If you are looking at booking an Avalon Waterways cruise, take a look at the World of Cruising website where you can see what deals are available! Click here to head over there tidd.ly/3X0txdQ
Yes we make these review style videos to give as much info as possible because if we put them into the vlogs they’d be too long and might get a bit boring. The vlogs are more for the experiences and memories, usually a bit more fun too. ❤️
I’m not convinced I’d be able to happily pass the time on a river ship, but think I’ll try giving it a go next year. Those rooms that open out onto the water just look absolutely spectacular!
Rooms are stunning - very relaxing to lie there watching the scenery go by. It’s definitely all about the destinations on a river ship, you’ll be surprised how busy you can make it, we’ll we were 😀
Really happy to see you give Avalon River Cruising a thumbs up! Cracked me up that you woke up with a hangover but “forced” yourself to have some more wine after they kept asking you if you wanted some!😆I’m booked 4/24 (I know…a year away!) on the Impression in the same category of cabin from Prague to Passau, 8 countries & 3 rivers! This helped me a lot, and great to see the different areas of the ship, that food was good, drinks, whirlpool, etc. Glad to see that collection from the airport, embarkation and disembarkation were so easy and great to know the app worked and you could get wi-fi from the Whisper head sets, even forming a hotspot on the bus! Feeling much better about this. Different than ocean, but think it will be a nice change of pace. Also glad to hear the crew were so good! Also, I’m doing Basel to Amsterdam on Viking this September, so would love to hear your impression of the airports. Really loved this video.
Really glad to hear this video was useful and informative. We had a fantastic time on the cruise, the food was fab, the ship spotless and the service top notch! Little things like the Whisper acting as a personal hotspot was nice too. We hope you have a fantastic time on your cruise! We Arrived in Amsterdam and then on the way home connected there too, its a big airport but easy to navigate and lots of shops/food stall so you can grab a bite to eat or coffee.
Thank you for these vlogs about your Avalon river cruise. I just returned from Avalon’s Active and Discovery Rhine cruise. Your videos were so accurate and informative. Our itinerary was somewhat different, but still very useful as many stops were identical. We selected many of the active excursion options, including kayaking in the canals of Amsterdam for 2 hours (quite a paddle), eBikes in the Black Forest, and a Heidelberg hike (the Philosopher’s Way). We were lucky to have nearly perfect weather. There were quite a few passengers in their 20s, including my son. I was surprised at the high level of activity with the excursions available to passengers looking for more activity than river cruises are known to provide. Thank you again.
We are so glad you found these videos useful and informative. As it was our first river cruise, we wanted to get as much info over as we count and share our genuine experiences, comments like this mean a lot to us, so thank you! It sounds like you had a truly fabulous time too. What surprised us to was how even on our cruise, if you wanted to be active you could, or if you just wanted to relax, that was fine too - we think river cruising really is underrated! Thanks again for the comment and for watching.
Thanks! We’re glad you enjoyed the video and thank you so much for taking the time to comment and say so! Yes it’s crazy to think that the Avalon Panorama is literally half the length of Titanic, I don’t know if I’m shocked at how long the Panorama is or shocked at how small the Titanic was? But then Cruise ships these days are enormous so it’s no surprise I guess! ❤️
I've never done a river cruise (but many transatlantic crossings and large ship cruises), but your video makes the ship and itinerary look fantastic! The Avalon Panorama looks especially nice so I will look into booking a trip! Thanks for opening my eyes!
Oh fab, always nice to hear our videos are helping people explore different options. It really was a fab cruise, with a very good selection of excursions included the days fly by and at night you can relax and enjoy some fabulous food. :)
Fantastic video! Thank you! I am taking this cruise in October of 2024 and was happy to see the beautiful weather you had on yours! Hoping it will be the same for ours. Cheers!
It looks like it was a beautiful ship. And the cuisine looked first class. Wonderful ports. But how wicked of them to force that wine on you! Hahahahaaaa! A major benefit, I am guessing, would be that the ship on a river would usually be more stable than an ocean cruise? Thank you for the video! It was epic!
