Rhine River Cruise Meets Thread

Hi everyone! Finally rejoining the discussion now that school is out and we are less than a month away from the July 1st Rhine River cruise!

Regarding the Fish Extenders -- I can't recall if there was a specific direction on this when we got on the ship, but on our Danube Cruise last year (also on amaWaterways), there were no door decorations at all and no "fish extender" decor as we have seen on the DCL ships. Therefore, I am not sure if Fish Extenders would work on the river cruise.

Am interested in hearing if anyone got any additional feedback from ABD Corporate on what excursions are limited. There are only a few that are I had considered "must do" for my mom & daughter and me ... but knowing this new information we will plan to be flexible! From our experience last year, we were wiped out towards the end of the Danube River cruise. We actually decided not to go on a half day excursion so we could rest and just do some light exploring on our own. Since there are no "at sea" days, you really do keep moving at a fast pace! Therefore -- if an excursion doesn't work out for us, we will enjoy some down time!!

Looking forward to meeting many of you in a few weeks - and appreciate all the insight and feedback from everyone!
 
The "first come first serve" clause isn't in the "guide book" for the Rhine River cruise. It is on the "daily activities planner" which is an 8" x 10" piece of paper that was tri-folded and inserted into the adventure guide. The clause is in fine print at the bottom of the page.

I just looked at my Danube daily activity planner also and there's no mention of it. I wonder what's different about the Rhine River cruise.
 
We have signed up for the Sept 24, 2018 (!) Rhine River Cruise. I think this has to be the earliest we have ever planned a trip, but we were lured in by the early discount offered.
Looking forward to our first river cruise. We're just back from Amsterdam and we saw a few river boats docked there. That made me smile :) thinking about our trip coming up.
 
We are on the Christmas 2017 itenerary! <3 That will be our 20th ABD, and our 2nd Christmas ABD. Still getting used to being away at Christmas but we are excited! We did the Danube last summer and it was amazing....I know good things are in store for the Rhine!
 


I spoke to ABD yesterday about the "some excursions have limited capacity and are on a first come, first serve basis" clause on the Daily Activities Planner. The first vacationista I spoke with told me they never sent out such literature and to call my TA. I told her it came in my welcome package and it was most certainly from ABD.

She transferred me to a supervisor (he initially denied ABD made that statement, then he asked if I would forward him my Daily Activity Planner, then he finally agreed he would see if he could obtain one and call me back, which he did after 2 failed attempts to get the right piece of paper). He said it was the "vendors" and the "sub-contractors" that I should be speaking to. I asked him if I was supposed to contact them and why on earth would I when I booked the trip through ABD?

He asked me what excursions I was interested in and he told me that he would "try" to see if he could get information on whether or not my top choices would have limited capacity. He said "the vendors put the group size restrictions in place, not us". Uh, correct me if I'm incorrect, but doesn't ABD choose the vendors? So maybe they made some poor choices with their vendors for this tour.

I don't want to feel like I have to have a foot race to get to the boat so that we get the excursions we want. Just not what I expect from a vacation that I paid a lot of money for. It makes me feel like I will be going to WDW and racing to get the best FPs for the day (in the days of old).

If we can't get to the Anne Frank House I am going to be mighty upset. That is on the top of our list. I can't fathom that they wouldn't anticipate the demand for that particular tour. Actually we are pretty set in what we want to do. I sincerely hope we get our first choices -- I just can't think about anything to the contrary because it makes me :scared::mad::crazy:.

If I had known that we were going to have to "race" to the ship so that we get our first choices I never would've stayed in Zurich the night before (actually unless I enroll in a race or fitness challenge by choice, I never want to feel like this on a vacation). I think there might be some very poor planning on ABDs part with this aspect of the cruise.

I can say this from the Danube (and I assume the Rhine will function the same way). In the morning, there were different color cards assigned to each tour option for that morning/afternoon/day/whatever. You just took the number of cards needed for your group. That's how they managed the number of guests on tours. I don't know if the tour participant numbers are smaller for the Rhine, but it was really easy to get what we wanted, and there was never a race to pick up anything. Granted, we liked to pick up our cards early but it never felt like a competition. So you could pick up your cards any time in the morning, so nobody was all trying at the same time to get what they wanted. Does that make sense?
 
Are they doing Fish Extenders on other Rhine trips? We did the Danube, and it's the same boat, different name, and there's not really anywhere to hang one
from what I recall
 
Fish extenders are hooks on your cabin door where you can hang crafty Disney decorated pockets. Passengers exchange little gifts in them. You can make them on your own or buy one on ebay. We would like to do this on the July 1 Rhine River cruise if anyone else is interested. Our daughter is 14 and is going to make one. Google "fish Extender" for a better description . If the door is magnetic you can use a magnet hook to hang one.
 


