Danube River Cruise 04
Eastern Europe to the Black Sea
Grand Circle Travel
16 Day Tour/River Cruise 2004
September 12 to September 27, 2004
Under TRAVELS, click on Bulgaria 04, Croatia 04, Hungary 04, Romania 04 and Serbia 04 for other parts of this vacation.
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Our ship was the Ms River Adagio; Operational beginning March 2003
Owned by Grand Circle Travel with an International Crew;
1 Czech, 15 Slovakians, 16 Romanians, 5 Hungarians, 3 Germans and 1 French.
Length: 410', Width 38', Gross Tonnage: 1,654 tons,
Cruising speed: 14 knots, Built: Netherlands Lobith shipyard
Passengers: Maximum 164 (we had 154) and Staff: 41
Cruise
Dates: September 16 - 23, 2004
The cruise began in Budapest and traveled along the Danube River as shown on the map below. It ended at Constanta on the Black Sea. As always, a fire drill was held shortly after launching to test our safety procedures. We passed!
Departing Budapest the sky was cloudy but the beautiful buildings along the shore were a sight to behold. Their identity is included with the enlarged pictures.
More scenes departing Budapest.
September 17 schedule. We dock in the city of Vukovar, Croatia and clear customs shortly after 8 a.m. Our buses depart at 10 for Osijek Tvrda, the old part of Osijek. The highlight of the day was the home hosted lunch in a small Croatian Village. That evening aboard ship we enjoyed a lecture on Croatia and Croatian Music of the Slavonian Region. Please visit Croatia 04 for that part of our journey.
Scenes along the Danube of bombed buildings in Croatia.
Croatia won a Silver medal in the Men's Pairs Rowing in Olympics 2004. These two young men seemed to be preparing for the Gold as they rowed to stay up with our ship.
That evening a group of beautifully dressed Croatians entertained us with music and dance from the Slavonian Region.
September 18 schedule. After cruising since last night we arrive in Novi Sad, Serbia just after noon. Captain Ambrose is steering the ship deftly to the dock. Looks like one of the waitresses has taken someone a drink! Not to fear!
Some of the river scenes we savored along the way were these.
That afternoon we enjoyed a bus tour of the city and free time to explore the city center. The city tour is covered in Serbia 04.
We attended a lecture on Serbia's past and present before dinner and after dinner enjoyed music and dances from the Vojvodina Region. Enjoy the show!
Sunday, September 19 awakens to Belgrade, Serbia. Another exciting day! More of our time in Belgrade and the fun evening we had at dinner there are in my Serbia 04 page under "Travels."
Monday is a sailing day where we see some of the most beautiful parts of the Danube, the "Cataracts." Our schedule of activities is below. Good friend, Bill Ackermann and I share stories of our prowess in computing and photography.
The Danube's version of fjords. Mt. Rushmore may have more heads but this one was certainly attention getting.
Captain Ambrose filled us in on becoming a Captain in the face of fierce competition and politics. He also covered the intricacies of navigating the often shallow and narrow Danube.
One of the several locks we passed though on this day. Lock Djerdap 1, the entrance of the Iron Gates was our first. Djerdap 2 was our Iron Gates exit point.
Some of the scenes after leaving the Iron Gates.
Before lunch our four Grand Circle Program Directors discussed Life under Communism from their perspective. In spite of their youth, average age around 25, their memories were vivid. From left, Romanian Madalina Meirosu, Romanian Valentin Gheorghe, Hungarian Istvan Pinter and Bulgarian Nevena Robertova. All four were superb Program Directors, Lecturers and Guides. Their teamwork was excellent! GCT should be proud of each one.
After all the dishes were washed, the staterooms prepared for the evening and everyone had changed costumes our crew put on a fantastic show. It seemed that everyone other than the Captain had a part, and we were glad of that.
Tuesday, September 21 found us docked at Ruse, Bulgaria. We spent a full day busing through Ruse then enjoying another delicious home hosted lunch in the Arbanassi Village. Afterwards we visited the Ilyeva House and a Church. Tonight the Captain has his Farewell Dinner. Our favorite waitress was dressed to the nines. After dinner there was a Passenger Talent Show. Yours truly was recruited to tell a joke. Please be sure to stop by Bulgaria 04 for coverage of our land events of the day.
On Wednesday we sailed until about 2 p.m. when we arrived at the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania. Our schedule was another full one including time in Constanta. Romania is covered in a separate page so stop by if you will.
This was our final sailing day so we got up early to view the sunrise. Dotty participated in the early morning workout led by Dr. Doru.
We listened from our cabin intercom a commentary about the Black Sea Canal after breakfast. We were about to enter the canal which is approximately 40 miles in length. It shortened the route to the Black Sea by nearly 250 miles. There were some 64,000 workers, many of whom were political prisoners and even children in summer camps, who worked 24/7 to complete the project. It was funded primarily by Romania. These are scenes inside the canal.
Our bags were placed outside our cabin door at 7:30 on Thursday morning and after a final breakfast we bade farewell to our crew. It had been a wonderful cruise and we found it difficult to say goodbye to those who had contributed so much to our enjoyment. Four buses were waiting to take us to the train station where we would all go to Bucharest. Some would depart for home after a night there while nearly half of us would head for Transylvania for an extended tour. Captain Ambrose seemed as sad to see us off as we were to leave.
Posted on the Internet on 10/28/04, revised 11/19/04