Glad you enjoyed it! They knew we couldn’t say no to yummy wine! Yes, very stable and we didn’t notice any movement as it’s flat calm. Thanks for watching
Hi both, Great video, food looks excellent, Like you think kettle in cabin essential ! Hope to try one day , the places you visited very nice. Take care.
I too have been hesitant on booking a River cruise but after watching this I will be booking, such a great informative video lads 😀 Avalon looks great and that room was stunning👍.......I need that view and room in my life, S*d it I am booking it. 😜
We head out on this trip in Sept 24’. We’ve watched so many videos trying to choose but we made the jump. One thing we notice on all reviews is there is NEVER anyone in the whirlpool, on the top deck, etc. I cannot imagine that being realistic - so how “crowded” do we need to expect it?
Ohhh fantastic, have an amazing time!!! During our 7 nights we saw one other couple use it and also a mother and daughter chill out in there! It was October so some said it was too cold to go in but the water was hot so once in it was a lovely way to relax, so pack the swimwear as unlike an ocean cruise ship, the whirlpool is not packed out all the time!
Great review… there’s definitely a lot to love about this style of cruising, but I’m still not convinced it’s for me… I’m a single, ready to mingle kinda solo cruiser lol and also very much a night owl, not sure how I’d go without evening entertainment…
The single aspect is fine as lots of singles river cruise and it’s very sociable - but the evenings do lack entertainment as most are early to bed etc. like you mentions, with a group it would suit better!
Great vlog! What is the dress code on Avalon? We are jeans people and wondered if you had to dress up for meals.😊 also wanted to know if meals are like ocean cruises where you can order multiple items for starters or desert.
They are a casual cruise line, some do dress up but you don’t need to, smart jeans and T-shirt are fine! We didn’t try more than one dish but we’re sure it wouldn’t be a problem.
Just watched your entire Rhine River series - so much fun. Do you mind me asking if the final bar bill was a heart attack? My husband and I are in our mid 40s and have always gotten the drink package on our ocean cruises. We're not super heavy drinkers but I think I would enjoy a cocktail or two in the evenings before/after dinner. Considering a 10 day river tour and trying to budget. Thanks - great channel!
Oh fabulous- you must try it, it’s such a different experience to ocean cruising, it’s really nice! We’d love to do another, maybe Christmas markets as that would be perfect. Different river lines have different packages so research them, for Avalon we had beer and wine included at lunch and dinner. They had a happy hour each night with cocktails at half price, so they were only around €5. For a week our bar bill was around €200. Drinks prices on this cruise were far more reasonable than any other ocean cruise, guess with a higher up front cost they don’t need to make as much money on the bar/lounge?
Thank you for the amazing review. Not sure if I can ask questions here but I’m looking to go on this cruise as a solo late 40’s traveller. We’re most of the guests seniors?
Thank you. We are mid to late 30’s and we’re some of the youngest. While the majority are, there is a mix of ages onboard from. River cruise lines are trying to attract the younger crowd, Avalon do an Active & Discovery which might be worth a look at. Hope that helps 😀
There is a hair dryer under the sink in the shower room. If you watch our cabin tour you will see this. We go into much more detail in the cabin tour video. 🙂
A few choices, looking at some menus, these were some of our evening choices: Apple-caramel tart, ‘old Amsterdam’ icecream, cheese board, fruit plate. Raspberry mousse with chocolate, Oliebollen (Dutch doughnuts with raisins), ice cream, cheese board. Dark and white chocolate mousse duo, "Dutch" ice cream cup, Orange ricotta and berries with pistachio crunch, cheese board, fruit plate. Crème brûlée, "Wild Forest" mango yogurt cup, Soaked dried fruit compote, cheese board, fruit plate. Mango mousse with passion fruit sauce, banana cake with vanilla-rum sauce, Hazelnut and stracciatella ice cream with chocolate and fruit sauce, whipped cream, condiments and cones, cheese board.
We’ve done Ventura twice in the past but the videos are done in our old style, just music. We will be doing Ventura & Azura again at some point, not sure when but hopefully one of them in the next year I’d have thought.