For those that don't know....they're called "Fish Extenders" because on the original DCL ships, there's literally a metal fish on the wall outside of the doors. So people made these hanging pockets that could hang on the fish and friends tuck gifts into. And the tradition was born!
 
For those that don't know....they're called "Fish Extenders" because on the original DCL ships, there's literally a metal fish on the wall outside of the doors. So people made these hanging pockets that could hang on the fish and friends tuck gifts into. And the tradition was born!


Thank you for explaining this!
 
I heard back from the supervisor at ABD. He told me that after ABD contacted 6 vendors a week ago they have only heard back from 1 of them (the zip line adventure). He says there is a maximum of 68 allowed on this excursion. This is of course one of the excursions my dd wanted to do so I hope we get to the ship early enough to be on the adventure. She isn't very flexible on changing the excursions she chose since some of them are quite different. I'm going to hope for the best. I *may* change our train departing from Zurich to Basel from 10:00am to 9:00am, even though I don't want to rush out the door of our pre-booked champagne breakfast just to get the excursions we want.

He also said that ABD operations was aware after the DVC cruise that there were some restrictions on capacity for certain excursions that they are "working to rectify". No word on how they would do this or when.
 
I heard back from the supervisor at ABD. He told me that after ABD contacted 6 vendors a week ago they have only heard back from 1 of them (the zip line adventure). He says there is a maximum of 68 allowed on this excursion. This is of course one of the excursions my dd wanted to do so I hope we get to the ship early enough to be on the adventure. She isn't very flexible on changing the excursions she chose since some of them are quite different. I'm going to hope for the best. I *may* change our train departing from Zurich to Basel from 10:00am to 9:00am, even though I don't want to rush out the door of our pre-booked champagne breakfast just to get the excursions we want.

He also said that ABD operations was aware after the DVC cruise that there were some restrictions on capacity for certain excursions that they are "working to rectify". No word on how they would do this or when.

..........missing the champagne breakfast would stink........I hope ABD resolves this problem.
 
I heard back from the supervisor at ABD. He told me that after ABD contacted 6 vendors a week ago they have only heard back from 1 of them (the zip line adventure). He says there is a maximum of 68 allowed on this excursion. This is of course one of the excursions my dd wanted to do so I hope we get to the ship early enough to be on the adventure. She isn't very flexible on changing the excursions she chose since some of them are quite different. I'm going to hope for the best. I *may* change our train departing from Zurich to Basel from 10:00am to 9:00am, even though I don't want to rush out the door of our pre-booked champagne breakfast just to get the excursions we want.

He also said that ABD operations was aware after the DVC cruise that there were some restrictions on capacity for certain excursions that they are "working to rectify". No word on how they would do this or when.

So glad you finally heard back - and thank you for sharing the details.

I don't recall which sailing you will be on -- but if we are on the same cruise (departing 7/1), my family will help out! The three of us are not high adventure - and will not be on the zip line excursion! :-)

I am just glad to have a heads-up on this so that we can plan for a second choice. Am hopeful that issues will be worked out!
 
So glad you finally heard back - and thank you for sharing the details.

I don't recall which sailing you will be on -- but if we are on the same cruise (departing 7/1), my family will help out! The three of us are not high adventure - and will not be on the zip line excursion! :-)

I am just glad to have a heads-up on this so that we can plan for a second choice. Am hopeful that issues will be worked out!

The three of you can block the others as they scramble towards the sign up desk....... don't forget to "go low and wrap then drive, drive, drive". LOL, I hope it doesn't come to that scramble.
 
I heard back from the supervisor at ABD. He told me that after ABD contacted 6 vendors a week ago they have only heard back from 1 of them (the zip line adventure). He says there is a maximum of 68 allowed on this excursion. This is of course one of the excursions my dd wanted to do so I hope we get to the ship early enough to be on the adventure. She isn't very flexible on changing the excursions she chose since some of them are quite different. I'm going to hope for the best. I *may* change our train departing from Zurich to Basel from 10:00am to 9:00am, even though I don't want to rush out the door of our pre-booked champagne breakfast just to get the excursions we want.

He also said that ABD operations was aware after the DVC cruise that there were some restrictions on capacity for certain excursions that they are "working to rectify". No word on how they would do this or when.

That sucks. I can understand why that activity would have a limit for the number of people, but with a tour that costs this much it would be so upsetting to have to sit on the sidelines.
 
