My wife and I have wanted to do a river cruise for a few years and this one was an outstanding choice. Avalon Waterways is totally dedicated to customer satisfaction, from the beautiful, sparkling clean ship to the five-star meals to the well-organized excursions and entertainment each day. We were happy that there was a "gentle walkers" group for each excursion for those of us slower due to age or handicap or just preference. For my wife we used a "TravelScoot" which folded up each day and fit under the bed, and fit assembled on the buses in the baggage compartment along with others' walkers. Each evening before dinner we had a "Port Talk" addressing the day's activities as well as plans for the next day.
We cannot say enough about our Captain, who got the ship through a couple of low water situations, and our tireless cruise director, who attended to everyone's needs. I don't know when either one of them had a chance to sleep.
We highly rate Avalon Waterways for including, in our opinion, an appropriate mix of shore excursions, on-board entertainment, and free time. The mix of entertainment was great, with local musicians and comedians, to lecturers, beer and sausage tasting. We did not need to spend more money on extra meals or drinks or excursions, although we did take advantage of a visit to Salzburg and a concert in Vienna due to our high interest in music.
The cabin was larger and more comfortable than we expected. It was fully equipped, lighting was great, and the bathroom was comfortably large enough with sparkling clean and well-functioning fixtures.
Avalon provided a comfortable, centrally located hotel conference room to meet before boarding the ship. We went for a walk in Amsterdam and had lunch at the hotel before boarding.
We spent most of our time at the huge and beautiful palace in Wurzburg, then walked around downtown admiring the fascinating architecture.
We had a great bus tour of historic old Nuremburg, during which we learned much history about World War II. Then we had an opportunity to walk the old castle high up above the city.
This was a great walking tour with several highlights: the huge cathedral, the stone bridge built to stop river shipping, and authentic sausages for lunch on the river front.
The choo-choo took our gentle walkers up the hill to the old town area where we walked and learned the history of Durnstein. We purchased some local jam, and others purchased local bakery products.
Vienna is a very large city and we had an informative bus tour around the ring road, then we got off to walk. We saw many beautiful buildings which are quite close together, and we stopped for some apple strudel and coffee at Cafe Mozart before re-boarding the bus to go back to the ship.
We were in Bratislava on a Saturday and everyone was out in the town center at restaurants or in the park at food tents. This was a wonderful experience, and the tour guide emphasized how glad they are to be out from communism and from behind the iron curtain.
The bus tour guide was outstanding today, and he emphasized how glad that Hungary is free from communism. The language is quite unique, and is said to only resemble Finnish rather than German or Russian (as Bratislava resembles). Budapest is certainly a place one could spend a week exploring for its museums, monuments, architecture, and history.