We considered a river cruise on Avalon on the recommendation of friends. We do not like ocean cruising, too many people, we like to see places and not spend days at sea. This seemed to suit our criteria. We spent 3 nights in Paris before flying to Vienna and we had booked into the Intercontinental Hotel for the night preceding embarkation. The hotel was nice but I can't say too much about it because we got there late at night and checked out at noon the next day. In between, the room was very comfortable, breakfast buffet extensive, ATM available in the hotel and in a good location to head out and explore the city whilst waiting for Avalon to take us to the ship. A tour desk was manned early in the morning to provide information on tagging and leaving luggage for safe keeping etc after checking out of the hotel and a room to wait with tea, coffee and water provided for cruise passengers. Quite a few gathered in the hotel bar to wait and this was a very pleasant environment to begin our cruise.

Embarkation was professional and slick after being transported through Vienna by motor coaches. The ship is clean, well maintained and comfortable. We had booked a stateroom on the Indigo deck which has a window and not sliding balcony doors. Were we sorry that we did not have a balcony, not at all. We found that we were not in our stateroom very often, we were either ashore or in the foreword or aft lounges enjoying a 180 degree view of the scenery and not just of one side. The bed was comfortable, shower pressure and temperature great, plenty of storage and it was great to kick the empty suitcase under the bed and relax.

I did the optional tour to Schonbrunn Palace. Well organised, and for those who went to that in the morning they could go on the included city tour in the afternoon and didn't miss out. In Durnstein we went on the included guided tour through the picturesque town and then headed off for Melk. The included tour of the abbey in Melk was good. In Grein, which was a small place we decided to go off on our own for a brisk walk and ended up at Greinburg Castle just on opening time. For €5 each we explored the castle long enough to give us time to make it back to ship before it's departure. Delightful morning. On returning back to the ship from tours there was tea or hot chocolate waiting. Read more