We chose this cruise as we’d had such a wonderful Danube cruise on Crystal Mozart in 2019. Unfortunately this AMA waterways cruise was not quite in the same league, but as it included travel and transfers we decided to give it a try.

We found the ship reasonably comfortable with very helpful staff. Included excursions were good , but many geared to the active, involving hikes and biking. We prefer gentle cultural strolls . Unfortunately, covid restrictions meant we were obliged to observe many rules, so we decided to pay safe and avoid areas with high infection rates.

Food onboard was nicely presented, but very dull , repetitive and insipid if you were vegetarian/pescatarian. I was served fried salmon 5 times for dinner. We’ve never seen such tiny over baked bread rolls, and local delicacies did not appear. Luckily local cafes were serving wonderful strudel and chocolate cakes with quality hot chocolate and coffees. We were able to make reservations twice in the excellent onboard chef’s table, which served food of a much higher standard. Meals were accompanied by wines of a reasonably good standard, but none of the champagne we’d anticipated. There was no open bar, drinks had to be purchased, but a kind barman served us an excellent tokay when we were in the comfortable lounge, when most fellow guests went ashore for evening Christmas market visits. We decided that with the high covid rates in Austria and Germany we were safer avoiding crowds. We realised that this is not really a good time to be travelling, but it was an excellent experience, river cruising in beautiful areas.