Monarch Countess Review

-- / 5.0
Editor Rating
8 reviews

Worthwhile Gate 1 river cruise on the Monarch Countess

Review for Europe River Cruise on Monarch Countess
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Travelin_Bear
2-5 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Apr 2019
Monarch Countess at embarkation in Amsterdam.
Lower-level cabin 105.
Lower-level cabin 105.
Cabin bathroom.
Cabin bathroom.
Dining room.
Dining room.
Lounge.
Lounge.
Lounge.
Aft-end lounge (with very good coffee machine!)
Sun deck, while docked in Amsterdam.
Water-level view from lower-level cabin.
Hot tub on the sun deck.  Apologies for taking this picture when there was
Hallway on Deck 2.
Monarch Countess, docked.
Monarch Countess, docked.
Monarch Countess, docked, showing the Gate 1 logo.
Reception desk in the lobby.
Stairway in the lobby.

This may be the first review of the Monarch Countess, one of Gate 1 Travel's own river cruisers. I was looking for reviews prior to our trip but was unable to find any. If I'm not mistaken, this ship was formerly the Avalon Felicity. Being rather new to river cruising, we've only been on a four-day Yangtze river cruise, and a week-long Nile cruise, on other carriers. We opted this time for Gate 1's river and canal cruise around Holland and Belgium at tulip time. It was a bit early in the tulip season but we were still rewarded with lots of color, especially at Keukenhof, which was spectacular.

Something I learned on this cruise is that river cruises tend to travel by night. This makes sense since you're in different ports each day, but my previous river cruises did include daylight travel.

We chose this cruise because it seemed like a good value, and as it turned out, it was a good value. But beyond that, the ship is lovely, the crew is attentive, and the food was very good. If I were to do another river cruise, I would definitely consider Gate 1.

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