We actually chose this cruise just on the basis of the itinerary and dates. Having sailed with AMAWaterways, however, we would definitely take another cruise with them based on the outstanding experience we had. We sailed from Nuremberg to Budapest on the beautiful new ship AMAStella, visiting Christmas markets along the way. By the end, we had pretty well exhausted our interest in markets. Luckily, the shore excursions (all accompanied by knowledgeable guides) also included city tours and there were on-board activities related to Christmas as well. The food was unbelievably well done. We were so impressed with the variety and the preparation, as well as the wine service. We traveled with a one-year-old in our group, which could have been a recipe for disaster. Instead, we found we could easily take part in meals and activities, and the crew was welcoming and helpful. In fact, the entire crew was as friendly, professional and helpful as one could wish in all aspects of the trip. Embarkation and disembarkation were also expertly done. In short, we felt we hit almost a home run on our first experience cruising.

Our only complaint relates to AMA's business office. When in April 2015 we booked 6 adults for December 2016, we also indicated that we would be bringing a 13-month old child. With 6 reservations on the line, they agreed to allow the infant, but wanted our acknowledgement that they had no support for an infant: no crib, high chair, stroller, car seat, dirty diaper pail, car seat or life vest. We agreed, we would provide our own.

A week before the trip we were informed that we should have been charged an almost $1000 supplement for the infant, but they agreed they were a little late on that. But we were also informed that the parents of the infant would have to move from Deck 3 to Deck 1 because Deck 3 cabins had a balcony and the infant could fall overboard, so they would apply the rate reduction for Deck 1 against the supplement and waive the balance. Obviously the "balcony" issue was a pretext (who opens a balcony in December from Nuremberg to Budapest, much less what parent opens the balcony with a 13-month old infant). I talked to another parent who had a somewhat similar experience with a young child on another AMA cruise.