Scenic Amber Review
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I cruised from Amsterdam to Budapest in August of 2014 and decided to go the opposite direction this year and to visit Prague. We have cruised Viking, Silver Seas, Crystal, and Princess in the last three years. We chose Scenic because their bathrooms had bath tubs, a must so my wife could deal with the pain in her legs after a day of touring. And because they were supposed to be a luxury cruise line. The cruise was as memorable as we had remembered and we will continue to recommend it to our friends, just not on Scenic. Scenic chose the hotel in Prague and it was very nice. The staff and tour guides were all friendly and courteous with the guides being generally knowledgeable. Everything was all inclusive; laundry, drinks, tips, etc., this is a very nice way to cruise and the quality of the wine was top notch. Unfortunately, the food on the Scenic Amber was the worst of all our cruises so far. There were some highlights but there were some downright bad entries as well. The rest of the food was only so so. Also, most of the meals were served buffet style, not what we experienced from the other cruise lines. In our opinion, this put Scenic out of the Luxury category.
Two major warnings about the Scenic Amber –
1, Do not get a cabin close to the rear of the ship!!
Response from FionaB, The Scenic Team
Cabin Review
The cabin was clean and had great A/C. There were lots of 220V outlets and one 110V shaver outlet in the bathroom. The bed had an excellent mattress and was height adjustable. The bathroom had both shower and tub. But neither the cabin nor the bathroom made good use of the space. The balcony was wasted space. You were not really outside when you were on the balcony, you opened a horizontal window that came down half way. As soon as the window opened the A/C turned off so the entire cabin was affected by opening the window.
For a larger cabin, there was no walk-in closet. Instead the closet was along one wall and covered by two sliding doors. There was enough room for both our clothes but my clothes were behind one door and my wife’s was behind another. We were always having to switch doors to get at clothes. The refrigerator was inside the closet, making it inconvenient to access and taking up closet space. The bathroom sink was poorly positioned. It was partially under a cabinet which made it a struggle to get water from your mouth into the sink rather than on the floor.
The cabin steward seemed to be inexperienced. She was far more intrusive than the cabin stewards on our other cruises. We rarely ran into them but one day we even had to go to the lounge to wait while she finished our cabin. She put the extra blankets provide out of sight one evening and we could not use them until she showed us where she had put them the next morning. One hot day while we were out on excursion the steward left our balcony window open which turned off the A/C. So we returned to a hot cabin and were not able to cool off until cabin cooled down.
Port Reviews
Wurzburg
This review is really about Rothenburg which we got to from Würzburg. This is the only city in Germany that still has the complete medieval city wall still intact. You will enjoy climbing up to the ramparts and checking out the towers It is also a great place to do some shopping. Our only complaint was Scenic did not allow enough time in the city.
Vienna
On our first evening Scenic arranged for a private performance for Scenic passengers. It included a 10 piece orchestra, opera singers, and dancers. It gave us a real feel for the musical background of the city. It set the stage nicely for our tour of the city the next day.
We were treated to a wonderful tour of the stables at the Spanish riding school. Being horse owners, it was something we could appreciate.
One disappointment, the cruise director led us to believe that reservations for seats at the performance were very limited. She said she only had 10 reservations which she gave out first come first served. Turned out there were other seats available when we checked at the ticket counter. She could have let us know there were other seats or at least pointed us to the web site so we could have reserved seats on our own before we got there. We did enjoy the performance and recommend it. Just get your reservations well in advance.
Prague
We had been told that when we went to Budapest we should have gone to Prague. So on this trip we included it. We did private tours for three days and did enjoy the city and especially Kreski Krumlov, a medieval town about an hour and a half from Prague. If you go to Prague you must go to this town. But in our opinion Prague is not as interesting as cities like St. Petersburg or Budapest.