A-ROSA Cruises

Passau

Europe - All

Europe - River Cruise

Terrible

Excellent

Stella

Viva

Aqua

Silva

Brava

Donna

Flora

Corfu

I have traveled with A-rosa "Donna" cruises in the danube river, and to be honest it does not even worth paying 100 euros.

	1) The cruise is built in and suitable for German speaking although I booked for international or English speaking cruise, if you ask the staff in English they will answer you, but don't expect more than that.	

	2) The high rank staff was rude to us, the non German speaking tourists specifically, the hotel manager specifically was rude and condescending , for example, the window in my room can not be opened, when I pointed out that the ventilation is not working properly, and I suffer from very light asthma " which I didn't suffer from any asthma attack in the last 3 years until the first night in the room", when I pointed out to hotel manager he said to me" we are overbooked can't help you, the ventilation is working fine we checked it ", when I kept complaining about the issue he simply replied "if you don't like it pack your luggage and leave the ship" absolutely in that rude manner, so I slept while keeping the door of the room slightly opened for ventilation. 	

	3) In general they don't like complaining in A-rosa cruise, simply they feel offended or something like that, another example, when I complained about keep changing dinning times, breakfasts, lunch, and dinner, the manager replied "we wrote it in English on the board you should read it daily", when I replied "no body informed that I should read the board daily", he replied "we announced in the megaphone" when I replied you didn't announce in English, he simply turned around while I am still standing and left. The funny thing is I thought I was the only one who missed the breakfast, but apparently a lot of non German speaking missed it.	

	4) The services in the ship is very low quality, for example, Wi-Fi is not available in the rooms only in the lobby, by extra charging 25 euros, although I enquired with A-rosa before booking, and they answered positively about availability of Wi-Fi, Even if you bought a carrier package for your phone, most of the time you don't have signal on board.  

The TV channels in the cabinet are all in Dutch, you have only 4 English news channels, Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC, FRANCE 24.	

	5) Room service is available every two days, not daily, even towels changing, asking for extra towels was utterly refused.	

	6) The cruise is built for 65+ German  speaking people, and I emphasize non German are not as welcome, but your money is welcome, the ship is dead no activities almost at all, the sun deck is closed most of the time, the bar close at 11:00 PM, for example, when we docked at vienna there was a lot of other cruising ships around us from different companies , almost all of them at 11:30 were partying while our ship was dark, and sleeping even the reception was empty.	

	7) The room is so small but bearable, you have only one electric socket wish is very far away for the bed, good luck charging your phone and tablet, or if you have partner good luck both of you charging the phone.	

	8) Everything they offer for extra charge, you want extra towels extra charge, Wi-Fi extra charge, drinks extra charge, even tables are reserved for extra charge, so good luck dinning near the windows. 	

	9) If haven't booked there excursions trips, which I didn't since all the excursions built for the elderly people. what's annoying is everything built around the excursions, and people who haven't booked will find very difficult to travel around in the cities effectively, the dining times change to accommodate the excursions.	

	10) Just to clarify I did not continue the cruise till the end of it, I quit 3 nights before its end, since it was so boring, and dose not worth it, and  I preferred to utilize the days left in my vacation in a better way.

11) last but not least I did complain to A-rosa headquarters and service centers by email and phone, still waiting for a reply. 

	I could go on and on about how much boring the cruise with A-rosa, but in the end it is not recommended not even for a penny, save your money or use different company.

Not worth your money, specially if your non German speaking and young 

We had a wonderful experience as a family on the Donna (7-day Danube round-trip from Passau). We chose an International sailing as we don't speak German, and found most of the staff spoke good English, and all the important announcements were made in both English and German. The majority of guests on board were German, with a large tour group from the UK and a smattering of other nationalities too (we are from Canada). For the shore excursions, we sometimes had multi-lingual guides and sometimes English-only tours. We mostly did the city tours/included tours as our group included a senior and 2 young children, so the bike tours were not suitable for us. The food on board was tasty and plentiful, and varied enough for just 7 days. All meals were buffet-style except for the optional specialty fine-dining dinners (of which we attended 2) where dinner was plated. The entertainment consisted of a DJ in the evenings who played music in the lounge for people to dance, and there was also some trivia I think but we did not participate in that. We stayed in double-occupancy cabins on the main deck with the lounge and restaurant, these had no balconies but had floor to ceiling windows and that suited us fine as you can't have your balcony doors open and the A/C running at the same time anyway, and in August we would have chosen the A/C! The itinerary was fantastic with an overnight in both Vienna and Budapest that allowed us to go out and see these amazing cities both day and night, and some lovely short stops in smaller, picturesque towns we otherwise would never visit. We booked directly with A-Rosa online after carefully reviewing all the information provided about the ship and the cruise and encountered no surprises, unlike some of the other reviews where bookings were made via third party agents. The cruise was great value for our family with the included drinks, excursions, and with the kids sailing free. Although this was a summer time cruise, there was no kids club on our sailing, probably due to there being very few kids on board, less than 10 and mostly teens. That said, the staff were all very friendly with our 5-year old and 2-year old (the 2 youngest travellers) and between the time spent in port, the pool on the top deck and the ship to explore, they were never bored. I would highly recommend A-Rosa!  We will definitely sail with them again.

Wonderful first-time river cruise on the Danube

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