wonderful cruise. was looking for a river cruise and found this one on the web site. thought seeing these historic places in one trip was astounding. The ship was amazing and the service was outstanding. never saw a frown from a crew member. the food was varied and sometimes unusual, but the breakfasts were wonderful and I never missed one. I also enjoyed the fact that on the smaller ship, the only time I felt crowded was getting off the ship for excursions. still they were orderly and moved along. having fewer than 1,000 on board really helped. I have been on cruises with more than 4,000 passengers and they were terribly unwieldy. The only complaint I had was the lack of smoking areas. We had just one spot on the whole ship and it was inconvenient for a lot of us. Not being able to smoke on the veranda was a disappointment.