AmaWaterways AmaVerde Danube River Sailing - Budapest to Vilshofen - Early Christmas Markets
Published Thursday, December 15th 2022 - Updated Saturday, August 23rd 2025In November of 2022, we sailed the AmaVerde from Budapest to Vilshofen. We began our journey in Budapest with AmaWaterways two day land extension. Arriving in Budapest it was extremely easy to spot our AmaWaterways representative. He cheerfully checked us off of the list of arrivals, and took us straight to ground transportation, where we were whisked away to our hotel. Arriving at the hotel we met Christian, our Cruise Manager, and he secured our luggage for us since our rooms were not ready. After asking a few questions we eagerly went off to explore the area, noting to be back at 6PM for the welcome reception.
With AmaWaterways, your Cruise Manager meets all of the arriving passengers who are enjoying the pre-cruise package, and travels with you on the cruise as well. This is a wonderful touch. Your Cruise Manager is available to answer questions, point guests in the direction they wish to explore, and to offer suggestions. Information about the included tours and breakfasts as well as the departure to the ship on boarding day are all explained. On boarding day there were several shuttles to the ship, giving us time to explore Budapest a bit more prior to embarkation. One of the things we did when exploring was to visit the Christmas Markets that were not open but were very much under construction. It was wonderful to see the amount of effort that went into bringing the magical markets to life.
Arriving at the ship, we were not disappointed and found the AmaVerde to be every bit as elegant as the AmaLucia was when we sailed her. While the Christmas Markets in Budapest were not open yet, as we sailed the Danube we discovered that two others were. Keep in mind that we were NOT on a true Christmas Markets sailing, and had no expectations of seeing any. In Austria we enjoyed both the Christmas Markets in Vienna, which opened that very day, and then in Salzburg which was a spectacular market.
The food on the ship and in the markets were both amazing. I have to say that the food on the AmaVerde was consistent in excellent quality just as it was on the AmaLucia. The service was equally excellent, and two of the staff recognized us from the year prior on the AmaLucia.
As travel agents we are always looking for opportunities to tour ships, and the AmaMagna was docked along side us in Vilshofen. We got special permission to tour her, guided by the captain himself. We will save that for another post.
All sailings on the Danube by AmaWaterways that call on Vilshofen will have a special Octoberfest for just AmaWaterways guests, regardless of the time of year. AmaWaterways had a special pavilion built and it belongs to them. The beer and pretzels are plentiful and the folk music and dancing are a wonderful treat! Do not miss it.
