Scenic Ruby Review

Scenic Ruby - Caution - A Souped Up Bus Excursion !

Review for Europe River Cruise on Scenic Ruby
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Cruising@60
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: May 2013

We were passengers on the Scenic Ruby tour departing Amsterdam on 27th May 2013. Our primary purpose in travelling on the Scenic Ruby was to cruise the Rhine, Main and Danube Rivers. Our specific interest was in the Rivers as a transportation system and the scenery along the river. We have a son who lives on the Rhine in Germany and by visiting him on several occasions in the past we had noticed many river ships, and not having previously experienced luxury river cruising, we chose the Jewels of Europe tour we thought it would enable us to explore the river and to experience its much vaunted beauty. Our actual experience was not remotely close to Scenics advertised ultimate luxury river cruising experience.

The rivers were swollen and well up before we started out from Amsterdam. Having worked extensively for many years in flood disaster management and flood recovery on rivers in Australia, I know that the upstream hydrology patterns would have dictated near the start of the voyage that the ship would not be able to undertake the journey on schedule. Yet Scenic failed to inform the passengers about the true extent of the impending disaster until over a week into the "cruise" and then only drip fed us with what information it saw fit for us to know while our ships sat day after day in ugly industrial terminals before Scenic eventually acknowledged that we would not sail again - at all. In fact we cruised for only 2 days of a 15 day tour.

There was nothing relaxing about the cruise. Instead of cruising, we were shunted in buses backwards and forwards along the route, completely missing most of the river scenery. This required very early starts, day after day, instead of waking up fresh and stepping off in new cities. We were accommodated on 3 separate ships along the way, and dined on a 4th lots of packing and unpacking totally at odds with what was advertised. This cruise of a lifetime was completely unspectacular.

Cabin Review

Cabin Balcony Suite

The cabins were comfortable and clean. The TV/entertainment system reception was intermittent. The movie selection was very limited and not current.

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