For 2025, AmaWaterways is making a leap into South America, launching a pair of cruise itineraries on the Magdalena River in Colombia. It’s breaking into a new continent for the company, and it’s the first major river cruise operator to offer cruises on the Magdalena River on the Caribbean side, with two seven-night voyages between Cartagena and Barranquilla.
AmaWaterways co-founder and executive vice president Kristin Karst told me, “It’s one of our most exciting ventures yet.” She assured me that the company intends to keep “pushing the boundaries.”
The company is seriously on the move. AmaWaterways is currently operating 26 ships in Europe and Asia. It will be adding several new ships over the next two years. In 2025 it is launching AmaMagdalena and AmaMelodia for the River Magdalena in Colombia, and AmaSintra for the Douro River in Portugal. The Magdalena cruisers carry 60 guests each. The Douro vessel carries 102. More new ships are planned for roll-out in 2026. The AmaSofia will sail the Danube. The AmaMaya will sail the Mekong.
The company is offering a new itinerary on the Mother of Rivers. The Best of the Danube will be launched for 2025, a roundtrip from Budapest.
AmaWaterways is broadening its demographic reach, adapting its offerings to appeal to a younger demographic that is now discovering river cruises.
One of the ways it is adapting its offerings to younger generations is to respond to the increased interest in wellness and health. The company is offering daily fitness classes, yoga classes, meditation sessions, more active shore excursions, gluten-free options and vegetarian meals. It’s expanding and diversifying its offerings of shore excursions, providing a broader range of choice.
The company also offers wine-themed cruises, classical music cruises and home visits with locals along the way.
A recent example of the company’s ongoing experimenting and innovating is the AmaMagna cruiser. It was launched in 2019, and is twice the width of the traditional river cruise boat, but carries the same number of clients. This one actually has a pickleball court.
In an industry segment that is blossoming with many worthy competitors, all innovating to capture the growing demand, AmaWaterways continues to position itself on the leading edge of the market. It’s the company that sets the bar, though it has many hungry competitors biting at its heels. It’s the company for others to beat in a market that has been essentially exploding since the early 2000s, and continues to grow robustly.
Whence River Cruising?
If AmaWaterways seems to have an edge, it shouldn’t be surprising. Its leadership is built into its history, with a solid foundation in the development of a style of travel that is still relatively new, with a lot of growth potential.
The sensationally popular form of river cruising that is now widely practiced had its origin in 1992 with the completion of the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. The canal that had been originally proposed by King Charlemagne in the year 800, finally came into being that year. The 106-mile channel that connected the Main and Danube rivers made it possible to travel by river across Europe from the North Sea in the Netherlands to the Black Sea at Budapest.
One of the people who saw the potential of that development for tourism was Serba Illich, who had founded Uniworld in the ‘70s. Illich worked to design a style of river cruising that would appeal to American travelers. Then he did a lot of legwork to sell the idea in the states.
Illich was sure that the style of cruising in which the mode of transportation and the accommodation were combined into one entity, an elegant river cruiser, would eventually win over the public. The ease and comfort of not having to pack and move as you travel across Europe, docking at city centers and country docks was too good a value proposition to fail. It took some time and work, but he was right. Illich was by consensus the prime mover behind the introduction of river cruises to the American market. It has now been booming for 20 years with no sign of the growth stopping.
Rudi Schreiner worked with Illich from the beginning of that process. He was on the inside, working hand in hand with the visionary who paved the path for river cruising more than any other individual.
Schreiner was born in Vienna, on the great Danube River, the mother river, the second longest river in Europe after the Volga, and the most celebrated. He studied architecture but became enamored with travel and found his design impulses leaning away from fixed land structures toward sea vessels. After a wild adventure traveling the Amazon River for seven months on a self-constructed raft, he gravitated toward working in the travel industry, and soon found a niche putting together itineraries for travel in Europe.
Schreiner helped to build the river cruise industry in America from its foundations, developing river boats and itineraries for operators. After a decade of helping others to build the industry, he decided to start his own operation. To do that he teamed up with Jimmy Murphy, founder and chairman of Brendan Tours, and Kristin Karst, a veteran of American Express and Viking Cruises. In the three co-founders Amadeus Waterways, as it was originally called, had a Dream Team to build the river cruise industry.
Jimmy Murphy was a shrewd observer of the industry and recognized the tremendous potential of river cruising right away. Murphy was a veteran tour operator, who had co-founded Brendan Tours in 1969. Brendan built from strength to strength through the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s.
Brendan started selling Uniworld river cruises in 1995. Coming from the standpoint of a major land tour operator, Murphy observed how the river cruise style of travel took guided touring to its next level, with its combination of accommodation and transportation in sleek river boats. That gave passengers the comfort of staying in one place while they were actually traveling. It took the “only pack once” pitch of the ocean cruise liners and put it on land. Traveling by river had the advantage of taking passengers into city centers, not airports on the outskirts. It seemed to offer a perfectly balanced combination of elements and Murphy saw it as the next wave of the development of touring.
He knew an unbeatable proposition when he saw it. He joined with Rudi Schreiner and Kristin Karst to start their own new river cruise company, and shifted his interests from land touring to river cruising. History has shown it to have been a deft move. Jimmy Murphy passed on in late 2014, but lived long enough to see the new company become a major force.
Kristin Karst is the younger partner who brings the energy, charm, and vivaciousness that rounded out the trio of founders. She and Schreiner now run the company as president and executive vice president. She is a native of Dresden, Germany. She entered the travel industry working for American Express. After eight years she moved into the river cruise market with Viking Cruises, one of the other top companies in the industry.
Serba Illich sold Uniworld, which is now operated by the Travel Corporation, and went into retirement. But Rudi Schreiner, who was at the heart of the origin and development of modern river cruising, is still active in the industry as co-founder and president of AmaWaterways. And the company is still moving forward with the energy of a startup.
I had the privilege of speaking to Kristin Karst last week. I asked her what she thinks is the key to the company’s success. Despite all its technical innovations, she said what really sets the company apart and inspires the loyalty of its customers is its “very personal approach.”
“Many of our team members love to be with our guests, and many of our guests cruise quite frequently,” she said. “They have dinner with them. They dance with them. They share these moments. I don’t think any other cruise line is doing that.”
The company works on every aspect of the programs “to provide an enriching and unforgettable experience,” she said, “a personalized, unique, authentic experience. Our exceptional crews create a warm and inviting atmosphere. They know the guests by name and make sure that they all feel well cared for. They ensure that every aspect is seamless and enjoyable. And Rudi is always at the forefront of innovation.”
River cruising is a bright and shining industry, with many great companies participating. AmaWaterways, I think, continues to be the one to beat.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.