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For Foodies Holiday Travel Favorite Excursions Land Tours & Extensions Cruises - River

AmaWaterway's AmaLucia Vinyards of the Rhine & Moselle

October 26th to November 2nd 2021

Beth Borrego & Rod Rodriguez with the Captain and Cruise Manager

We loved the AmaLucia!

Between Rod and I we took hundreds of photos of the ship, the amazing food, the castles and breathtaking countryside including miles and miles of vineyards. The AmaLucia slipped easily through the waters of the Rhine and Moselle and the services was extremely good.

The ship was fastidiously cleaned, and everyone, both guest and crew had their temperatures taken daily. Everyone aboard had to be fully vaccinated. It felt good to be travelling and out in the world again.

We didn't have the luxury on this trip of arriving at our embarkation city early to adjust to the time change, and we felt it. Of course, we always suggest arriving a couple of days early to adjust and enjoy the city you're departing from. We did make use of AmaWaterways transfers, which made it a far easier trip from the airport to the ship. Next time, we will extend the voyage before and after as well.

The food was wonderful. The chefs are cooking for fewer passengers on river ships and so the cuisine is more in line with a fine restaurant. They will attend to any special dietary requests you may have, which is as you would expect. There are a few staples offered daily, and some vegetarian offering, and of course the chef's recommendations which were mostly wonderful. I think I had one complaint all week, and a number of very pleasant surprises.

View our river guide here.

AmaWaterways river cruises - YES we would sail again!

Our journey began in Amsterdam, and we sailed the Rhine river with stops in Cologne and Rudesheim, missing the port in Mainz due to river issues, We stopped at Cochem and Bernkastle on the Moselle. We disembarked in Luxembourg.

AmaWaterways provided wonderful daily handouts with the schedule as well as holding live meetings with the Cruise Manager in the lounge. You received a pamphlet about the castles (about 30 of them) that would be seen during the time we passed through the Rhine gorge. The map detailed the names and locations of the castles. Our Cruise Manager spoke over the public address system to make us aware of particular ones as we passed them. Sadly, at the time of our sailing it was mostly overcast and often foggy. That's common in late October and in to November. AmaWaterways also made daily maps available for the local ports of call which we loved. It really made exploring ashore a breeze!

If you are familiar with river cruising, then you know that sailing on any river is contingent upon the level of the river. If the water is too low or too high it can wreak havoc with the ability of any ship to sail to its destinations. About a week prior to our embarkation, a Viking ship got stuck around Mainz, Germany (ish). Well, the river became backed up with traffic resulting in our Captain making the decision that was best for us all; don't tempt fate. Instead, all passengers were offered the option of disembarking and being bused to the city to see the sights, and then bought back to the ship. It was about forty minutes to Mainz and then about two hours back to the ship since it had to leave and begin the trek back up river in order to turn onto the Moselle. It was a brilliant solution and no one seemed to mind. All other ports and excursions went off without any hiccups and we heard and experienced nothing but good things.

While visiting these ports we not only enjoyed them during wine season, but in anticipation of the Christmas Markets as well. Germany is known for both amazing Riesling wines and also fabulous Christmas Markets. As we explored places like Cologne and Rudesheim, we carefully noted where the markets would be set up, in eager anticipation of our own return visit to the Christmas Markets.

As we sailed past bank after bank of vineyards we hoped for a glimpse of the harvesting. On our last wine tour we were not disappointed and had the good fortune to watch workers up on the steep hillsides harvesting grapes and carrying them back down to be dumped in to tubs and sorted by hand. This meticulous labor results in some amazing wines, and we were fortunate to sample some that day.

Photos of the grape harvesting are posted below on this page, so keep reading.

UNESCO World Heritage site Cochem's Castle.

All of the meals were picture perfect.

The meals were paired with offerings of wine each evening. The Chef also offered regional specialties and in all but one case I was very pleasantly surprised with the meals. You won't go hungry, that is unless perhaps all you want to do is eat 24 hours a day. The only down side to dining on the river is that the meal times are set. Breakfast, lunch and dinner do have preset times, and if you want a snack there are times where you can get Tapas or the like, but there is no endless flow of food the way there is on the ocean cruises. Having said this, we still caught ourselves saying 'it's time to go eat again' and laughing about it. Without overloading the page, here are a few images of food. Enjoy and Bon Appetit!

The appetizers offered a variety of samplings, and you could get more if you liked.

The desserts were always decadent works of art. That never stopped us from devouring them.

Look carefully and you will see the workers harvesting grapes which they load onto their backs in buckets.

Two women sort the grapes pulling the shriveled ones out and placing them into separate containers. It is hard to keep up with the pickers.

As you can see, it was a wonderful sailing and we could go on and on. But perhaps it would be just as easy to pick up the phone and give us a call to discuss your bucket list destinations and you next adventure!