I am at the back of an inflatable kayak on Portugal’s famously scenic Douro River, paddling wildly against the current, when it hits me: River cruising sure has changed.
I have found myself in this kayak — looking ridiculous in a full-body wetsuit and getting soaked by passing rains, but having a blast — as part of a half-day outing from the newest river cruise ship on the waterway, Avalon Waterways’ Avalon Alegria.
It’s the sort of outing that you never used to see on the schedule on river cruises.
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When I started writing about cruising more than two decades ago, river sailings were for a sedentary, retiree crowd. But in recent years, some river brands, including Avalon, have been targeting a more active and younger set of vacationers with active outings.
As I’m seeing on a four-night preview sailing aboard Avalon Alegria, which begins its first sailing with paying passengers later this week, you now can have a much more outdoorsy experience when river cruising than you could just a few years ago.
Or not.
The cruise brands that are adding more active options on river cruises — Avalon being a leader of the trend — are doing it as part of offering a wider swath of options on their trips that include both active and non-active excursions.
Related: Why I still think Avalon Waterways has the best cabins in river cruising
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On every sailing, Avalon now offers a choice of included daily tours that fall into three broad categories: Classic, Discovery and Active.
For example, during a day docked at Porto, Portugal, on this cruise, we had the choice of a walking tour through the heart of the historic city (the Classic option), a wine experience that included tours and tastings at the centuries-old port wine cellars on the opposite bank of the river (the Discovery option) and a biking tour of the riverbank with a biologist (the Active option).
A bike ride along the ocean
In short, you now can be as active as you want when cruising with some river brands — in addition to Avalon, AmaWaterways has added more active options to its ships.
During the Porto stop, I signed up for the bike tour, which was an invigorating and scenic spin down the southern bank of the Douro to the point where it meets the Atlantic Ocean, followed by a ride southward along the ocean for several miles.
Led by a guide, the seven bikers in my group covered 9 miles in all — a not insubstantial distance — over a leisurely 2 1/2 hours. The time span included several stops to take in the views.
We dismounted our bikes several times to walk along boardwalks through the Douro River estuary near the ocean and down to the beach. As we did, our biologist guide offered a running commentary on the migratory and local birds we were seeing and explained the natural landscape.
It was a blustery day, and the waves were up on the ocean, offering a show as they crashed over rocky outcroppings along the beach, sending spray skyward.
It was the most strenuous of three active tours that I did over three days on board. For the most part, the active outings that Avalon offers on its trips are relatively mild in their adventure level. They’re not meant for the hard-core adventure traveler.
On my second day on board Avalon Alegria, I signed up for what was billed as a hike through the vineyards lining the Douro near the village of Pinhao. But a hike was an ambitious way to describe it. It was more of a walk.
We didn’t go far — just 1.3 miles, according to one of my fellow tourgoers who tracked it on her phone. But it was a truncated outing that was unique to this preview sailing, Avalon Alegria’s active travel coordinator told me later, due to christening festivities planned for the ship the same day.
I wasn’t complaining. After traveling by van to the Quinta do Bomfim vineyard, which covers the hills surrounding Pinhao, we set off at a slow pace upward into the estate’s undulating rows of grape vines, walking on the stone-lined tractor paths between them.
We stopped often, including at a small orange grove tucked into the middle of the vineyard, where we plucked ripe and juicy oranges off the branches to eat along the way.
The outing was as much a winery tour as it was a walk in the vineyards, as we soon looped around to the estate’s production facilities, where we saw the rooms where grapes are turned into wine and stored in giant oak barrels.
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TPG’s Gene Sloan tastes oranges straight off the tree during a vineyard hike on the Douro River. GENE SLOAN/THE POINTS GUY
The experience ended with a tasting of the port wines made at the estate — a common activity on trips on the Douro.
The vineyard-lined Douro River Valley is famous as the origin of every bottle of port wine in the world, and pretty much every tour that river cruise lines offer in the valley has some element related to this wine that made the valley famous.
A lovely kayak to ‘Love Island’
The kayaking outing was also relatively modest in its ambitions. Setting off from a small beach along the banks of the Douro, our group of about two dozen kayakers (two to a kayak) was led by guides on a short loop that first took us down the river just a few hundred feet to another small beach where we landed for a photo. We then paddled back upriver to a middle-of-the-river lump of land called Love Island.
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A kayak tour Avalon Waterways is testing. GENE SLOAN/THE POINTS GUY
At the latter destination, we stopped again to hear the legend of a clandestine romance between a noblewoman and a humble farmer that gives the island its name. Their love, we were told, came to a sudden end after a storm rose up as they fled to the island. They were fleeing, according to the legend, after the farmer had killed a rival suitor — and it was that rival’s spirit that caused the storm.
It was a quick stop where our guides offered us the chance to dive off an overlook into the water. Then we were back into the kayaks for the short trip back to our departure point.
The entire kayaking portion of the outing, which Avalon is still testing as an option for its Douro sailings, lasted just an hour.
If you’re looking for just a taste of kayaking that isn’t too strenuous and gets you outdoors, it’s a perfect excursion. If you’re hoping for a true kayaking adventure, you’ll likely be disappointed.
We suspect that most would-be Avalon river cruisers fall into the former camp. As it has added more active options, Avalon has been drawing a younger crowd looking for more active outings, for sure. But younger, in this case, is relative, as is the activity level that these travelers are seeking.
The average age of an Avalon cruiser has dropped from 68 to 62 in recent years, a top marketing executive at the company told me during my sailing — a significant drop. But even travelers closer to 60 years old than 70 years old on average are not a traveling cohort that necessarily wants to kayak for miles or for hours.
As someone who is quickly approaching that age, I know this firsthand.
My take: Avalon knows its customers.
If you’re looking for a river cruise with active options that aren’t so active that you’ll have trouble keeping up, Avalon Waterways could be the perfect cruise for you.
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