For our first river cruise, we wanted to explore the scenic (castle) stretch of the Rhine. After researching several cruise companies we chose Scenic, partly because it was fully inclusive of all tours (generally with a choice of 2 or 3 at each port), tips and drinks. We travel on a budget and did not want to be hit by unexpected costs. We were lucky enough to have a cabin upgrade, which meant we had a balcony, which was lovely. The restaurant and lounge were very nice, as was the deck space, with a section under cover. We thoroughly enjoyed the cruise and excursions and wonderful staff who, without exception, were very friendly and welcoming. The captain even went out of his way to welcome passengers back from trips. The food standard was a bit variable - lovely breakfasts and lunches but occasionally the evening meals disappointed. This is the only minor negative I have on the cruise itself. We stayed independently in Amsterdam for a couple of nights after the cruise finished and Scenic were very flexible with flight bookings and even provided us with a pick-up from Heathrow Airport at the end of the cruise, which was very welcome!

However, there was a problem receiving our documentation, which was supposed to arrive 2 weeks before the cruise date. After numerous calls chasing this we finally had it delivered by recorded delivery on Saturday - our holiday was due to start on Monday. This caused a lot of anxiety and many wasted minutes waiting in vain in line for the "previous bookings" section to answer my calls. These waits (sometimes as long as 20 minutes) were made more irritating because the same Scenic advertising messages were constantly repeated. I finally by-passed this and requested "new bookings", which, was answered very swiftly! Once we had received the documentation, my contact in the "new bookings" section rang to check all was well and this was a nice touch of courtesy. However, I think Scenic UK need to look at their staffing levels in documentation so they don't work so close to the wire in future.