New Avalon River Cruise- Creativity

River cruising in Europe is booming. Unlike ocean cruises where you might not necessarily dock near the city you would like to visit, the river cruises dock right in town. No need to take expensive shore excursions to see the main attractions in the town since many excursions are included. Many of the river cruises also include wine with dinner, free WiFi and bikes to take into town to explore.

Avalon River Cruises just christened their newest ship- the Creativity.

Here is a review from a travel writer...

Christening Avalon's Creativity
By David Cogswell
Published on: August 17, 2009

Avalon Waterways, the river cruise company that is part of the Globus Family of Brands, earlier this month chose Amsterdam as the site of its christening ceremony for Creativity, the company’s eighth new ship in Europe since 2004. Guests boarded the ship in Amsterdam and then sailed to Volendam, a Dutch fishing village where the naming ceremony took place. The Creativity debuted only two months after Avalon’s last new ship, the Affinity, set sail for the first time. After its christening, Creativity set out on its first cruise, the Romantic Rhine itinerary, an eight-day trip between Zürich and Amsterdam. In 2010 it will move to France where it will sail the Grand France cruise.

Avalon’s newest ship is the latest in the ongoing evolution of river cruising. Creativity embodies a combination of the elements that have proven to be successful in the marketplace. The river cruising product has only taken hold in the American market since the early 1990s after the Main Danube Canal was completed in 1992, making it possible to travel by river from the Rhine delta at Rotterdam, Netherlands, to the Danube delta at the Black Sea. Since then the product has grown in popularity by leaps and bounds, and the handful of companies in the market are hustling to provide enough ships to accommodate the demand.

The architecture of the new Creativity is fundamentally the same as that of the Amalyra of AMA Waterways, on which I sailed a few months ago. The two ships have different styles and interior designs, with some variations in features, but they essentially have the same basic layout. These new entries represent how the product is evolving through the ongoing interaction between suppliers and their customers. The ships of other major competitors, such as Uniworld and Viking River, also incorporate many of the same basic concepts.

The dimensions of river cruisers are determined by the size of the locks on the canals. The canals are 12 meters wide, so at 11.4 meters in width the Creativity is as large as it could possibly be and still get through the canals. It is 110 meters long and six meters high. The ship is long and pencil thin, with three decks of accommodations and a sun deck on top that resembles a narrow football field with gray and green Astroturf.

The Creativity is so long that it would be difficult to maneuver at all if it had a traditional propeller/rudder steering system. But it has a pod propulsion system, which enables it to maneuver with agility. Instead of pushing in one direction and modifying the direction with rudders, the pods can effectively propel the ship any direction the captain chooses, even straight sideways if necessary.

The cabins in Creativity are spacious. Indeed, Avalon claims they are the largest in the market. They would be small for a hotel room, but they are large for a ship’s cabin. The official dimension is 172 square feet and suites are 258 square feet. There is a real bathroom with a real shower. A sliding glass door with railing effectively turns your little living room into a balcony.

My room had a nice warm, red and brown carpet, a functional desk built into the wall, a plush bed, a colorful painting, plenty of closet space and a flat-screen TV. The ship also has a fitness room, library, hair salon, gift shop, Jacuzzi, club room, sky deck, and, of course, a large restaurant with open seating.

Like ocean cruising, river cruising has the advantage of not requiring its passengers to pack up and move from city to city. Like motorcoach touring, river cruising has the advantage of taking you right into the hearts of the cities. You can open up your sliding glass picture window, or even go up on the sun deck and see the landscape without even a pane of glass obstructing you. River cruising is a congenial form of travel and the pricing is also kind. Meals are bundled into the price, and wine, beer or soft drinks are included with dinner.

For the handful of companies that caught on to these possibilities, river cruising is the holy grail of the tour industry, and it has been a mini-gold rush as operators have rushed to dive into the market. Avalon promotes itself as having an advantage because its shore excursions are provided by Globus, a huge worldwide operation with experience in escorted touring going back some 80 years. The company is trying to make the most of its synergies between tour and the river cruise operations. But river cruising is clearly the star, the new baby and most illustrious member of the family.

River cruising is the tour industry’s secret weapon for targeting the vast numbers of dedicated cruisers who take a cruise every year or so. The aquatic aspect of the river cruise product is familiar to people who take ocean voyages. In fact on a small ship you are much closer to the sailing lore than you are on a vast vessel that is more like a floating hotel than an actual sailing experience.

River cruising also is a good product for people who have never bought into the escorted tours model. In many ways, the river cruise culture has more in common with escorted touring than big ship cruising. It is destination-focused, not ship-focused. The ships are surrounded by land at all times. On a river cruise you are always at the destination. You don’t just visit for a little while and then go out onto the vast blue sea again for most of your time.

Besides the sailing experience, however, what river cruises share with big cruises is the freedom to unpack once and not worry about it again till you are going home. Globus is promoting river cruising as not only great in itself, but also a good component to combine with a land tour for a varied vacation.