CircleTravel

I'm planning a senior group travel trip to the German Christmas markets in 2011. My travel agent is really pushing the Avalon Panorama (ship still being built). I'm not seeing a lot about Avalon in reviews...but see great reports about Uniworld and Viking. I'm looking for some input on Avalon vs Uniworld. Many thanks.

jacketwatch

Try www.cruisecritic.com. You'll find alot of reviews there.

bratsandbeer

My cousin has been on 4 tours with Grand Circle Travel. You might want to check them out at www.gct.com She was extremely happy with Grand Circle Travel.

Dreps

Our TA has fairly recently gotten into booking more River Cruises. Being extremely thorough on all aspects of any company the agency sells, she did a personal examination of a number of the lines offering European cruises. She decided to focus primarily on AMA Waterways, though she books on many of the other lines, too. As a result, we decided to book our first River cruise from Prague to Budapest for this September. She has an interesting section on her Web site that goes into the pros and cons of a number of the River cruise lines, including Avalon. If you're interested, go to http://www.bkrivercruises.com. and read the "Reports" listed under each of the lines.

jkr2006

I've taken the Christmas cruise on both Grand Circle and Vantage- neither of which go through travel agents, so your agent won't encourage you to use them. I have been very happy with both lines- the ships are quite similar, very comfortable rooms and good food. I would be happy to answer your questions.....I do love the Christmas markets...great fun. JKR

andrewgill12

Go for www.cruiseanswers.co.uk then you will find the difference, which is the best.

Dreps

The great TA that I mentioned above, just posted information that Avalon has a number of cruises with 0 single supplement. I don't know if the cruises fit your time frame or whether your group includes some single cruisers, but I thought this might be of interest.

southeastern

Did the Grand Circle Christmas Market cruise on the Rhine this past Christmas and were extremely happy. The food was good, the ship very nice, and we had a guide but plenty of time to do things on our own. The only disappointment was the Christmas markets contained more FOOD than anything else. They were still delightful and I would highly recommend the trip and GC, Remember though it is an older group of people incase you are in 30-40. It's a retired group mainly.

pauljagman

Hi Circletravel,

We are just back from an Avalon river cruise on the Rhine and were delighted to have traveled with them. We were on the new ship Felicity on a Rhine River cruise and the ship was beautiful, the food was pretty good and the staff was extremely friendly. I've not travelled with Uniworld so I can't comment on Uniworld's operations.

I believe the Panorama will also be a new ship so you would enjoy the latest of amenities.

I would have no qualms about traveling with Avalon. We saw many ships on the river and the Avalon ship appeared to be much nicer and obviously newer than others.

Good travels to you and your group!