During this review I will try to clarify some of the questions that have been asked on several Cruise Critic sites.

On April 3rd we left England from a regional airport flying KLM to Amsterdam, we were met by a Scenic representative and waited a short time for another couple flying from another UK regional airport and we traveled to our ship in a very smart people carrier arriving in time for a warm welcome and time to meet our butler and room steward, we unpacked, changed and went to the welcome reception and an excellent glass of champagne. When traveling before with Scenic we had a Danube deck (top deck) cabin mid-ship this time we opted for a Rhine ( middle deck) deck cabin again mid-ship. Now the ship has been upgraded and the changes are all to the good, still clean uncluttered decor and furnishings plus the raise and lower screen on the balcony plus all ship butler service, the Scenic brochure is very clear on what is included and what is not, the people at the Scenic office are usually pretty good at answering your questions. We arrived in what has proved to be about the coldest spring on record. Our fellow passengers are mostly Australian. A few Canadians and British (last time it was equal numbers of Australians and Canadians then us Brits).

Next day we opted for the Amsterdam canal trip with a short walking tour of Amsterdam which included tasting herring and a visit to a cheese shop to taste their on site made cheese. All walking tours were split into groups of which one was always for gentle walkers, our guide was excellent I don't think we had a duff one during the entire cruise some put more into their job than others for instance one distributed liquor chocolates on our way back to the ship. Thinking about it the whole trip kept coming up with little extras which were a surprise and unexpected, in fact by the end of the cruise at the port briefing each evening it became a standing joke ( these were carried out by our excellent cruise director Evonne and were not obligatory ) Read more