Interesting thing just happened. I had a call from ABD telling me that I didn't have to change the departure time of my train from Zurich because the excursion bookings start at 3:00pm. What is interesting is that I never mentioned to ABD that I was pondering changing my train time -- I just posted my thoughts on this board. To say I am a bit creeped out that ABD was reading the board, was able to ascertain my name and reservation number and contact me is an understatement.

When I questioned how they got this information (about possibly changing the time of our train), the girl said it "was passed along to her" and refused to be specific about how she got that information.

I am trying to force myself to remember the good things about ABD and tell myself that we will have a good time no matter what. But the idea of reading this forum and contacting guests based on what they post - I don't like it one bit.

I did ask her what happens if we can't get the excursions we want and she said "well pick another one". When I told her that my teenage daughter wasn't flexible with what she had chosen (I don't think she has a teenager and endured the wrath of a 15 year-old girl) she basically said "that's too bad -- she'll just have to do something else". Sorry, I didn't pay the money I did to hear that kind of statement. I expected to be able to do the excursions they listed on their website that appealed to us. This situation really needs to change on the Rhine River cruise.
 
Can you tell me what excursions you did in Amsterdam? In the morning we will do Anne Frank Huis. It's the afternoon that's got me puzzled. I can't decide between the Delft factory (with painting) or the Dutch countryside (with clog painting). Both sound amazing to me.

Do you have any recommendations? What was the feedback on them?

I am so sorry I am just seeing this question! I have been trying to put a trip report together but it is extremely slow going but I am hoping to put the start of one up tonight. For Amsterdam, we chose the Van Gogh museum in the morning - the Van Gogh excursion had a space limit because there were only 30 slots in the painting class. Then in the afternoon we did the Delft factory, which was very cool but also had a space limit because they only had a set amount of spots for the tile painting (speaking of which, we still haven't gotten our tiles yet!) Now our Delft experience, and the Dutch countryside excursions, were a bit truncated due to traffic issues. The buses could not make it to the dock because of accidents on a bride in Amsterdam, so all the excursions left late. For people who went to Volendam and Zaanse Schans in the Dutch countryside, the late buses and traffic made them cut half the trip off. So there were two groups, and one would go to Volendam first and then go to Zaanse Schans while the other group did the opposite, but due to the late start I know the tour who went to Zaanse Schans first did not have time to go to the fishing village. And then because we ended up taking a different bus then what was intended, as ABD sent out bus out to countryside, the bus driver on the Delft bus got completely lost so we spent an hour driving around the Delft area (literally) before we finally got to the factory. So our tour was super short. The tile painting was very cool though!

For the excursions, the horseback riding excursion in Alsace, the beer and wine evening tour in Strasbourg, the chocolate making class in Cologne, the Van Gogh museum, the macaroons, and the Delft factory all had space limits. Basically, it seemed like any time the excursions involved some sort of class, there was a space limit. However that does not mean that you will not get your excursion and spots did open up even for people who did not initially get into their first choice but I thought it was weird that they had any limits at all for these tours!
 
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Iola1972, we are sailing July 1st. I must agree that the idea of first come first serve is ridiculous on an ABD! We all pay a premium price, and they should be able to deliver the activities to all clients. They certainly don't advertise this premise on the website. This is especially grievous since you can't make any alternate plans. For example, Anne Frank house tickets should be booked way in advance, and if you don't know wether Disney will take you until you are on the cruise, you can do nothing but miss it. Another issue I have noted is that several activities have disappeared since we first signed up. Both a fondue tasting (now a Swiss Cheese tasting) and a tour of Speyer have are no longer available. Disney does say they have the right to change activities, but disappointing none the less.


Momof3greatkids

I too noticed the diappaering offerings???? My son was looking forward to the speyer afternoon tour. Sorry I didn't reply to your post earlier... I must not have my notifications on. Hopefully ABD will work everything out. I'm excited to hear about your experience since you will be traveling before me. You'll have to give me tips and pointers. Are you staying additional nights in Amsterdam? If you are... you could book your Anne Frank tickets the day we get off the ship. That's what we did.
 
I spoke to ABD and was told that everyone will get the excursions that they want. We also know exactly what we want to do each day. If it makes you feel better we are going to the Van Gogh museum. We are staying an extra 2 days in Amsterdam and are going to the Anne Frank house then.
On a more happy note, does anyone want to do a fish extender???


Which sailing are you on?
 
Can anyone ask April that did the Mercedes and BMW museums please share their thoughts on how it was? Also is anyone on board this week it can say how it's going with the availability of the excursions and what the process was for signing up on the second river cruise on June 17?
 

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