American Empress Review
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Corrections/rebuttals of other reviews: There is a toilet on board the busses. We did not have the female Riverlorian – ours was Lawrence and he was very interesting and informative. I attended all of his lectures. I didn’t think the Internet was that slow and always worked, but I only used it in the Paddle Wheel Lounge, which was down the hall from our room. Someone said that all the cabins have balconies. You will see from the ship’s layout before booking that there are cabins without balconies. There were not a lot of people using walkers on our cruise. The elevator was fast and large enough to hold everyone. However, there were only 105 passengers aboard that week.
We've done 17 non-river cruises (Holland American, etc.), but this was our first river cruise.
Dining: Dinners in the Astoria Dining Room were always very good, but service was slow (for us) and it took a minimum of two hours. This is a beautiful dining venue with sparkling crystal chandeliers and an attractive blue-lit ceiling, which added to the ambiance.
Cabin Review
Room: The cabins were very nicely decorated compared to ocean cruise cabins. It just shows you how a cruise cabin can be made to look really nice. Rooms had wallpaper, attractive drapery treatments, and patterned carpet. The room photos in their brochure and on their website do not do them justice.
When we booked our room, the sales agent on the phone did a good job directing us to the best room for our price. There was special pricing, which was for either Category E or “C or better”, meaning they could put you anywhere. C did not have balconies. He recommended Category E was on the top deck, with the best river views and was down the hall from the River Lounge. He said room 417 was the one Category E left on that floor, that had a queen size bed, not two twins (which cannot be put together). The agent didn’t think the smaller size of this “E” room would be an issue. We were booking the lowest price we could get and when we got to our room, #417, we saw that he was right – being on the top deck was very nice, with a balcony facing the outside walk-around deck, and convenient to the River Grille for grabbing a cappuccino early in the morning. We didn’t mind that it was a smaller room.
Although we were very happy with Room 417, the bed was way too soft for my husband. He has a bad back and needs a firm bed, so we had inquired about the beds before booking the cruise and were assured that the beds were new and that firm mattresses would not be a problem. After one night in our room, my husband informed me he wouldn’t be able to handle another night in this soft bed. He said if they couldn’t find us a firmer mattress, we’d have to get off the ship and discontinue the rest of our cruise. Housekeeping told us that all the beds were the same, but the housekeeping manager finally figured out what to do: There was a room on another floor with a king size bed, which was two singles put together. This mattress had the “cushion top” which when flipped over became truly firm. This was adequate for my husband, so we switched to this room and were fine for the rest of the cruise. They did not charge us a supplement for this upgrade, but would have preferred Room 417 if it had a firm mattress. Our new room, #230, was larger and had a balcony, but we never used it because of the engine noise. Therefore, remember this when choosing a room – I’d say get one on the other side of the ship from Room 230. Other passengers asked to be switched to better rooms since so many were empty, but were told they would have to pay for an upgrade.