Wild about river cruises

River cruises take you on a leisurely ride to quaint ports and charming towns that big ships  and planes  have no access to. It is an option for those who’ve already done motor coach tours, who want their hotel room to “travel” with them (so you unpack and pack only once), who want the elixir of being on or by a body of water virtually 24/7.

Rivers are like a lullaby, oceans are like a march. You pick your own tune, depending on your preference. Yes, both cruises are oceans apart — river cruises are relaxing, ocean cruises, exciting. Motor coach tours, on the other hand, give you more time to explore your destination — but are hectic as you stay in different hotels.

So if Destination Relaxation is your drop-off point, take a river cruise and feel, “Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”

Avalon Waterways, through Baron Travel Corp., has introduced to the increasingly empowered Philippine market its menu of river cruises and the response has been nothing short of wild. The most popular of these river cruises take you through Europe’s legendary rivers like the Rhine, the Danube, the Seine, the Scheldt. A river cruise ship has about 150 passengers, compared to thousands in an ocean cruise ship. Service is more personalized, and shore excursions are factored into the tab (the per diem for a river cruise is about $400 compared to about $100 for an ocean cruise, where shore excursions are not factored in).

For this year, Baron Travel, led by its president and CEO Marilen Sandejas-Yaptangco, broke Avalon’s sales records in Asia by selling the most number of cruise bookings.

This was according to Ray Smith, business development manager of Avalon Waterways, who was in the Philippines last week for the launch of the Avalon itinerary for 2015. Smith says Baron is by far the “most professional travel agency” he has worked with.

Baron production for 2014 is the highest in the history of Baron as General Sales Agent of the Globus Family of Brands, which covers Globus Tours, Cosmos Tours and Avalon Riverways.

Sandejas-Yaptangco was asked in April 2013 to be the godmother of the luxurious Artistry II, Avalon’s fourth Panorama-class ship (an all-suite ship with floor-to-ceiling windows that convert into a balcony as you wish), recognition of the growing importance of the Asian market. Avalon’s ships sail for an average of three years and a maximum of six, making it Europe’s youngest fleet.

Sandejas-Yaptangco is the first Asian to be godmother of a cruise ship, an honor once reserved only for royalty. (Sandejas-Yaptangco being a hard act to follow, Hollywood star Sharon Stone was next tapped to be godmother of an Avalon Waterways ship, the Expressions, which was inaugurated the following May).

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Asked why Filipinos make a beeline for the Avalon river cruises, Sandejas-Yaptangco smiles, “Because a river cruise is a status symbol. A river cruise isn’t cheap. And it’s new in the market.” In other words, it’s exactly what empowered Filipino travellers want to try, and talk about in their next power lunch or golf game, or in their next tête-à-tête  at the Luisa Garden Café. It’s a conversation piece.

Smith says that passengers on Avalon Waterways have given their river cruising experience a “99.9 percent” satisfaction rating.

Smith says all 2014 cruises are sold out to a cabin, and next year’s cruise itineraries are selling fast. He marvels at the economic buzz he sees and hears in the Philippines these days, and is happy this translates into more travel activities for the discerning Filipino traveller.

The only alternative for those who have missed the boat, so to speak, is to “Swim!”

I took an Avalon river cruise last year on the river Scheldt, which took me through Belgium and The Netherlands. The short cruise began in Antwerp, and took us to Veere, charming Medieval Bruges, Keukenhof (the amazing tulip gardens where you can click your camera toward any direction and get a postcard-pretty shot), Kinderjink, Utrecht, and finally Amsterdam.

A river cruise is like being in a cushioned cradle, with the wind singing you a lullaby. The river cruise ship, just about the size of a yacht and outfitted like an elegant boutique hotel (with marble sinks and L’Occitane amenities), sails through Europe’s smaller arteries and canals, taking you to picturesque and old cities and towns.

Other Avalon cruises take you from Paris to Normandy’s beaches; Burgundy and Provence; the Côte d’Azur; the romantic Rhine River; the Danube, from Budapest to Vienna; Vienna to Munich; Bucharest, and many more quaint European destinations accessible through a waterway. A cruise can be five days short (Christmastime in Alsace and Germany), or 19-days long, which you spend savoring Paris and Budapest, and many quaint ports in between.

Our 64-cabin ship, the Artistry II, had two decks of all-suite accommodation, with 30 percent more cabin space than the average competitor. It featured wall-to-wall panoramic windows that slide back to turn the entire cabin into an open-air balcony, allowing passengers to enjoy the outdoors without compromising space. 

The bed in the Panorama Suite faces the balcony, so you wake up to a view and dream with a view as well. You can open wide the balcony doors, and there are guard rails which you can lean against if you want to kiss the wind or simply soak in the scenery al fresco.

Either way, you’ll go river wild.

(Avalon Waterways offers more than 30 different river cruise itineraries on the great waterways of Europe, including the Rhine, Danube, Maine, Moselle, Seine and Rhône. It also offers 16 other itineraries on the Mississippi, the Yangtze, the Nile and the Mekong, as well as among the Galápagos Islands. For full details and bookings, please call your preferred travel agent or Baron Travel at 817-4926 or e-mail [email protected].) (You may e-mail me at [email protected].)