Danube River Cruising

Please be aware that I have no other river cruise experience so can not compare Scenic with other river cruise lines.

We had a royal suite on Emerald for the first half of the tour and Ruby on the second half of the tour. Being used to ocean cruising I immediately noticed that the cabins are small in comparison.

This said there is plenty of room to stow your belongings and you should be able to make some use of your balcony in May. The bathrooms are well equipped (Royal suites have baths as well as showers) with plenty of storage space. The showers are efficient and there is always plenty of hot water, the exception being when the system failed twice while we were in Budapest, a problem that was soon rectified. The bed in the cabin was large by British standards and very comfortable. The cabin was kept spotlessly clean by our cabin steward. If you look at other river cruise ship deck/cabin plans you will not find many cabins with the same amount of space.

If you like crystal chandeliers and bur walnut panelling, you will not find it on a Scenic space ship as they are all of a modern contemporary design. Both Irene and I liked the design of the public spaces and the only time the lounge became crowded was at the port talk prior to dinner.

The food on the cruise is of a good standard and I returned one meal only during the cruise. I personally do not like buffets so I will not comment on breakfast and lunch although you can order dishes from the waiter service menu at both meals. The dinners were generally excellent but I felt that the service was too slow, an opinion not necessarily held by other passengers, due to their being insufficient waiters and wine waiters for the number of diners. My biggest gripe was the choice of free wine on offer which was not generally to my liking. This would not have mattered had the wines on the wine list been reasonably priced. A bottle of Barolo cost 38 Euros and a glass of Lindeman shiraz 8 Euros. I can purchase both these wines in England for considerably less than theses prices. Please make sure you book the Portobello restaurant, each guest is allowed to dine their twice, as it is a completely different dining experience. Some of the guests missed out on this experience because they thought they had to pay extra for it. The coffee/tea station is a feature that is well used and much appreciated.

The majority of your fellow passengers will be Australian with some New Zealanders and Canadians. On our cruise we were the only English couple on the ship. We found all our fellow passengers were friendly and we made particular friends of our dinner companions, for although Scenic say that dinner is open sitting lots of the passengers already knew each other from pre cruise tours so preferred to sit at the same table with the same people throughout the cruise. We were lucky enough to join a table of eight on our first night and were happy to stick with the same dinner companions throughout the cruise.

All the staff on the ship were immaculately turned out, friendly and helpful at all times.

All tours were well organised and led by experienced guides. I personally am not particularly interested in pretty villages and towns so I am not to be relied on for information reference the places visited. One thing you will learn is that most places were rebuilt after being destroyed either by Napoleon or the allies, by the end of the cruise I was beginning to feel quite guilty about it.

This is one of many river cruise ship reviews located at Rivercruisereports.com