We fancied a cruise but didn't fancy the idea of sharing a 10-day pub/restaurant crawl across the ocean with 3000 other people, so decided on a river cruise with Emerald Waterways up the Danube from Bucharest to Budapest. It was entertaining, educational and seriously luxurious. The guests were all adults and a good cross-section from across the planet; Oz, NZ, Canada, and UK mostly with some US, but there was also a small group from Brazil who, in spite of having little English, still seemed to enjoy the trip.

The ship was practically brand new and very comfortable. The captain was very approachable and impressed us all with his seamanship (or would that be rivermanshio?). The food was outstanding and the drinks at lunch and dinner comprised good quality wines that just kept coming. Acquiring in advance a drinks package was a good idea although drinks on-board outside of mealtimes were reasonably priced. We only went on the included excursions but they were pretty good (if you like a lot of beautiful old churches) although one did include a 2-hour coach journey which, frankly, I could have done without - Eastern European roads aren't brilliant. Eastern European river ports aren't much to write home about either but Silistra, Belgrade and Budapest were lovely.

We have only 2 negative comments about the whole trip: 1. We could have done without 2 nights in the Bucharest Sheraton - it's a good quality business hotel in the middle of a concrete jungle - but all cities are the same and we wanted to be on the ship. 2. It's a pity that for some parts of the river cruise we travelled at night - we were there for the cruise; to watch the countryside drift by at 10 knots, not for the joy of being nailed to some pokey quayside for a few hours whilst we all went on a coach journey, followed by a night passage. It is, after all, marketed as a River Cruise not a coach-borne site-seeing trip. Read more