In August of 2014 my husband and I booked an Avalon River Cruise from Prague to Paris to take place August, 2015. Unfortunately, our first night in Prague we learned that there was a barge loaded with steel in the middle of the river and our river boat would not be able to reach us in Nuremburg which was the original point of embarkation for the cruise. Since we had arrived a day early, the company was unable to contact us before leaving the US. At the initial meeting we were informed that the company was redirecting our cruise to travel from Passau, Germany to Budapest, Hungary along the Danube. They would then fly us to Paris so we could connect with our original return flights.

We were informed that we could either continue with the cruise and receive a refund of 50% or cancel and receive a full refund. We opted to continue with the cruise (not having much choice). Naturally we were disappointed because we had been planning for a year to visit towns in Germany that we had never seen. As it was, one of the days in Austria was a national religious holiday and our second day in Budapest was a national holiday resulting in most businesses and venues being closed. Additionally, we lost an afternoon in Paris because of the late arrival of our flight.

Upon our arrival home, we found that our refund was based on the cruise portion only (something that was not spelled out in our original meeting.) We called our travel agent who contacted Avalon; after several days we were given a contact to email. We received a note from an Avalon customer service representative that we would not be receiving the full 50% refund. Read more