Not at all, in-fact it’s the complete opposite, most of the time we felt overdressed just wearing a shirt and jeans, we could have easily got away with trainers and t-shirts. It was very informal and relaxed. Maybe one shirt for the gala evening but certainly not a suit or tux or anything. 👍🏻
It’s too bad Avalon has no verandas, which we’ve found to be heavenly on our many river cruises. The French balconies are just not a good option for us. That’s the only reason we’ve not cruised with them.
Hi Lads , I have an apology to make to you both I made a comment that your vlogs would be much better if one of you didn’t get drunk all the time although I really enjoy your videos . I thought later and after watching many of your videos I was being the arsehole not you , why shouldn’t you let go when you want . Again I apologise. 🍹🍺🍾🍸🍷😘
No worries! Our vlogs are 'us being us' on our holidays and bringing you along, we understand they are not everyone's cup of tea. This is also why we also have other videos such as reviews, stateroom tours and etc on our channel. Hope you enjoy the vlog Avalon vlog series that we'll have going out this month and January, then later in the new year we'll be bringing you Caribbean sunshine :D
Viking has Michelin rated chefs and has been ranked the higher. Bigger rooms, better food. It also handled the pandemic the best. Uniworld includes personal butlers and is allegedly exceptional. Did the older cruiser couples accept a same gender younger couple well?
We had a fabulous time on Avalon, so sounds like the others would be super posh! Not sure why you need a butler on a river cruise though, seems a bit over the top, but each to their own. Yes, we felt welcome by everyone, passengers and staff :)
Nuts? No. We in fact feel safer on cruise ships than we do at our local supermarkets, shopping centres and workplaces as they all have no restrictions. We were on the first cruise out of the UK in May 2021 and have since done 9 more cruises. We follow local restrictions and practice good hygiene as well as using some common sense. We totally understand some people still don’t feel safe about travelling and that is a personal decision. We can only share our experiences and hope they help everyone who loves travelling.
Thank you for these vlogs about your Avalon river cruise. I just returned from Avalon’s Active and Discovery Rhine cruise. Your videos were so accurate and informative. Our itinerary was somewhat different, but still very useful as many stops were identical. We selected many of the active excursion options, including kayaking in the canals of Amsterdam for 2 hours (quite a paddle), eBikes in the Black Forest, and a Heidelberg hike (the Philosopher’s Way). We were lucky to have nearly perfect weather. There were quite a few passengers in their 20s, including my son. I was surprised at the high level of activity with the excursions available to passengers looking for more activity than river cruises are known to provide. Thank you again.
![8 Best River Cruises in Europe - Travel Guide [4K]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3IsqTF3yaM4/mqdefault.jpg)
If you are looking at booking an Avalon Waterways cruise, take a look at the World of Cruising website where you can see what deals are available! Click here to head over there tidd.ly/3X0txdQ
Wish I could. It looks so lovely. Much more my style than a big ship.
Just did this cruise in Oct/Nov 2021! Wasn’t it great??❤❤
This condensed recap of what to expect on the Avalon River Cruise is great.
Yes we make these review style videos to give as much info as possible because if we put them into the vlogs they’d be too long and might get a bit boring.
The vlogs are more for the experiences and memories, usually a bit more fun too. ❤️
Just watched video. Probably one of the best River cruising review I’ve seen. Completely informative. Great job guys
Thank you so much, we really appreciate that!
I had no idea that one would be at water level. So great.
"They forced me to drink wine". 😂
Great video, looking forward to the series. 👍👋
🤣 Glad you enjoyed and hope you enjoy the upcoming cabin tours and vlogs!
I’m not convinced I’d be able to happily pass the time on a river ship, but think I’ll try giving it a go next year. Those rooms that open out onto the water just look absolutely spectacular!
