There were four of us traveling together. We previously had a 7-day river cruise, Vienna to Vienna, reserved with Crystal, but they went bankrupt. We needed these exact dates and itinerary to replace the Crystal river cruise.

The Beethoven is quite old. Built in 2004 and refurbished in 2010. It is time to redo the whole ship or sell it for scrap. The technology is dismal. Mostly the wifi did not work. The tv kept losing the signal. CNN had a channel, but it did not work. The microphones were very distorted and it was very difficult to understand the announcements. They were given in French and English. The excursions were in French and English. For every five French sentences, there was one in English.

Sometimes the food was excellent, and sometimes not so much. The French food was the best. Breakfast was buffet; lunch and dinner were fixed menus. Wine with lunch and dinner was included. A lot of cocktails were also included. There was always drink of the day. That was hit or miss. The pina colada was terrible. Read more