LINZ, Austria -- In an effort to attract "younger" baby boomers, Avalon Waterways this week introduced a new itinerary focused on active-themed excursions.
The Active Discovery on the Danube sailing will feature a series of light adventure and locally immersive excursions onboard eight, nine-day itineraries between Budapest and Linz in 2017, starting at $3,549 per person.
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The new itinerary was announced onboard the company's new 166-passenger Avalon Passion, which was named here on Wednesday.
Included in the new program are activities like hiking the vineyards of Vienna and biking in Austria from Spitz to Krems, stopping to sample local specialties along the way. Passengers will have the choice of tacking on optional tours like a round of golf in Budapest or an archery lesson, for an additional charge. For cruisers who would rather set off solo, the ships will feature a fleet of bikes on board, giving guests the freedom to explore ports at their own pace.
"The development of Active Discovery was about putting a headline on that idea that river cruising is inherently active and it can be as active and as engaging as you like," said Steve Born, Avalon Waterways' vice president of marketing. "Unlike other tour operators who do one or two different active excursions throughout an eight- or nine-day itinerary, we dot ours with an active option every day."
While Avalon is only offering the active itinerary on the Danube next year, if it proves successful, there are plans to roll out more Active Discovery itineraries on other rivers.
Half of the new program is heavy on active options -- like canoeing on the Danube -- while the other side focuses on the discovery element, allowing cruisers to immerse themselves in the local culture.
In the Wachau Valley, passengers can take a tour of an apricot farm, while in the medieval village of Grein -- home to Austria's oldest theater -- they can visit the old town and climb up to Castle Greinburg, where they'll join the hereditary prince for a chat over sparkling wine in the courtyard.
"For us, active is defined as really both active in a physical sense, as well as engaged," Born says. "In either case, it's really to bring home the fact that river cruising is a dynamic experience and once the ship is docked, the port is yours to explore."
Parts of the itinerary will also feature more sailing during the day so cruisers have time for evening port exploration. For example, on the Engelhartszell leg of the trip near the German border, passengers can opt for a daytime excursion such as a hiking tour that retraces the route of WWII smugglers, before spending the evening in Linz on a pub crawl.