I thought Avalon did an excellent job. I've been on ocean cruises before but this was the first river cruise. Probably the most help I can give in a review is from the point of view of a 44-year-old. I think I was the youngest person on the cruise, with my husband being a year older. There were a few people close to our age - a daughter traveling with her mother, a few couples in their early fifties. You really get to recognize everyone on the ship because they don't hold that many people, at least compared to the uber-ocean liner cruises. My husband said it was a little like having dinner at your grandparents' house every night (not meant in a bad way, but realistically, that's what it was like). The seatings for dinner are at tables for 4 to 8 people, so you meet different people at every meal, unless you are traveling with a big group and you always eat together. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting couples from England, Canada and Australia, and since all were retired, it was cool to hear about their other trips they'd been taking and what they had done for a living in their home countries prior to retirement.

The tours are well organized and run like clockwork - don't be late or you'll miss them! No oversleeping! Most days there are 2 tours per day, because you have a stop in the morning, get back on the boat for lunch while you cruise to your next stop, and then another tour in the afternoon right after lunch. By the last couple days, we were a little burnt out on the "here's a church...here's another church." I was bummed because one of the castle tours I wanted to take was cancelled because not enough people signed up for it. I think people were scared off of it because they mentioned it would be a lot of walking. You see a lot of castles from the ship during the Rhine Gorge portion of the river cruise, and the cruise director did a wonderful job of narrating that afternoon. I just would have liked more time walking through an actual castle. Note to the cruise line: it would be AWESOME if you could pipe the cruise director's narration into the cabins. It was cold on the upper deck and that was where you had to be to hear the narration. With the wonderful views from most of the cabins, it would have been nice to just hang out with my husband and watch the castles float by from the comfort of our room, but I didn't know what I was looking at unless I went back up to the top deck to hear the cruise director.

The highlight for me was the start in Amsterdam and the historic windmill city we went to, and then also going to Heidelberg castle. I just wish we had more time at the castle - it was really a super-quick tour because they wanted to give you time to shop in Heidelberg, but I thought it just made everything feel very rushed that afternoon. One whole day rather than a 1/2 day in Heidelberg would have been preferred. You really are on the move the whole time during these cruises. (Not to scare off anyone who has trouble walking, because for every guided tour they offered an 'easy-walker' version.) Read more