Rooms are stunning - very relaxing to lie there watching the scenery go by. It’s definitely all about the destinations on a river ship, you’ll be surprised how busy you can make it, we’ll we were 😀
Thanks for the detail, all in one place. We sail mid-May, 15 days. Sooo excited.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did 😀
Wow what an amazing adventure, I was so excited watching ur experiences . Thank you & safe travels 🎉🛳
Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for taking the time to comment 🙏😀
Really happy to see you give Avalon River Cruising a thumbs up! Cracked me up that you woke up with a hangover but “forced” yourself to have some more wine after they kept asking you if you wanted some!😆I’m booked 4/24 (I know…a year away!) on the Impression in the same category of cabin from Prague to Passau, 8 countries & 3 rivers! This helped me a lot, and great to see the different areas of the ship, that food was good, drinks, whirlpool, etc. Glad to see that collection from the airport, embarkation and disembarkation were so easy and great to know the app worked and you could get wi-fi from the Whisper head sets, even forming a hotspot on the bus! Feeling much better about this. Different than ocean, but think it will be a nice change of pace. Also glad to hear the crew were so good! Also, I’m doing Basel to Amsterdam on Viking this September, so would love to hear your impression of the airports. Really loved this video.
Really glad to hear this video was useful and informative. We had a fantastic time on the cruise, the food was fab, the ship spotless and the service top notch! Little things like the Whisper acting as a personal hotspot was nice too. We hope you have a fantastic time on your cruise! We Arrived in Amsterdam and then on the way home connected there too, its a big airport but easy to navigate and lots of shops/food stall so you can grab a bite to eat or coffee.
Thanks for showing us the lock system filling with water. I loved seeing you go through the locks.
It was a fantastic experience and really interesting to watch!
I’m glad you had a good river cruise. It was interesting to see. Always happy to find a video from you guys waiting to brighten my day.
Awww thank you ☺️
Great thorough review guys 👍. Look forward to the vlogs 😃
Thank you ☺️
Thank you for these vlogs about your Avalon river cruise. I just returned from Avalon’s Active and Discovery Rhine cruise. Your videos were so accurate and informative. Our itinerary was somewhat different, but still very useful as many stops were identical. We selected many of the active excursion options, including kayaking in the canals of Amsterdam for 2 hours (quite a paddle), eBikes in the Black Forest, and a Heidelberg hike (the Philosopher’s Way). We were lucky to have nearly perfect weather. There were quite a few passengers in their 20s, including my son. I was surprised at the high level of activity with the excursions available to passengers looking for more activity than river cruises are known to provide. Thank you again.
We are so glad you found these videos useful and informative. As it was our first river cruise, we wanted to get as much info over as we count and share our genuine experiences, comments like this mean a lot to us, so thank you! It sounds like you had a truly fabulous time too. What surprised us to was how even on our cruise, if you wanted to be active you could, or if you just wanted to relax, that was fine too - we think river cruising really is underrated! Thanks again for the comment and for watching.
A really great insight into River Cruising ❤ and in the Rhine to of all place’s Beautiful. Maybe one Day
Lovely to hear you found it a great insight. It’s a lovely experience and worth a try 😀
Much nicer than a ship with 5,000 people on it , imo
It’s a complete different experience isn’t it, we found it wonderful.
Oh my monkeys you are so much fun to watch That was a cool bit of Titanic info about the size of the ship
Thanks! We’re glad you enjoyed the video and thank you so much for taking the time to comment and say so!
Yes it’s crazy to think that the Avalon Panorama is literally half the length of Titanic, I don’t know if I’m shocked at how long the Panorama is or shocked at how small the Titanic was? But then Cruise ships these days are enormous so it’s no surprise I guess!
❤️
I've never done a river cruise (but many transatlantic crossings and large ship cruises), but your video makes the ship and itinerary look fantastic! The Avalon Panorama looks especially nice so I will look into booking a trip! Thanks for opening my eyes!
Oh fab, always nice to hear our videos are helping people explore different options. It really was a fab cruise, with a very good selection of excursions included the days fly by and at night you can relax and enjoy some fabulous food. :)
Great review. I love how you organized the review. Thanks!
Thank you very much
Fantastic video! Thank you! I am taking this cruise in October of 2024 and was happy to see the beautiful weather you had on yours! Hoping it will be the same for ours. Cheers!
Glad you enjoyed it! Have a fabulous cruise, we'll keep our fingers crossed you get some good weather too!
It looks like it was a beautiful ship. And the cuisine looked first class. Wonderful ports. But how wicked of them to force that wine on you! Hahahahaaaa! A major benefit, I am guessing, would be that the ship on a river would usually be more stable than an ocean cruise? Thank you for the video! It was epic!
