Desperately want to book a river cruise on the Danube for the end of September and have narrowed it down to 2...one on Viking and the other on Avalon. Would love to hear your experiences if you have been on one of these cruises.

Thank you
Rose

https://www.tripadvisor.com/FAQ_Answ...cting_the.html

These were mostly last year in September, but a couple of days ago, there was something on the news about places in the Danube the water is so low there are sandbars. I would do some serious research about the situation before booking a river cruise. You probably would be unhappy to have it turn into a bus tour. I will see if I find anything really current.

https://www.travelresearchonline.com...river-cruises/

I read that Viking has many more identical boats so they are able to do ship/boat swaps easily and allow people to stay in the boats rather than hotels. So, they can do better than companies with fewer boats. Make sure your trip insurance covers low water as well as high water cancellations.

Thank you. At this point I'm hoping that it is late enough that the water level will be fine. I would suspect lower water levels in the summer months. And if it turns into a bus trip we will just live with that. It will be nice to get away and see other countries.

We went on Viking in the Russian rivers, good enough experience, and on the Danube, poor experience. Then we went on the Mekong River cruise( Cambodia and Vietnam) with AMAWaterways, our favorite river cruise, , and the difference between Viking and AMA was that AMA won on every category, much better experience, higher quality in every way.

Recommend Tauck or Uniworld. Either one offers a superior experience. Avalon definitely not! My two River cruises with them were sadly lacking.