorry your cruise is cancelled, but at least they are doing so before you have to make any more payments than the deposit.  I am following a poor traveller on another line, her cruise to Portugal is to leave on the 30th, and they still haven't cancelled it!  

 

We had our May cruise cancelled (we were supposed to be on the Danube right now actually), but to tell the truth, I'd much rather go once Europe is open and ready to have tourists, than to go to early and have a lot of businesses closed.  

 

I don't see anything on the Canadian site yet for any cancellations, but since Europe is looking at letting you guys in before us, I guess they would be cancelled anyway.  I do like their policy of changing with no penalty to another cruise or trip...gives you a chance to go somewhere, even if at home, if you have to.