Glad you enjoyed it! They knew we couldn’t say no to yummy wine! Yes, very stable and we didn’t notice any movement as it’s flat calm. Thanks for watching
I just booked a cruise on this ship for 2025. Thank you for confirming I made a good choice.
Oh brill, you will have a fantastic time - we thoroughly enjoyed it :)
A nice teaser trailer for your next series. Looking forward to seeing how long it takes before you give in on the wine tasting 😄
Glad you enjoyed - never that long 🍷
My sister and I have done two Avalon cruises. This one and the Danube. We loved them. We did have a BBQ on the roof.
We loved this one. Bet the bbq was fab!
Hi both,
Great video, food looks excellent,
Like you think kettle in cabin essential !
Hope to try one day , the places you visited very nice.
Take care.
Thank you, it really was fab! The coffee machine wasn’t far away so we do apologies to those that saw us walking to get one looking like zombies 😂
I too have been hesitant on booking a River cruise but after watching this I will be booking, such a great informative video lads 😀
Avalon looks great and that room was stunning👍.......I need that view and room in my life, S*d it I am booking it. 😜
Glad it was helpful! We genuinely had a fantastic time, relaxed evening and busy days exploring! The room is amazing 😍
We head out on this trip in Sept 24’. We’ve watched so many videos trying to choose but we made the jump. One thing we notice on all reviews is there is NEVER anyone in the whirlpool, on the top deck, etc. I cannot imagine that being realistic - so how “crowded” do we need to expect it?
Ohhh fantastic, have an amazing time!!! During our 7 nights we saw one other couple use it and also a mother and daughter chill out in there! It was October so some said it was too cold to go in but the water was hot so once in it was a lovely way to relax, so pack the swimwear as unlike an ocean cruise ship, the whirlpool is not packed out all the time!
Great review… there’s definitely a lot to love about this style of cruising, but I’m still not convinced it’s for me… I’m a single, ready to mingle kinda solo cruiser lol and also very much a night owl, not sure how I’d go without evening entertainment…
The single aspect is fine as lots of singles river cruise and it’s very sociable - but the evenings do lack entertainment as most are early to bed etc. like you mentions, with a group it would suit better!
Great vlog! What is the dress code on Avalon? We are jeans people and wondered if you had to dress up for meals.😊 also wanted to know if meals are like ocean cruises where you can order multiple items for starters or desert.
They are a casual cruise line, some do dress up but you don’t need to, smart jeans and T-shirt are fine! We didn’t try more than one dish but we’re sure it wouldn’t be a problem.
Just watched your entire Rhine River series - so much fun. Do you mind me asking if the final bar bill was a heart attack? My husband and I are in our mid 40s and have always gotten the drink package on our ocean cruises. We're not super heavy drinkers but I think I would enjoy a cocktail or two in the evenings before/after dinner. Considering a 10 day river tour and trying to budget. Thanks - great channel!
Oh fabulous- you must try it, it’s such a different experience to ocean cruising, it’s really nice! We’d love to do another, maybe Christmas markets as that would be perfect.
Different river lines have different packages so research them, for Avalon we had beer and wine included at lunch and dinner. They had a happy hour each night with cocktails at half price, so they were only around €5. For a week our bar bill was around €200. Drinks prices on this cruise were far more reasonable than any other ocean cruise, guess with a higher up front cost they don’t need to make as much money on the bar/lounge?
Thank you for the amazing review. Not sure if I can ask questions here but I’m looking to go on this cruise as a solo late 40’s traveller. We’re most of the guests seniors?
Thank you. We are mid to late 30’s and we’re some of the youngest. While the majority are, there is a mix of ages onboard from. River cruise lines are trying to attract the younger crowd, Avalon do an Active & Discovery which might be worth a look at. Hope that helps 😀
All looked beautiful especially the cabin.
Thank you, it was a lovely ship.
Just to clarify..there is no hairdryer in the bathroom so you need to bring one?
There is a hair dryer under the sink in the shower room. If you watch our cabin tour you will see this.
We go into much more detail in the cabin tour video. 🙂
What were the options for dessert? Thx
A few choices, looking at some menus, these were some of our evening choices:
Apple-caramel tart, ‘old Amsterdam’ icecream, cheese board, fruit plate.
