Avalon Passion Review

4.5 / 5.0
66 reviews

Fabulous first river cruise!!!

Review for Europe Cruise on Avalon Passion
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Reesaroo
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: May 2017
Cabin: Panorama Suite with French Balcony

One of my friends and I have been talking about taking a river cruise for years. Let's face it - those Viking commercials are very inviting. Now that my three kids are grown, in the spring of 2016 we decided now was the time to start planning. I first sent for brochures from several river cruise companies to compare intineraries etc. My friend and I have both travelled to Europe previously and wanted to go someplace new so we chose to take a Danube river cruise. I then met with a local travel agent who specificalizes in river cruises. She steered me away from Viking and helped me narrow our choices to AMA or Avalon. When she quoted out the price it was much higher than we had anticipated so we chose to watch and wait. By the fall of 2016 Avalon came out with a great sale - $1000 off per person + free air. That seemed too good to be true. I called the travel agent and we were booked within a few days! We ended up choosing this itinerary since it was short and we did not know if we would like river cruising. About a week after we booked my 27 year old daughter decided she wanted to go with us. She was able to get the single supplement waived and she booked as well. She could not get the single supplement waiver and free air but she was able to book on the same flights we were on so we could fly together.

We all absolutely loved this cruise!! Everything about it was wonderful. It was a nice mix of small towns and big cities. We added a few days to the end of cruise and took the train to Budapest. We wished we had chosen a longer intinerary that included Budapest so we could stay on the ship.

The ship: Our ship was the Avalon Passion. This was a new ship in 2016 and it was beautiful. Everything was sparkling clean and very tastefully decorated. The ship was actually much longer than I had anticipated. The rooms were spacious and that wall of windows was in the room was just awesome. We loved waking up in the morning and looking out at the river going by. The lounges, sky deck and dining room were equally beautiful.

Cabin Review

Panorama Suite with French Balcony

Cabin A

My friend and I were in cabin 207. It was the perfect location. Not too far from the front or back. The cabin was spacious with plenty of storage for both of us. The wall of windows was the best. We had the beds set up as two single beds so that did cut down a bit on the extra room around the edge of the beds. The beds were super comfortable. None of us had any trouble sleeping at night. My daughter was in aquarium class in room 106. We took a look at her room and it was of similar size except for the bathroom. That looked a little smaller. All of us said we would get the same level rooms on future cruises. Interestingly enough, all of the repeat river cruisers we met specifially chose the aquarium class rooms since you are in your rooms so little and they are so much cheaper.

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