We were absolutely overwhelmed by our cruise experience! The ship is new and tastefully modern, with very comfortable balcony staterooms. There was always a variety of choices of very delicious foods, served at appropriate temperatures (i.e. - Food was hot when it needed to be). Included tours and activities were well-planned, entertaining and educational. We went on two extra tours (private Vienna concert and medieval feast at Rothenburg) which were superb. The Emerald Star crew provided top-notch service. They were very gracious and welcoming, fun, hardworking, efficient, and took care to learn individual passenger's names & to accommodate personal preferences when possible. Numerous times, to the delight of passengers, they arranged "above and beyond" surprises. For example, one night after dinner, we were invited to quickly come to the top deck where we were greeted with champagne and music to take advantage of the wonderful acoustics at the bottom of the largest lock. A magical evening!
We chose to make our own arrangements for time in both Amsterdam and Budapest. Both embarkation and disembarkation went smoothly and very efficiently. We appreciated the extra lunches and hospitality we were given the day we arrived early and the day we disembarked.
We would definitely recommend this trip to others and would go again.
Very comfortable bed with high quality bedding. Mirrors were skillfully used to "enlarge" the room. We enjoyed the sliding window feature. Plenty of drawer space. Little space between the bed and bathroom, but we learned to work with it. Our only complaint is that the closet had little room left for hanging clothes for two, due to the safety deposit box.