Zee Michaelson Travel
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Zee Michaelson Travel
Traveling Solo on Avalon Waterways
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Welcome To Solo Travel Series
Speaker 5Hi, and welcome back to my miniseries on Traveling Solo on Z Michelson Travel Podcast. It's a ZM Max Travel radio production. It's presented by Collage, travel Media Network, and this is your space for inspiration, confidence, and a little bit of luxury, whether you're traveling across the world or simply dreaming about your next adventure. And of course, I am Z Michelson. I'm a travel advisor. A media host and an advocate for all those solo travelers who refuse to wait to see the world. Now, on today's episode, we are talking with Denise from Avalon, and it's for anyone who has ever thought, I wanna travel, but I don't wanna wait for someone else. But where should I start? Where should I look to go? Where do I wanna go? Let's think Avalon.
SpeakerAnd again, this is Z Michelson, and thank you for joining us today. And as I promised, I brought Denise back from Globus and she is going to talk about Avalon.
Speaker 2Yes.
SpeakerAnd she's gonna be talking about solo travel on Avalon.
Speaker 2Yes. Yes.
SpeakerSo first,
What Avalon Waterways Is
Speakertell us a little bit about Avalon. What is Avalon?
Speaker 2Yep. So Avalon Waterways is a part of the Globus family of brands. Mm-hmm. And Avalon waterways are our river cruises. And Avalon Waterways has been around over 20 years, and Avalon is part of Globus family of brands, Globus family of brands. We have Globus Cosmos, land Tours.
SpeakerRight.
Speaker 2And then Avalon Waterways was the last brand to get added.
SpeakerRight?
Speaker 2So we own 16 ships and 15 of them are in Europe and one is in Southeast.
SpeakerNow these are river cruises?
Speaker 2Yes,
Speakerthese are river cruises. So the ships are not as large as we see these ocean liners.
Speaker 2Not at all. Right. The most that we will have, like for the Rhine or the Danube is 168 passengers.
SpeakerOh, that's nice.
Speaker 2Oh, very nice. Yeah. Yeah. The smallest one we have, well, we have the, the Mekong, Vietnam. Cambodia with the Mekong River. Only 18 cabins.
SpeakerOh wow.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
SpeakerThat's very intimate.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
SpeakerRight.
Speaker 2And the Duro, which I got booked on yesterday, I'm finally going only 102 passengers. And that's in Portugal, right? On the Duro River. On
Speakerthe Dura River.
Speaker 2Yes.
SpeakerNow I understand when you're on the Duro River. It usually docks at night.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm.
Speakercause it doesn't travel down the Duro.
Speaker 2Correct.
SpeakerBecause it's a little dark there.
Speaker 2Yeah. And it's a little bit different than the Rhine. And the Danube. Right. So I'm looking forward to it so I can experience it myself. Mm-hmm. So I can fill you guys in.
SpeakerNow, how many ships again, does a, has?
Speaker 216.
Speaker16. All in total? Mm-hmm. Are there any new ones coming up or you can't talk
Speaker 2it? They can't tell us. They're not telling us because they're afraid We're going to tell you.
SpeakerYou're gonna spit it out.
Speaker 2Yeah. They're, they're, they're very cautious because they wanna fill up. The next year before they bring out too much flashy stuff for the year after.
What Is Included Onboard
SpeakerSo what is included on one of these river cruises?
Speaker 2Oh, so we're not all inclusive, but I would say 95% all inclusive. Mm-hmm. So all of your meals, right? So you have early riser, breakfast, breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea time at four o'clock,
Speakerright?
Speaker 2Your beer, your wine refreshments are included for lunch and dinner. But then we have happy hour, which is included an hour before dinner, right? There's a whole list of drinks.
SpeakerNice.
Speaker 2And then also we have tea thyme also now sodas, refreshments are included throughout the day.
SpeakerThat's good.
Speaker 2Yeah. And then we have two, I think my, the most important, my favorite part of the two cappuccino makers.
