I have finally experienced my first river cruise, on
Uniworld’s River Ambassador, just a month ago. The trip was a very relaxing
one. It’s not that I did not like it. For those who know me, I am a very active
person, always on a go. It was a trip that I did not feel that I needed a
vacation after my vacation, unlike all my other trips. The only thing is that I
had to recover from the trip was jetlag.
Uniworld’s service was great. However, the food was on the average
side. Maybe it’s because I had high expectations. Sometimes the food was
excellent, while other times were only so-so.
When we got to the boat, there was no security line to go
through. We just had to stand in a line at the reception desk to get our room
key and give them our passports so they can register us. (A bunch of us came in
at the same time since we had on the same transfer organized by Uniworld.)
When I first walked into the room, it was small as expected.
There was barely space for two people to walk around. (I felt like the room was
even smaller than the ones on ocean liners). The bathroom was nice and had
decent space.
I did not like the closets at all. There were two of them.
Each closet’s space was divided into two (top and bottom), so for those that
have long clothes, dresses and pants, they cannot be placed straight. Inside
the closet space, they provided two robes, two slippers, and an umbrella.
It was nice that the river cruise offered complimentary
internet access. If you wanted access to the internet, you had to ask the front
desk for that contained a user ID and a password. Each electronic device
requires one voucher. So if you had more than one electronic device, you needed
more than one voucher. You can access the internet anywhere on the ship,
including inside your room.
This (or any for that matter) river cruise trip was easy to
plan because shore excursions were included as part of the package. All you
needed to do was get your audio sets from your room (make sure to charge them
the night before) and join one of the tour groups that Uniworld organized.
(Most of the times, it was a city tour, but sometimes you had a choice between
two tours.) The tour guides were informative. We had Katia for 3 of the days
and she was great. She was filled with stories and was very funny. For these
guided tours, sometimes we had free time afterwards to roam around ourselves,
while other times we had to go back to the boat right away.
The reason why I mentioned at the beginning that this trip was
a relaxing one is because there were times that we were just cruising along the
river. There were no planned activities on the boat except the narrations of
which castle or town we were passing by. There was plenty of time to relax and
absorb the scenery, or do whatever you want on the boat.
So, if you’re looking for a relaxing trip and don’t want to
do any trip planning, river cruising is for you! (Please note that the average
age of river cruises is around 60 to 70. In addition, the rooms can only accommodate
two people.)
A few words about Prague…which was where we went after the
river cruise. Prague was nice, as expected, with beautifully decorated
buildings. However, I did not realize that Prague was the second most visited
city after Paris. There were tourists everywhere! If you do get to visit
Prague, just be prepared to deal with other tourists.
