AmaStella

AmaStella is a 2016 AmaWaterways ship of the standard European type, 443 feet by roughly 38, four decks, 156 guests, seventy-eight staterooms. She was christened at Vilshofen in June 2016 on the same day as her twin AmaViola, and on paper the two are the same boat. What separates them is where they go, and AmaStella is the one that goes furthest.

The transit ship

Most river ships spend their season shuttling one stretch. AmaStella’s schedule includes Magnificent Europe, fourteen nights from Amsterdam to Budapest, which crosses three river systems: down the Rhine, up the Main, through the Main–Danube Canal at Bamberg and Nuremberg, and onto the Danube to Vienna and Budapest.

That trip is the reason ships in this fleet are built to the dimensions they are. The canal carries her over the watershed between the North Sea and the Black Sea in a long series of locks, and the chambers are the constraint the whole hull was drawn around: standing on the Sun Deck while the walls close in a hand’s breadth from the rail on both sides is the most memorable thing that happens on a European river cruise. It is also why the superstructure is so low and why the wheelhouse folds flat; there are bridges on the Main you would swear she cannot clear.

Her shorter weeks are the Rhine (Basel to Amsterdam and back, through the gorge between Rüdesheim and Koblenz), and the spring Tulip Time loops on the Dutch and Belgian waterways. Roughly seventy percent of her bookable departures leave from Basel and the rest from Amsterdam, at seven and fourteen nights.

What is in the rooms

The twin balcony is the fleet’s signature and she has it in all suites and many staterooms: a French balcony, which is a full wall of sliding glass with a railing and no floor, and beside it a real step-out veranda with chairs. Suites run to 350 square feet, the AA and BA categories to 235 and 210, and the two bottom categories on the Piano Deck are 170 and 155 square feet with fixed windows near the waterline. The gap between the top and bottom of this ship is large, and unlike an ocean ship there is no second pool deck or extra lounge to escape into if you booked the small one.

Three rooms to eat in: the Main Restaurant, The Chef’s Table at the stern with an open kitchen and a set tasting menu, and the Al Fresco Terrace, which is open to the air and is the best seat aboard for the Rhine gorge. There is a heated pool on the Sun Deck, a fitness room, a massage room and a salon, and the ship carries bicycles that guests take ashore for nothing.

Who she suits

People who want the long version. The fourteen-night Amsterdam–Budapest run is the classic European river itinerary and she is the ship on this list that actually operates it; if crossing the continent by water is the point, book her rather than her twin.

She does not suit anyone who wants a lot of ship. She is a 156-guest hotel with two public rooms and a sun deck, and on the canal days the scenery is farmland and lock walls for hours. She does not suit anyone booking the cheapest cabin and expecting to spend time in it; 155 square feet with a fixed window is a berth, not a room. And on a fourteen-night sailing with the same 155 people, the social weather aboard matters more than it does on a week; that is fine when it is good and there is nowhere to hide when it is not.