American Empress Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We cruised from Clarkston, WA to Portland, OR 18-26 July 2015 on the American Empress.
Everything was seamless on this cruise except for a couple of things that were not the cruise lines fault. The travel agency that had reserved the entire boat had insisted on open seating for dinner instead of assigned early and late seating. This made the Astoria dining room VERY crowded and VERY Loud at 6:15 and while only 15 or so every went to the early show the late show was standing room only. We complained about this and were told privately that usually things went more smoothly.
The Davenport Hotel was fantastic. (see my review on TripAdvisor) and is included in your fare. Embarkation/Debarkation were NOTHING like RCCL. You basically walk on and off the ship without any hassle with lines or your bags. Of course there was not immigration and Customs to hassle with but still everything is much more relaxed on a 200 passenger ship compared with our usual 2000 passenger ship.
Cabin Review
Cabin was small for us (180 sq ft) about the size of an interior cabin on RCCL or Norwegian but pretty standard for a river cruise. This is a standard room for the Empress, so unless you travel in a suite it's about what you can expect. The shower is the size of a phone booth. Only one person can realistically unpack at a time due to size constraints. With those two small niggling complaints aside, the room was wonderful.
The bed was perfectly comfortable, the furniture was gorgeous, there was a free Keurig coffee maker and free bottled water in every room and a lovely private balcony on our deck (2). Deck 4 has the walking track so if your there you may not be able to sit outside in your PJ's. Sort of funny as that's the deck with most of the luxury cabins.