We attracted to the look of Emerald ships and their "inside/outside" balconies and the 3 days in Lisbon prior to the cruise as part of our trip. The hotel in the centre of town was "mediocre" (The Avani Avenida Liberdade) to say the least. The staff were very willing and helpful and deserved to work in a better environment Fellow passengers who had been with Emerald on other river cruises commented that it was not up to the standard of hotels on other river cruises that Emerald used elsewhere. The included tours were OK; the paid for tour to Sintra was fine, in itself, but we saw only one site and apparently there was a LOT more to see but "there are too many tourists and the queues would be too long"! It should have been a full day trip so that more places could be visited. The transfer to Porto was over 6 hours when in reality it should take half that. This was, I presume, to stagger the boarding of passenger "groups". {On departure day we stayed onboard until 2.30pm and many new passengers arrived AND boarded between 12.00 and when we left}. The "Radiance" is small (it has to be - it's on the Douro) but well appointed and fortunately there were only about 80 people on board (as opposed to 100+) making more space per passenger. The food was excellent and varied (but could have been hotter) and the wine was fine. Our deal included "premium drinks" and the bar staff got to know who had to "sign" and who didn't pretty quickly. Most of the included tours and ship-board experiences were good; the day trip to Salamanca was the best of all. Sadly there was a rock music festival in Porto just next to Scenic/Emerald's berthing site on the last couple of nights there making it difficult to sleep! I had a "special request" for organic fresh milk fulfilled (as opposed to UHT) which made me very happy. ***Sadly I have been trying to get a response for some issues I raised about a paid for trip in Porto since we got back (over a month ago) but Emerald do NOT answer the phone (if they do) for ages and ages. I have been on hold for well over 30 minutes when I HAVE eventually got through but you cannot speak to customer services directly. Messages/emails are passed on but to date ALL I have received is a "please be patient" holding email. I am not happy and based on my treatment post-cruise, sadly, I would hesitate to recommend Emerald unless and until my complaint has been addressed, let alone resolved to my satisfaction. ***UPDATE: After finally getting through to Emerald (using social media) I got a call-back from them! I was thanked for my constructive comments and I have now been refunded the "paid-for" excursion which we found was nothing close to the the description in the brochure and our documents for which I am grateful. So, on balance (now) if there are no problems Emerald are absolutely fine; if there are - I suggest contacting them by social media is best. FYI: in general if you book through a travel agent ALL queries (even simple ones) need to be sent to Emerald via them; a bit frustrating.