| If you are looking for information about Amazon Cruises you’ve come to the right page on the best web site for Amazon Cruises. Dawn on the Amazon doesn’t operate weekly, pre-scheduled cruises to a set destination. Dawn on the Amazon builds custom cruises around your schedule and interests. Let’s say, hypothetically, you plan to arrive in Iquitos on a Tuesday afternoon in early October. You email me or call my office in advance and tell me, “I want to go on an Amazon cruise for 4 days.” Maybe you ask me, “What do you recommend?” Because you know I’ve been around for a while and know the best places and I know that some months are better to go to one place instead of another, or because the time and distance factor eliminates some choices. If you can only cruise for 4 days, you can’t go to a place 100 miles away that takes 6 days, or to a place where the water is too shallow to get the boats into because October is the low water season, but that’s all right because I know a wonderful place to go with deeper water for the boats that is perfect for you for 4 days, so we email back and forth and figure out the best place for you to cruise for 4 days in October. I check my schedule calendar for early October, and make sure that the next Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 4 days, are open. If they are, and you make a $150 per guest deposit, then you have a priority reservation for those dates and you’re all set for a custom cruise that is scheduled special for you. I run two unique boats for multi-day, overnight cruises, Dawn on the Amazon I and the Selva Viva. They go to the same destinations but the accommodations and prices are different. Because you have a reservation does not mean you have chartered the boat. Part of my job is to find other guests that share your schedule and interests to join your cruise. The Selva Viva has the capacity for 16 guests, but I limit the number of guests to a maximum of 8 unless it is a group of friends or family who all know each other and want to travel together. Dawn on the Amazon I sleeps a maximum of 8, but if 7 or more sign on I bring another one of my boats, usually Dawncita, and the two boats travel together making room to spread out and be comfortable. Groups of 4 to 6 are the norm. Sometimes it will be only the original 2 who started the custom cruise to begin with, because it is not that easy to coordinate schedules and interests among travelers on custom cruises. Dawn on the Amazon is the only tour and cruise company I know of that does not depend on travel agencies to funnel a steady supply of tourists to their boats and lodges. I prefer independent, internet savvy travelers like you, and do not do business with travel agencies. Sometimes that makes it difficult to achieve a critical mass of guests to make a good profit, but most of my guests appreciate that I am as independent as they are. We request $172.50 per guest per day for Dawn on the Amazon I. We request $310 per guest per day for the Selva Viva. I charge by the day, not by the night. Click this link to my price page to learn what is included, and this link to my Amazon River Boats page to learn about the accommodations of the two boats. Dawn on the Amazon I needs only a minimum of 2 guests in your group, except for 6 day cruises or longer, which require a minimum of 3 adult guests, or the monetary equivalent. The Selva Viva asks a minimum of 4 guests in your group except for cruises of 6 days or more which require a minimum of 5 guests or the monetary equivalent. That extra guest minimum for 6 or more days is because the expected distance to travel is greater, and the extra expense for fuel has to be covered by the fare. Most cruise companies wouldn’t untie the rope to the boat from shore for only two guests in a boat the size of Dawn I, or 4 guests on a large cabin boat like the Selva Viva, but I guarantee your cruise with the minimum number of guests. If you are looking for more of a lodge experience, click this link to learn more about our Jungle Cabin, priced right at $86.25 per person per day. Click this link to go to my price page and learn about the accommodations. We require a minimum of 2 in your party for any number of days you prefer. The Jungle Cabin can be combined with a cruise into Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve. Here are my recommendations to my favorite places, based on the number of days it takes to access the destinations, the approximate normal water level during certain months and other factors based on my experience. 2 days, Monkey Island If you have only two days to cruise, your best bet to get a feel of the Amazon River and rainforest is to go to Monkey Island and up the small Yana Yacu River for some good bird watching, and to spend the night on the boat in the jungle. During the low water season the Yana Yacu can be unnavigable, so you will be back out on the Amazon River, possibly visiting the villages of Indiana and Mazán, looking for pink dolphin, learning how sugar cane rum is distilled the old fashioned way, stopping at a caiman farm, feeding the paiche by hand or any of several other choices, depending on what you would enjoy seeing and doing the most.
3 or 4 days, Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Reserve For three and four day cruises, Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Reserve is a good choice during the high water season from November to June. You will have a chance to see pink dolphins, three or four species of primates, variegated bromeliads, the giant Victoria Regia water lilies, Yellow- capped herons with the blue face, a flock of Sand-colored night hawks, and much more.
3, 4, and 5 days, Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve For three, four, and five day cruises, Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve is a good choice year round. You will have a chance to see pink dolphins, two or three species of primates, sloths, touconets, hawks, and several species of birds not found anywhere else, as well as orchids, bromeliads, and much more... and the fishing is better. Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve is the best choice of all during the low water season from June to November because when the water goes down the white sand beaches are exposed, and the channel is deep enough for the boats to navigate. The beaches are more than just beautiful. They provide a place to dock the boat where you can disembark and have a place to hike, swim, fish, play, picnic, build a bonfire, or just hang out off of the boat. AMNR is our only destination that has the white sand beaches. All of the other places are mud banks and mud bars that provide little or no opportunities to enhance your recreation and enjoyment. Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve is also large enough to justify 5 to 7 day cruises or more. The farther you go upstream away from civilization the wilder it gets and the better the fishing is.
6 days (7 days are better), Pacaya Samiria National Reserve Pacaya Samiria National Reserve flooded wet lands is best appreciated during the high water season. It requires a minimum of 6 days, 7 days are better, because of the distance, and thus the time, it takes to travel. The Samiria River entrance takes our boat a minimum of 2 and a half days going upstream to access, 3 days during the low water season, and most of 2 days to return coming downstream, so that leaves only the 6th day actually in the reserve. Better to plan for 7 days with 2 days in the reserve, during the high water season from the second half of December until the middle of June. You can expect to see pink dolphins, two or three species of primates, sloths, flocks of Snowy Egrets, hawks, parakeets, parrots, and macaws, and much more.
In all of the cruises there is a chance to visit remote villages, and sometimes their one room school houses, and to learn how the Ribereño people survive and subsist far from civilization without electricity or plumbing. All of the cruises can include jungle hikes, fishing, swimming, canoeing, birdwatching, looking for orchids, bromeliads, and all of the flora and fauna, including a night excursion in the boat looking for nocturnal reptiles, birds, animals, insects, etc. If you have an idea of where you would prefer to go instead of the options listed above, let me know, and we will try to arrange a custom cruise to the preferred destination for your group. I don’t like to go to the triple frontier of Peru, Columbia, and Brazil. The only way I will even consider it is with a minimum of 6 guests in your group, cruising for 5 days, stopping along the way at some interesting places I know, and that’s unless I can’t talk you into an Amazon cruise to some of my favorite places instead. |
Amazon Cruise |
| Amazon Cruise If you have been on an Amazon cruise to Pevas, the triple frontier, Leticia, Tabatinga, or Manaus with Amazon Tours and Cruises, it is time you tried an Amazon Cruise out of Iquitos, Peru, with Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises to Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve, or Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Reserve. Click this link for 27 articles about our Amazon tours and cruises. Contact us today to arrange one of our Amazon cruises. We provide a safe, comfortable way to see an extraordinary, exotic place. You'll have a great time. |