We cruised with Crystal for the first time in September, along with two other couples, on the Mozart 10-day Dunube river cruise. Our cruise organizer was originally good but she was replaced mid-way and the experience with our new organizer was poor. He did not respond to our questions. We had to call Crystal directly for answers and they were not very helpful either. In fact, one Crystal operator made dinner reservations for us in restaurants that did not exist on our boat!

The boat appeared "lived in", but clean. We were happy with our cabin, which was small but highly functional. The food in the main restaurant was uniformly excellent. The food at the cafe and the more casual lunch spot was not as good but still acceptable.

The Danube stops were lovely, although we were rarely docked within comfortable walking distance of the towns we were visiting. Having cruised many times previously, comparitively we felt the time allowed at each stop was too short to really enjoy the town and rarely left time to browse and wander. The quality of the Crystal tours was highly variable- the minority were excellent. Most were rushed and idiosyncratic. Read more