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.
We have no complaints about Scenic at all, it was one of the best tours Mum and I ever did
The cabins are fantastic, even better if you can get a balcony! I'm sure you've read some of the posts which complain about the cabins up the back near the engines. I'm not sure how you can avoid that issue, though. Hopefully you'll get lucky like us. Our cabin was right in the middle of the ship on the Danube Deck; very clean, enough room for two and nice big balcony. We had to change ships half-way through the two-week cruise but this was no problem at all (we went from the Sapphire to the Ruby). All we had to do was put our luggage out early in the morning, go off on our day-long sightseeing trip and return to a port further down the river in the evening to the new ship. The layout of the two ships was identical and we got the same room that we stayed in on the first ship.
Some things I do remember:-
The showers were fantastic - good powerful flow of water and very nice toiletries, too (I think they were L'Occitane brand). If you need good light to do your make-up, the mirror out in the cabin is better than the one in the bathroom, because it has extra lighting around it's border.
Internet doesn't always work but this can't be helped; it all depends on where the ship is at the time. We only had trouble a couple of times. You can pay a small fee to have internet access in your cabin which is what we did. Note: if you are sailing on the Sapphire you can hire laptops; if you're on the Ruby there is a keyboard supplied in your cabin which you plug into the flat-screen TV to access the 'net.
The food was fair; you get four courses to choose from (a choice of three dishes with each course): a starter, then soup, the main meal and dessert. If you have a bit of a hearty appetite, I'd suggest ordering something else on top of the main and dessert, because the portions aren't exactly what you'd call...big.
Most of the time (except at night) passengers are allowed to visit the wheelhouse and watch the Captain at work whilst having a chat with him. We had fantastic Captains, very friendly and down-to-earth. If you get Hans, he's fantastic
Only one little negative for us: the staff, for the most part, are very friendly and helpful. However, in our experience, there seemed to be a lot more staff on the MS Sapphire than the Ruby. Not sure why, but the Ruby was severely understaffed (only one waitress servicing over a hundred passengers in the lounge, as opposed to the Sapphire where waiters were everywhere). As a result of being overworked (perhaps??) the Ruby wait staff weren't all that friendly. You might be lucky, though. Also re the tipping - even though that is included in the Scenic fares we noticed a lot of passengers tipped extra to their cabin stewardesses at the end of the cruise (as did we; our stewardess Erika, on the Sapphire, was brilliant).
There's no big dress code on the ship, except on the first and last nights a lot of passengers tended to dress formally. There is an on-board laundry service - they do a great job but it's not cheap.
The air-conditioning in the cabins wasn't all that brilliant, and we had some fairly hot weather in Budapest and Vienna. Trouble is, at night when your sleeping you can't leave the balcony door open because the mosquitoes will eat you alive. For some odd reason, there's only a glass door but no fly screen door over it. Anyway, the Captain mentions this during his welcome speech in the lounge.
The Slovakian gipsy band stood at the ready; bows poised, while I sat anticipating the sort of fast-paced, foot-tapping melody for which authentic Romany music is famous. However, the tune that bursts forth had a surprisingly familiar ring to it, so much so that most of my fellow travellers spontaneously burst into song – and then linked up to form a spirited conga that snaked around the room.
I then realised that this was no traditional Slovakian ditty. It was Waltzing Matilda, and for the largely Australian audience it was the most popular song of the night.
This wasn't surprising given the Antipodean flavour of the two-week cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam with Scenic Tours, an Australian travel company.
Stepping aboard the Scenic Emerald riverboat in Budapest at the start of its 1,134-mile voyage along the Danube, Main and Rhine rivers, I had been surprised at how few British travellers there were – only 11 including me.
In fact, this cruise was more like a Commonwealth gathering dominated by a large number of Australians, a sprinkling of Canadians, a few New Zealanders and a couple from Zimbabwe.
The result was a distinclty more easy-going atmosphere and a more eclectic cultural mix than I have been used to on river voyages taken in recent years.
But it was more than this. With its intriguing promise of five-star river cruises on "exclusive spaceships", the Scenic style of cruising offers a markedly different feel to the usual riverboat experience.
The little green men conjured up by the term spaceships were obviously confined to my imagination, but the lavish touches and extra space (hence the nickname) were evident in the design and layout.
Like its three sister boats, the Scenic Emerald is 430ft long and claims to have 22 per cent more space than average river cruisers – which Scenic says makes its vessels the biggest on the Danube.
With luxurious features such as private balcony suites, butler service and a choice of two restaurants – along with a price tag that includes free wine with meals, gratuities and excursions – Scenic Tours is taking river cruising to a new level.
Many of these facilities are new to river boats in Europe. For quite a few passengers I spoke to, being able to relax on their own balcony was the clincher that persuaded them to book Scenic above anyone else.
Another factor that would have tempted me was the charming Portobello's Italian restaurant situated at the front of the vessel with huge windows from which to admire the views and enough space to seat up to 30 diners.
It was reservation-only, so passengers needed to book ahead but they were rewarded with an intimate and special dining experience complemented with more personalised service from the attentive waiters.
Each dish on the six-course menu was beautifully presented, but I would have preferred a wider selection as just one option was offered, apart from the main course where there were two – though on the night I dined, one of these was almost identical to the starter.
All other meals were taken in the spacious, modern Crystal dining room on the bottom deck where passengers could sit where they liked. Scenic says its main restaurant is 30 per cent larger than those on other river boats, enabling all passengers to dine at once, thus doing away with the need for first and second sittings.