SpeakerOh yes.
Speaker 2On board. And that as your cappuccino, your lattes, and those are also included. All of your excursions, you have three different excursions. They're active, they're classic, and they're discovery
Speakerthat you have three different. At each port or
Speaker 2it really depends. Like the lower Dan Ube you won't have, you know, 'cause there's not that much to do with the lower Dan Ube. Mm-hmm. But you might have two to pick from.
SpeakerOh, nice.
Speaker 2You know, some days, some days you might just have a walking tour,
Speakerso at least one per day.
Speaker 2Oh. Uh, yeah. I mean that is few and far between when there's only one. Mm-hmm. But like the Wachau Valley, there's like six different excursions. Amsterdam, there's like five or six different excursions that you can choose from that are. Included.
SpeakerRight.
Speaker 2Um, some river cruise companies only have one excursion.
SpeakerMm-hmm.
Speaker 2And then everything else is extra. But we have all these different choices included. So your meals, your excursions, your, your beer, your wine, your sodas, all of that is included. Not the beer and wine, not throughout the day, but you have it for lunch and dinner and happy hour, so,
Speakerright.
Speaker 2And then don't forget, on a river cruise, you can bring on. Wine, beer. We won't confiscate it.
SpeakerOh, you don't charge a co fee?
Speaker 2You know, they might,
Speakerthey might charge a co fee fee, so
Speaker 2I was
SpeakerBut they won't take it away from you.
Speaker 2Correct. We don't
wanna
Speakerhave a special, special with dinner. That's nice.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah. You bring it on. Mm-hmm. I've been on plenty where, you know, you're going through, like, I'm doing the ro.
SpeakerRight.
Speaker 2All the port wine.
SpeakerOh, yes.
Speaker 2You know, and people are bringing it on. And maybe just bring your own opener and mm-hmm.
SpeakerCall it a day. Right. Sit back, relax.
The Cabin Design Difference
SpeakerYeah. Now there's something unique about Avalon's cabins.
Speaker 2Yes. We call it the view.
SpeakerMm-hmm.
Speaker 2So 80%, and this is a big difference with Avalon, some river cruise companies. To get to these larger cabins, you need to upgrade like all of these d. Levels, right. To get these mm-hmm. Large cabins. Mm-hmm. Not with us. 80% of our cabins are 200 square feet with the beds facing out,
Speakernice
Speaker 2beds facing out. So you're facing the sliding glass door, which is 11 feet and seven feet of it open up.
SpeakerRight. So that's nice. It's not a typical balcony though, that people might think.
Speaker 2Yeah. It's not like you can't go out onto a balcony. Right. We call it a French balcony.
SpeakerRight.
Speaker 2But it's nice because there's not a balcony, so you have 200 square feet of complete living space.
SpeakerRight. And it, it opens completely.
Speaker 2Yeah.
SpeakerSo
Speaker 2open air balcony as we call it.
SpeakerYeah. So it's very nice. Yes. So that's a little bit different with Avalon.
Speaker 2It is
Solo Deals With Waived Supplements
Speakernow because we are talking solo travel.
Speaker 2Yep.
SpeakerWhat does Avalon do for the solo traveler?
Speaker 2We have waived single supplements on select sailing, select savings, select right, say that three times. Fast select Yes. Select sailing.
Speaker 3And you know, we talk about solo travel a lot.
Speaker 4Yes, yes.
Speaker 3And solo travel with Avalon. How is that, how do they work that for the solo traveler?
Speaker 4Yeah. So we don't have any single cabins, right? But we do waved single supplements,
Speaker 3right?
Speaker 4It is a huge savings. So what that means is we don't ding a single as a double
Speaker 3Nice.
Speaker 4So you just pay that one. Price.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4Double occupancy.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4And we have selected sailings that are waived single supplements.
Speaker 3That's nice too. And again, contact your travel agent. They can talk with you and say, okay, do you have any waived single supplements? And is it based on sailings? Is it based on time of year or both?
