It’s a Good Time To Start Thinking About a River Cruise In 2021
It’s a Good Time To Start Thinking About a River Cruise In 2021
By Amadeus River Cruises
Photographs courtesy of Amadeus River Cruises
If you are not sure about taking a cruise next year, you should definitely consider a river cruise. Amadeus River Cruises is one of the very few operators able to operate river cruises in 2020, sailing with a reduced fleet (about 8–10 ships) between July and the end of October. We were careful and hired our own epidemiologist early on to help us develop, install, and maintain our Health and Safety Concept aboard our vessels. While other cruise lines developed concepts as well, we were in the unique position to test our initiatives and are happy to report that we were able to keep all passengers safe and healthy this year.
Next to a solid health and safety plan, there are several other reasons why a cruise on a small vessel may be the perfect fit with your plans to start traveling again:
River ships have significantly less people on board compared to ocean cruise vessels and our Amadeus ships have an extra amount of public space in common areas, such as the restaurants, bar, decks, and clubs, to ensure appropriate social distancing guidelines can be easily followed.
River ships on European rivers are never far from shore and never in international waters. If need be, the vessel has almost immediate access to shore and can disembark a sick passenger, allowing for easy access to medical services right away and without requiring quarantine onboard the ship.
All Amadeus ships have rapid COVID-19 tests on board for immediate testing, and although we pre-screen our passengers before they even come onboard, we have the ability to test anyone feeling or displaying symptoms at any time during the cruise.
We feel good about achieving proof that our health and safety initiatives onboard our vessels were successful, and look forward to welcoming passengers back when we start our season next Spring. But as equally important to knowing that we can keep our passengers healthy is to deliver a good and pleasant cruise experience. We received a lot of praise from our travelers this year, and passengers commented on the flawless and almost intrusion-free atmosphere we created onboard with minimal inconvenience. The cruise experience very much resembled what passengers had in mind when they first booked their vacation with us.
We see a lot of pent-up demand for vacations and especially river cruises during this time. However, travelers are sometimes not yet ready to book and make a commitment for fear of having to change their plans and paying a change fee or penalty if they are not able to or don’t feel comfortable to travel. This is why we have introduced our Amadeus Carefree Protection Plan, currently valid for all bookings made until January 31, 2021. This extra assurance lets travelers change or move their cruise for any reason up to 28 days before departure without incurring change fees.
By providing peace of mind from the booking process to the stay onboard, Amadeus River Cruises is trying to bring people back to traveling and able to look forward to an upcoming trip again, something that all of us need after this year.
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By Dan Heims, President, Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
Photographs courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
Terra Nova’s breeders have created a series of outstanding world-class echinaceas that are consistent in size, bloom power, color intensity and are a pollinator buffet. What’s not to like.
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