You're going to discover and see everything you need to know about
AmaWaterways AmaSonata river cruise ship. Hi, I'm Gary Bembridge and this is another
of my tips for travellers. I am going to take you on a tour and review the AmaWaterways AmaSonata
River cruise ship. AmaWaterways ships are amongst the highest
rated like the Berlitz Guide to River Cruising ranks 10 of the AmaWaterways
ships as their top 10 ships. Let's take a look at the AmaSonata that I am
recording this on, and find out why they're so highly rated. The ship was
built in 2014 holds 164 guests and has roughly one crew member for every three
passengers, and has a lot of space per passenger. It is one of the best on the
rivers. Let's take a look at, first of all, what facilities there are
and then what the cabins are like. On the top deck is a Sun Deck, and you have
a big open area, you have a walking track and one of the really important
features is the swimming pool. It's a heated swimming pool so even in the
depths of winter if you're on board you could actually swim. The next level
down is the Violin deck. In the front of the ship you have an open area where you,
in good weather, can sit outside and eat or relax. Then, very importantly, you
have the large lounge with an observation area up front, where you get
great views. The lounge is very important because you have the bar in here, it's
where you meet in evenings for the Sip and Sail complimentary cocktail hour, it's
also where they serve light bites at breakfast and lunch. It's also where they
have afternoon tea, so it's a very important place and it's the main
meeting spot on board. It's also where you have things like port briefings.
Just behind that you have a little gift shop which has a wide range of souvenirs
depending on the region, jewellery etc. You then have the reception desk
and area where you have the Cruise Manager and Hotel Director desks. You
then have some cabins and at the rear you have a couple of really
important things like the Chef's Table, which is the speciality dining
restaurant. The chef's Table is included within the fare and all you do
is book to go to it. There's also the fitness room here, which is again
complimentary, and you have the hairdresser and a massage room. The deck
below that is known as the Cello deck, and here you have the main dining room.
This is where you can have breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast being a
buffet, lunch being a buffet and dinner being a multi-course sit down menu. It's
a great venue and I really like the dining room because there's lots of
booth type tables, big tables and smaller tables and a real nice mix of
configurations there. Below that you have the Piano deck, which is where you have
more cabins. Now, I want to talk about the cabins. You do have some suites ,but the
bulk of cabins onboard are the twin balcony cabins. These are very unique to
AmaWaterways and they created them because they know a lot of people like
to have a balcony, even if they don't use it very much. Being able to sit
outside and enjoy the fresh air as you sail along and look at the sights, but what
they realised is if they have a balcony across the whole of the cabin it reduces
the size of the cabin, so they created one area where you have a French
balcony, so you have more space, and then the balcony. I really like the cabins on
board and I found them very comfortable, probably one of the nicest cabins on any
river cruise ship that I've been on. the quality of the bedding was really good,
the bathroom itself was fantastic. It's a marble bathroom with great shower and great water
pressure, very hot water, nice premium toiletries. A
really nice cabin. The bulk of the cabins are this style and they're on the
Violin deck and the Cello deck. On the Piano deck you have, because they are partly below the
water level, cabins which just have windows higher up. I would really
recommend if you possibly can to get one of the twin balcony cabins because
that's the best way of experiencing the rivers that you cruise along because you
get beautiful scenery all the time, and be able to look out or step on the
balcony is a really big plus. AmaWaterways AmaSonata is a very beautiful ship and
it is very typical of other AmaWaterways ships, so if you see other AmaWaterways
ships you'll see that they look very similar to this and many of them
are very similar inside. Please watch many more of my Tips For Travellers
videos if you found this one helpful because you will get much more travel
inspiration, advice and tips on how to make the most of your precious travel
time and money on both land and at sea