Speaker 4Both. Uh, both. So for 2026, we do have some dates. Not a lot, but we do have some.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4But for 2027, we have. Quite a bit.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4And the nice thing about this too is that you can take whichever cabin you want. You just can't take our royal suite because we only have two of those.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4But you can take a lower category or you can take a panorama suite.
Speaker 3Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4Because sometimes companies, they'll either have single cabins that are really small.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4Or you can only choose the lower category. Mm-hmm. So with us run of the ship, except for the royal
Dining Options For Solo Travelers
Speaker 4suites.
Speaker 3Now what about dining? When a single person gets on and they, you know, sometimes they don't wanna be alone, sometimes they wanna be alone.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3How does, how does Valone work
Speaker 4that? So we, we have open seating. Oh. So we don't have assigned seating. So you just sit where you wanna sit.
Speaker 3Nice.
Speaker 4But we do have room service. Oh. So if you, if you know you just wanna eat in your cabin, you can do that. Or we have, in the main lounge, we have a light lunch and a light dinner.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4So if you just wanna grab something quick, you can do that If you don't wanna sit in the dining room for a little while. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. So it's, it's, it's easy. And then because we don't have assigned seating, you're, you're sitting with all these other people, right? So even if there are couples, they need to be sitting with other people too.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4So they, they need to mix a mingle
Speaker 3and you know, they need to mix a mingle. That makes it fun.
Speaker 4Yes.
Speaker 3That makes
Speaker 4it fun. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 3So you do, you do accommodate for that in some form or fashion?
Speaker 4We do, and we have wave single supplements for the Mekong, Vietnam, Cambodia with the Mekong and Europe.
Speaker 3Wow.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3And you would think the me count. 'cause it's a smaller amount of people.
Speaker 4Well, they won't have many cabins, but they do do it. And those cabins are 245 square feet. Wow. So we don't even have different categories on that.
Excursions River Sights And Nightlife
Speaker 3Wow.
Speaker 4Yeah. Nice.
Speaker 3Now how easy is it to navigate the ship?
Speaker 4Oh yeah. I mean, there's only, you know, a few decks. You have your bottom deck, which. Wan, you know, Swan has your gym and your, your swan view. And then the next deck is the lounge with some cabins and then your next deck or cabins. And then the top is the top deck deck or the sun deck. So very easy to navigate. Very easy. It's, yeah. It's not like a big ship cruise where you need to look at the maps by the elevators.
Speaker 3Now when you say you have excursions, at least one purport. At least one
Speaker 4purport. Oh yeah. At least, yeah.
Speaker 3And you do so many dockings.
Speaker 4Yep.
Speaker 3Per trip. And how is it to sail down the river? What is it like be I be, I know we've talked before, you said sometimes you'll, people like to leave and then meet the ship at another port. Yeah. And you just wanted to sail
Speaker 4along. Yeah. You know, it's, it's nice just to cruise down the river and look at the castles. If you're doing the Rhine, right, it's beautiful up there. Look at all the little towns, or if you're going through like. Like in Portugal or the Melle, all the vineyards along the way. Mm-hmm. It's absolutely beautiful. And then some nights were docked at night, but then some nights were cruising at night just to get to the next place.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4But what's pretty cool about cruising on. R Rivers in Europe are all the locks that you go through and just the engineering that it took to get you down the river.
Speaker 3Down the river.
Speaker 4I mean, some of them have 30 locks that you go through. Wow. After like a couple locks, you're like, ah, you know, we're going through another lock again. Another
Speaker 3lock.
Speaker 4But the engineering is pretty amazing.
Speaker 3So you can sit on the top deck and watch how they do it. Yeah. Or you can go downstairs in the lounge. What goes on inside? Is there any kind of entertainment at night? What goes on? Yeah,
Speaker 4so at night we have local entertainment. Mm-hmm. Or we have trivia night, or we have a dance contest, we have karaoke. So there's always something going
Speaker 3on. There's something going on at all times, so that makes it nice.
