Avalon Waterways

The Avalon river cruises are definitely slower paced. I took my parents on a Rhine River cruise on the Avalon Felicity. The crowd is a bit older (average age in the 60s) and if you are looking for entertainment, gambling, and lots of partying, this is definitely not the ship. If you want to meet a lot of interesting people in a warm, cozy atmosphere and enjoy beautiful scenery, then this is the ship for you.
Although you hit many beautiful cities along the Rhine River, the included excursions are short and do not give you enough time to explore. The excursions do touch the highlights of each of the cities, but you may be better off exploring on your own, especially if you want to sample the local restaurants and stores.
I ended up with the cheapest rooms on the bottom of the boat, since we booked the last two cabins left on the ship. Although the cabins on the bottom floor did not have the large windows, the room was extremely comfortable, clean and cozy and we rarely spent any time in the room except to sleep. We brought ear plugs since I heard the «cheap» rooms were noisy, but we heard very little noise except for one tumultuous night in the canal locks.
The crew is absolutely fabulous from the cruise director, purser, and cleaning staff. Service was amazing. Dinners are delicious and take almost 2 hours since you are served four course meals, so expect dinner to take up a large portion of your evening. We allowed the server to select our menu choices each night and were not disappointed, especially with his dessert choices!
If you like to explore, like I do, I would suggest that you skip the optional excursions and do some exploring on your own. Take Carol K’s advice (earlier review) and ask the crew about the fun places to go! They will show you an awesome time!

Looking for a different type of vacation? Then how about a cruise down a river in Europe or China? Avalon Waterways specializes in these type of vacations.
I recently took their Rhine River cruise through France, Germany and Holland on their Felicity ship. Not the huge cruise ships that you might imagine from an ocean cruise but more a flat bottomed river cruiser with about 69 cabins (4 suites), a full dining room, lounge, back lounge, sky deck and workout room (don’t get too excited– there are about 3 pieces of equipment in that room!)
The rooms are pretty good sized– I upgraded to a suite for a little extra space, and the beds are comfortable (thick foam pad top), the bathroom was marble with a great shower and there is plenty of storage space. Most rooms except for the bottom floor have sliding glass doors that open to let in the river breezes.
Service is impeccable– from the crew who tidies up your room twice a day to the restaurant staff who make the on board dining experience a pleasure. Since you are on the ship for a week– you get to know the staff by name and they know yours so you feel right at home.
If you are not an adventurous traveler– you can eat three meals a day on the boat. For me, half the fun of being in a new place is trying out the local cuisine so I missed quite a few of the meals on board but the ones I had were quite good. The breakfast buffet had hot and cold breakfast items and a chef who would make you omelette’s or eggs each morning. Lunch was either a buffet or you could sign up to eat out on the sky deck with more casual food offering like steak and chicken grilled. And for dinner? A 5 course meal with several choices.
A couple of hints if you do decide that this type of a trip is for you. First of all– while Avalon makes scheduling the trip easy and could include air fare and transfers– their prices on those are really high. You would be better off scheduling that separately (I saved about $ 800 booking my own flights) Also– their transfer times are way over stated so you end up standing around and waiting (not my favorite thing to do so skip the bus and take a cab)
Secondly– these cruises skew older. I was one of the youngest people on the cruise. The average age appeared to be about 62. So bring your own fun friends along for the ride as the lounge, etc is pretty much empty by 9pm. Or here’s an idea. .. .connect up with the crew. When in port– they know all the fun clubs and bars in town and there is something fun about dancing the night away with the ship’s purser and engineer! (thanks, guys for including me in your fun!)
Also– the optional shore trips that they offer are skewed toward the older passengers so you often find yourself on a bus when you could walk, or taking a different way in a town to avoid a lot of stairs. One day we wasted a ton of time boarding a bus to town and when I walked back– I realized we were only about 2 blocks from the boat!
Speaking of those optional trips…if I were you– if you have done any traveling at all, skip them. While cheap, (about $ 30 E average) they are boring, and very touristy. Get yourself a guidebook for the area and go and see the things that interest you. I went on one of them just to check it out and found myself in some kind of a tourist trap which I usually avoid at all costs (you know the ones, where the tour ends at a «gift shop» and they leave you about 2 hours to shop).
Since this is not a cheap date (about $ 3000 US dollars per person double occupancy) plan before you go. Make the most of the cities that you are in. There is an included city tour each morning that helps you get your bearings but once that is finished try not to go back to the boat. Spend the rest of your time in each town exploring or you will feel that you missed something. The only days I ate on the boat were the days that it was moving during meal time. Yes– I know you are paying twice this way– but you will never regret it.
Finally– know before you go– that parts of the river are industrial and not exactly «picture worthy». While they try to schedule those parts of the trip while you are sleeping, there are some moments where you wonder if you are ever going to see the castles and towns that you expected. Trust me…you do.
All in all– this is a great vacation for an inexperienced traveler who wants to «get their feet wet» in Europe. I liked not having to pack and unpack when we got to each city, but I missed the flexibility of traveling on my own, and setting my own schedule but that’s probably because I am an experienced traveler. I wish that Avalon offered a «pay as you go» version as I like the ease of getting from city to city on the boat– but I’d like to pay for only those meals I ate on board and for those city tours that I took.
Bottom line, would I do it again? You bet. I’d just make sure that more of my fun friends came along with me the next time!