Breakfast was a buffet affair with a reasonable selection of hot and cold dishes.
An extra nice touch was the omelette station, which at lunchtimes served wonderful freshly-made pasta for those diners wanting to choose from the buffet rather than the sit-down menu.
Dinner comprised four courses with a reasonable choice of two or three options, though the standard of cuisine ranged from delicious to distinctly average.
With "early riser" pre-breakfast snacks, afternoon tea and late supper it would be easy to overindulge, but Scenic Emerald offered the perfect antidote in the form of a small fitness room and a jogging track on the huge deck, plus a fleet of mountain bikes for passengers' use.
There were bicycle tours for those keen to explore on two wheels, though with one trip reaching 20 miles, our cruise director Anja advised: "If you've not been on a bike for the last 50 years, forget it."
For those passengers keen to stick to more traditional excursions ashore, Scenic Tours offered an interesting range of trips at every port of call, and in some cities visited there were two or three options.
One of the highlights was in Vienna where passengers were able to attend a private classical concert in the Liechtenstein Palace followed by a goulash soup party with live music back on board.
In Budapest, where our boat spent the first full day of the trip, we were efficiently organised into groups for our first tour and instructed to pick up headphone sets and transmitters that would enable us to hear our respective guides, even when they disappeared out of sight.
Once everyone had figured out how to use the technology, it proved invaluable against the roar of the traffic and hubbub of other tour groups at the city's vast Heroes' Square.
This famous landmark is dotted with statues of notable figures from Hungary's past, but I found it more amusing to watch the antics of an elderly virtuoso who honed in on tourists while skilfully playing his violin, rather than waiting for them to come to him. The result was a virtual parting of the crowds as his intended victims scurried for cover.
Back on board, Scenic's style of casual opulence was reflected in the contemporary décor running throughout the vessel, with its muted palette of creams and browns.
The cabins and suites followed a similar colour scheme and modish design, complete with flat-screen television, mood lighting and luxurious L'Occitane toiletries in the stylish ensuite facilities. They were reasonably spacious, but not as large as I might have expected bearing in mind the boat's size.
Suite passengers enjoyed more space and the services of their own butler along with extras including an early morning tea/coffee service, free ironing, valet service and various appetisers.
More pampering was on offer in the hair salon and wellness room which offered a range of reasonably priced facials and massages. There was even a small gift shop for passengers wanting some retail therapy.
With English the only spoken language, it was easy to strike up a conversation in any situation, and the shared history and common ground between the different nationalities prompted many fascinating exchanges, especially among British émigrés now living in their adopted countries.
One couple had me fooled into thinking they were fellow Britons with their soft Welsh accents, but it turned out they'd emigrated from Cardiff to Canada some 40 years ago.
Such encounters were an unexpected bonus and I felt the stage was set for a house-party style atmosphere that could easily blossom into longer-lasting friendships.
I may only have been aboard for a few days, but one of my highlights was sneaking up to the huge top deck with a plateful of pasta and an accompanying glass of wine for an al fresco lunch as we sailed towards Bratislava in the warm sunshine.
As we rounded a bend and the city's distinctive castle came into view, I made a silent toast to good food, good weather and good surroundings. This was river cruising in style.
8 Day Gems of the Danube River Cruise Budapest to Nuremberg
8 Day Gems of the Danube River Cruise Nuremberg to Budapest
11 Day Bavarian Grandeur, Passion Play & Gems of the Danube Munich to Budapest
11 Day Gems of the Danube Prague to Budapest
11 Day Gems of the Danube Budapest to Prague
12 Day Black Sea Explorer Budapest to Bucharest
12 Day Black Sea Explorer Bucharest to Budapest
12 Day Alpine Highlights, Passion Play & Gems of the Danube Munich to Budapest
14 Day Grand Tour of Italy
14 Day Bohemian Odyssey, Passion Play & Gems of the Danube Munich to Nuremberg
15 Day Jewels of Europe River Cruise Amsterdam to Budapest
15 Day Jewels of Europe River Cruise Budapest to Amsterdam
16 Day Christmas & New Year Cruise Amsterdam to Budapest
18 Day Black Sea Explorer & Turkey Budapest to Istanbul
18 Day Turkey & Black Sea Explorer Istanbul to Budapest
18 Day Bavarian Highlights, Passion Play & Jewels of Europe Cruise Munich to Budapest
18 Day Bavarian Highlights, Passion Play & Jewels of Europe Cruise Amsterdam to Munich
18 Day Bavarian Highlights, Passion Play & Jewels of Europe Cruise Munich to Amsterdam
21 Day Paris & Jewels of Europe & Prague Paris to Prague
24 Day Amsterdam to the Black Sea River Cruise Amsterdam to Bucharest
24 Day Black Sea River Cruise to Amsterdam Bucharest to Amsterdam
24 Day Eastern Europe Explorer & Jewels of Europe Prague to Amsterdam
24 Day Eastern Europe Explorer & Jewels of Europe River Cruise Prague to Amsterdam
26 Day Grand Alpine Adventure & Cruise Zurich to Budapest
26 Day Grand Alpine Tour & Jewels of Europe River Cruise Zurich to Amsterdam
Avalon Waterways 2012 with Extra Discounts We have sailed the ships, slept in the beds, taken the shore excursions and eaten the food. Our prices are lower than the cruise lines.