Use A Travel Advisor For Promos
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3So again, we're saying definitely get insurance.
Speaker 4Yes,
Speaker 3definitely talk to your travel advisor.
Speaker 4Yes, please.
Speaker 3And let them know what rivers you wanna go on. Or sometimes they don't know the rivers, right? So they should tell their travel advisor, they wanna see Germany or they wanna see France, whatever they want. And then the travel advisor can say, well you need to be on this river.
Speaker 4Right. And and another thing about travel advisors is they're all a part of these different consortias
Speaker 3mm-hmm.
Speaker 4With these added promotions.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4So don't think when you call us directly that you're getting a better deal because you're not.
Speaker 3Right. Yeah.
Speaker 4So all these agencies have added benefits that can go on the booking,
Speaker 3right? The travel advisor does know where, as I call it, know where the bodies are buried. Yes. And know what kind of deals or promotions are going on at that time.
Speaker 4Yes.
Speaker 3So they can. Yeah. Your price point that you're looking
Speaker 4for. Yeah. And you have me and other BDMs for other companies that you contact. Mm-hmm. I have advisors call me all the time going, all right, I'm looking at this cruise. Is there a promo that I'm missing?
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4You know what, what, what else is out there?
Speaker 3What else is out there?
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3Now do the ship sale at.
Seasonal Sailings And Christmas Markets
Speaker 3Full, full years or there like cutoffs?
Speaker 4Yeah. You know, they stay, they don't go in January, February. Okay, so March they start in your tulip time. Cruises, right? Idam, yeah. And then April, everything is pretty much full on.
Speaker 3And I'm gonna say something crazy like Christmas markets.
Speaker 4Oh gee, I, I think everybody was on a Christmas market this past Christmas. Yeah. So. A lot of the ships are operating November, December, but not all of them. Right. But we do the DanUp and the Rhine Christmas markets. Oh, and the new one that we added yesterday, you guys are hearing it for the first time, is festive time on the Duro.
Speaker 3Oh, wow.
Speaker 4Yeah. Yeah, so I guess Portugal has Christmas markets too.
Speaker 3Wow.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3Everybody's getting into the Christmas market mode.
Speaker 4Yes. I actually did one with Globus
Speaker 3mm-hmm.
Speaker 4In uh, November, and absolutely loved it. I did Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and saw all the Christmas markets.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, I'm sure. 'cause that's like the hug.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. It was nice.
Closing Advice And How To Book
Speaker 3Well, Denise, I appreciate you coming and talking today. Thank you for having
Speaker 4me.
Speaker 3And any last words for the solo traveler?
Speaker 4You know, definitely check out the Globus family brands in Avalon because we have some great promotions for you. Um, you know, we didn't even mention Cosmos and we have some deals on Cosmos too. So check with your travel advisor and see what promotions, you know, any of the companies out there have, but especially the Globes family and brand.
Speaker 3Right. And like I said, I trust Globus because they took good care of my daughter when she was a teen. No,
Speaker 4right. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3Well, you have a great day and
Speaker 4hope to see you
Speaker 3on the rivers.
Speaker 4Yes, thank you. I'll see you there.
Speaker 7Well, you've been listening to my podcast. I'm z Michelson. It has been brought to you by ZM Max Travel Radio, which is a part of Collage Travel Media Network. I hope I'm inspiring you to take these episodes and to travel somewhere on your own and share it with someone who might be waiting to take their first solo trip. And if you're ready to plan your own journey, I would really love to help guide you there, and I am reminding you. You deserve the journey, especially the one you take on your own. So go boldly, go beautifully and don't wait. You don't have to travel alone. Remember travel solo, but not alone. Thanks for listening today. And of course you can always subscribe to my podcast. It's absolutely free. And like I always say, shoot for those stars. And if you only get to the moon, at least you made the trip. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on your next adventure.