AmaMaya

AmaMaya is the second ship AmaWaterways has put on the Mekong, and she arrived eleven years after the first. AmaDara has worked the Cambodia–Vietnam run alone since 2015; the company ordered a near-copy of her, laid down in Vietnam, and brought her into service in the autumn of 2026. She is 302 feet long, carries 120 guests in sixty staterooms across three decks, and has a crew of seventy.

She was ordered under a different name. The ship was announced as AmaKaia and renamed before delivery, to keep her clear of Emerald Cruises’ ocean yacht Emerald Kaia, which was arriving in the same year. That is a trivial fact about a marketing department, but it is the kind of thing that makes a ship hard to research later, and it is why some 2025-vintage brochures list a Mekong vessel that no longer exists under that name.

Why she does not look like a Danube boat

A European river ship is 443 feet long and about 38 wide because the locks on the Rhine, the Main and the Main–Danube Canal are 11.4 meters across and a hull that does not fit does not sail. There are no locks on this stretch of the Mekong and no bridges worth planning around. What the river has instead is a channel that rises and falls many feet between the wet and dry seasons, moves its sandbars between years, and in places is miles wide.

So AmaMaya is built the other way round: two-thirds the length of a European ship and a good deal broader. That trade is why her cabins are large. The entry-level Category B rooms are 251 square feet, bigger than the top suite on several of the company’s own European boats, the Suites are 366, and the Luxury Suite runs to 502. Every stateroom aboard has the twin balcony, a French balcony and a full step-out veranda in the same room, which on the European hulls is reserved for the upper grades and here is standard, because on this river the heat makes the second one worth having.

The three decks are named Tonle, Saigon and Sadec, the last being the sun deck, with the pool on it. There is no elevator. Getting between decks on this ship is a staircase, and that is worth knowing before booking for anyone whose knees have opinions.

Aboard

Two dining rooms: the main restaurant, doing regional cooking alongside Western dishes, and The Chef’s Table, which runs a set multi-course dinner once or twice a week. The Saigon Lounge handles drinks and the evening. There is a pool on the sun deck, a fitness room, three massage rooms and a salon.

Unlimited wine with lunch and dinner, house-brand spirits, local beer and soft drinks are included, which over a week is not a small line item. Wi-Fi is included throughout, and the interiors are done in the same French colonial register as her older sister (dark hardwood, louvered shutters, carved detail) which on this river is a real architectural language rather than a theme.

Seventy crew for 120 guests works out at roughly one to every one and a half passengers, and it is the highest crew count AmaWaterways carries on a ship this size anywhere.

Where she actually sails

One route, one direction, in the schedule that is loaded. Every departure on her calendar is Charms of the Mekong in the Smithsonian Journeys version: seven nights upstream from Ho Chi Minh City to Kampong Cham in Cambodia, calling at Cai Be, Tan Chau, Sa Dec, Phnom Penh, Oknhatey, Oudong and Angkor Ban. Four departures are on the books, running from January 2027 to January 2028, one in January, one in February, one in October and one the following January.

Two things follow from that. The first is that the loaded schedule is thin and seasonal-looking rather than the year-round program a Mekong ship normally runs, which is what you would expect from a vessel whose first season is only just starting. The second is that every one of those four is the Smithsonian version, which means a study leader travels with the sailing and the lecture program is part of the product rather than an optional extra. If you were shopping the plain version of this week, it is currently AmaDara who has it.

The Cambodian end connects by road to Siem Reap and Angkor, and most people book that extension; the temples are the reason a good share of the passengers are on the trip at all.

Who she suits

People whose subject is Cambodia and Vietnam, and who have worked out, correctly, that a boat is the sane way to see the Delta. The days are villages, markets and riverside towns reached on foot or by small boat off the ship, and AmaMaya exists to move you between them overnight and be air-conditioned when you come back. On the Smithsonian departures she is also the right ship for anyone who wants the history explained properly rather than shouted through a headset.

She is wrong for anyone expecting a European river cruise moved to Asia. The scenery is flat and green rather than castle-topped, the ports are not walkable towns you disappear into on your own, and from March onward the heat and humidity are the governing fact of every afternoon. She is wrong for anyone who cannot do stairs, because there is no elevator. And she is a poor fit for a traveler who wants choice; there is one route, one direction on the current schedule, one main restaurant, and two countries’ visa paperwork plus a long-haul flight at each end before any of it starts.