River cruise - single supplement question and room/deck info

[Pens Fan]

We are contemplating a 2018 river cruise (either a summer Rhine cruise or the holiday Danube one) and I have a few of questions:

1. We will be traveling with our then-20 year old son and would love for him to have his own room. I cannot find on the ABD website what the single supplement would be. I see it's 50% for the non suite rooms on AMA Waterways and was wondering if it's the same on the ABD cruises. Any singles out there that can shed some light?

2. Is there any advantage of deck 2 vs deck 3? It seems that deck 3 is quite a bit more expensive.

3. Has anyone shared the AA or AB category rooms with 3 adults? Is it really realistic for a 20 year old to sleep on the "chair bed"?

Thanks!!!

 

[sayhello]

1. I did the Danube River cruise last summer as a single. The single supplement is, unfortunately, 100% of the per person double occupancy price. In other words, he will basically pay the same as 2 people in a cabin, except for port fees. Last year, they had a brief period of time where they had the single supplement set as 50% of the pp rate, but it was only for Category C cabins, and only available for a short period of time. You can always ask ABD and see if they are repeating this offer, but I haven't heard anything about them doing that.

2. The main difference between deck 2 and deck 3 is how far your balcony is from the water. Deck 1 is partially submerged, Deck 2 is slightly off the water, and Deck 3 is higher. That's really the only difference I could see. Sea sickness was pretty much non-existent on a river boat, so that's not an issue at all.

3. I believe there were some folks on my cruise that had kids in with them in the AA & AB category cabins. I didn't hear anyone complaining that it was too horrid.

Sayhello

 

[Pens Fan]

Thanks for the input! Bummer about the 100% supplement. Hmmmm. Makes going directly with AMA that much cheaper than ABD. Something to think about. Unless I'm misreading their website, AMA only charges 50% unless you are in a suite.

 

[sayhello]

Thanks for the input! Bummer about the 100% supplement. Hmmmm. Makes going directly with AMA that much cheaper than ABD. Something to think about. Unless I'm misreading their website, AMA only charges 50% unless you are in a suite.

Interesting! It *does* appear that you are correct, at least for the few cruises I spot-checked. The single supplement for AMA is 50%. That definitely is a good reason to book directly with them. That kind of makes me angry that ABD charges 100%. It seems it's not AMAWaterways that is dictating that kind of price.

Sayhello

 

[tgeorge]

That is interesting. Does AMA offer excuse the excursions that ABD does? I'm sure they are different excursions, but is it included in the price of the sailing if you book directly with them? I may have to check it out.

 

[sayhello]

That is interesting. Does AMA offer excuse the excursions that ABD does? I'm sure they are different excursions, but is it included in the price of the sailing if you book directly with them? I may have to check it out.

Yes, AMAWaterways River Cruises include a selection of excursions in each port. From what I've seen, it seems that many River Cruises do.

Sayhello

 

[tgeorge]

Yes, AMAWaterways River Cruises include a selection of excursions in each port. From what I've seen, it seems that many River Cruises do.

Sayhello

Great! Thanks for the information

 

[laceltris3]

I also wanted to let you know that the Tauck Bridges river cruises for families have a category with no single supplement at all, and their itineraries are much like ABD.

 

[Fivepin]

We are contemplating a 2018 river cruise (either a summer Rhine cruise or the holiday Danube one) and I have a few of questions:

1. We will be traveling with our then-20 year old son and would love for him to have his own room. I cannot find on the ABD website what the single supplement would be. I see it's 50% for the non suite rooms on AMA Waterways and was wondering if it's the same on the ABD cruises. Any singles out there that can shed some light?

2. Is there any advantage of deck 2 vs deck 3? It seems that deck 3 is quite a bit more expensive.

3. Has anyone shared the AA or AB category rooms with 3 adults? Is it really realistic for a 20 year old to sleep on the "chair bed"?

Thanks!!!

We are in the same boat-we would like to do this for my oldest son's graduation. He will be 18. I inquired about the chair bed and got dimensions of 30x80. I think we may just book the triple room. We don't know of anyone that could share the other room with him. Unless you are think of 6/18/18 Rhine River-lol

 

[Pens Fan]

We are in the same boat-we would like to do this for my oldest son's graduation. He will be 18. I inquired about the chair bed and got dimensions of 30x80. I think we may just book the triple room. We don't know of anyone that could share the other room with him. Unless you are think of 6/18/18 Rhine River-lol

Thanks for the bed size info! I called ABD and Ama as well to double check the pricing info. Another thing I found out that was a little annoying was that for that 3 person room, Ama discounts the 3rd person by 25% off of the non-discounted fair. (They are currently offering early booking discounts that would not apply to the 3rd person as they would just get a straight 25% off the original price.) As for ABD - 3rd person pays 100%.

I think we have pretty much ruled out going through ABD anyway. The overall price difference is just too much for us to justify. We are honestly rethinking the whole river cruise thing as well. We don't care for group tours. When we take ocean cruises, we always book private tours for just our family or DIY it. As the tours are already included in the fare for river cruises, we would feel obligated to take them and I'm really not sure if that's for us.
The cruises do sound amazing, though, so we've go a lot to think about and decide what to do. We may just punt the whole idea and do an ocean cruise to either the Baltics or the Med. Either that or fly to Germany and rent a car and go our own way. My husband travels to Germany all the time for work, so he knows these areas very well. Decisions, decisions!

 

[JsMom2]

Interesting! It *does* appear that you are correct, at least for the few cruises I spot-checked. The single supplement for AMA is 50%. That definitely is a good reason to book directly with them. That kind of makes me angry that ABD charges 100%. It seems it's not AMAWaterways that is dictating that kind of price.

Sayhello

Remember that AMA only offers a limited number of single supplements. When ABD purchased the rooms onboard, they had to pay the full double occupancy rate.