Overall we had an ok time, but I would never do this again. Maybe with a different company but our lovely 25th anniversary River cruise turned into ugly docking situations and bus rides. Not worth the price.
Initially, I did thorough research and knew low water levels may be a problem so I purchased the very high priced trip insurance that allows you to cancel for any reason. Unfortunately ...
We had a great time, we met interesting people both on the cruise and on the excursions. The guides made time for questions, added interest with personal stories and experiences. Yes, the communist era, made some disappointing architecture and left behind people full of life striking out to make a better country. After a full day of events, the vessel was a great welcome and the staff helped ...
We recently completed a 15-day river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam on Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours, and, well, some good and some bad. As to the bad, it likely put us off Scenic enough that we won’t cruise with them again.
This was not our first cruise, but it was our first river cruise. Realizing that river cruising differed from ocean cruising I watched a lot of videos, so got a pretty ...
We were initially searching for a Danube river cruise company (our dream vacation for over a decade) that did not present any unnecessary obstacles such as vaccination cards, etc...(Kudos to Avalon for trusting its travelers to be responsible and in preserving their privacy!)
We finally settled on Avalon based on weeks of research and reading reviews.
Where do I start?
The ship: ...
My wife and I are seasoned ocean cruisers but this was our first river cruise. I really wasn’t sure if I would like being on a much smaller ship on a river. I read lots of the reviews before the cruise and convinced myself that this was going to be good. I was right. Everything they said would happen did. The plane landed in Budapest and sure enough we were met and transferred to the ship with no ...
An opportunity arose to go back to travel from Budapest to Amsterdam. We did it in the reverse with Avalon (2018) which we enjoyed. We thought we might see it differently. We did not expect to miss cities and towns altogether, due to low water levels we missed 2 nights in Budapest and 1 night in Regensburg. The general concensus was they should have put us up in a hotel (9 couples) for the 2 ...
This review is for the ten night Passage to Eastern Europe itinerary. Kudos to Viking for their product quality. The hotels in Budapest and Bucharest were outstanding. Viking Ullur was perfectly maintained and the crew was friendly, competent and efficient. The quality of the food was excellent and the excursions were well organized and informative.
The only truly negative part of this ...
My wife and I wanted to return to Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna and Scenic offered this ideal river cruise. This was our first one with Scenic and truly every aspect of the cruise was All Inclusive. The attention of the crew was outstanding and amazingly quickly many of them named us. The cabin was extremely well appointed and for us the availability of a table for two in the restaurant ...
We chose this short cruise as a taster for river cruising having spent many outstanding holidays on ocean cruises. The crew were excellent. However, the Scenic Ruby built in 2009 and updated in 2019 is at best a 4 star ship. The decor is a matter of personal taste, so cannot objectively be criticised, however our panorama suite at £1,500 per night... was a huge disappointment. No amount of ...
We were interested in the itinerary and the availability of add-on cities. Everything was first-class from the time we landed at Heathrow and were met with a Viking Rep to takes us to our connecting flight to Budapest. Not having to live out of a suitcase for 8 days while we travelled through Europe is a luxury.
The tour guides in every city were knowledgeable and made our experiences great. ...