Raspberry mousse with chocolate, Oliebollen (Dutch doughnuts with raisins), ice cream, cheese board.
Dark and white chocolate mousse duo, "Dutch" ice cream cup, Orange ricotta and berries with pistachio crunch, cheese board, fruit plate.
Crème brûlée, "Wild Forest" mango yogurt cup, Soaked dried fruit compote, cheese board, fruit plate.
Mango mousse with passion fruit sauce, banana cake with vanilla-rum sauce, Hazelnut and stracciatella ice cream with chocolate and fruit sauce, whipped cream, condiments and cones, cheese board.
@@CruiseMonkeys thanks so much!!
Very welcome
What time of year did you take this cruise?
This cruise was taken towards the end on October last year (2022)
Can you cruise on Ventura
We’ve done Ventura twice in the past but the videos are done in our old style, just music. We will be doing Ventura & Azura again at some point, not sure when but hopefully one of them in the next year I’d have thought.
Did you feel pressure to dress up more on this style cruising? I feel like I would need to dress a bit nicer than on a traditional cruise ship.
Not at all, in-fact it’s the complete opposite, most of the time we felt overdressed just wearing a shirt and jeans, we could have easily got away with trainers and t-shirts. It was very informal and relaxed. Maybe one shirt for the gala evening but certainly not a suit or tux or anything. 👍🏻
It’s too bad Avalon has no verandas, which we’ve found to be heavenly on our many river cruises. The French balconies are just not a good option for us. That’s the only reason we’ve not cruised with them.
Hi Lads , I have an apology to make to you both I made a comment that your vlogs would be much better if one of you didn’t get drunk all the time although I really enjoy your videos . I thought later and after watching many of your videos I was being the arsehole not you , why shouldn’t you let go when you want . Again I apologise. 🍹🍺🍾🍸🍷😘
No worries! Our vlogs are 'us being us' on our holidays and bringing you along, we understand they are not everyone's cup of tea. This is also why we also have other videos such as reviews, stateroom tours and etc on our channel. Hope you enjoy the vlog Avalon vlog series that we'll have going out this month and January, then later in the new year we'll be bringing you Caribbean sunshine :D
@@CruiseMonkeys I see you are on the Beyond in January. We are on it next September so I’m looking forward to see what you think .
@@CruiseMonkeys I don't drink and I love their journey on cruises. Feels so authentic.
Viking has Michelin rated chefs and has been ranked the higher. Bigger rooms, better food. It also handled the pandemic the best. Uniworld includes personal butlers and is allegedly exceptional. Did the older cruiser couples accept a same gender younger couple well?
We had a fabulous time on Avalon, so sounds like the others would be super posh! Not sure why you need a butler on a river cruise though, seems a bit over the top, but each to their own. Yes, we felt welcome by everyone, passengers and staff :)
From what I see the Viking ships hold more people and the rooms are smaller .. ships are all the same size to fit in the locks
Cruising during a pandemic? Are you nuts??
Nuts? No. We in fact feel safer on cruise ships than we do at our local supermarkets, shopping centres and workplaces as they all have no restrictions. We were on the first cruise out of the UK in May 2021 and have since done 9 more cruises. We follow local restrictions and practice good hygiene as well as using some common sense.
We totally understand some people still don’t feel safe about travelling and that is a personal decision. We can only share our experiences and hope they help everyone who loves travelling.
When I was on Panarama there were only 44 passengers with 41 crew! It was awesome (Oct 2021)!!!
Thank you for these vlogs about your Avalon river cruise. I just returned from Avalon’s Active and Discovery Rhine cruise. Your videos were so accurate and informative. Our itinerary was somewhat different, but still very useful as many stops were identical. We selected many of the active excursion options, including kayaking in the canals of Amsterdam for 2 hours (quite a paddle), eBikes in the Black Forest, and a Heidelberg hike (the Philosopher’s Way). We were lucky to have nearly perfect weather. There were quite a few passengers in their 20s, including my son. I was surprised at the high level of activity with the excursions available to passengers looking for more activity than river cruises are known to provide. Thank you again.