Scenic Jade Review

4.0 / 5.0
126 reviews

Great cruise, shame about the travel.

Review for Europe River Cruise on Scenic Jade
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Beau Block
2-5 Cruises • Age 80s

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Sail Date: Sep 2022

Well, first of all, we did not cruise on Scenic Crystal but on Scenic Jade. Obviously this website has not caught up with the late change. We believe the boats are more or less identical but, obviously, any comments on here refer to SCENIC JADE, which is the boat we actually cruised on. Our (very short) cruise was great: lovely "cabins" with a king-size bed, all mod-cons and a balcony with a huge electric window, so you could have it enclosed or in fresh air. The food was terrific - 5 star - and all drinks etc were included. (The "all-inclusive" was a bit wasted on us, TBH, as we are very moderate eaters and very moderate drinkers but it was nice not to have to bother even thinking about it). The crew were excellent. The service was first class, they worked very hard, and really gave you the impression that you were valued customers and their favourite group!

The inclusive visits were well chosen and well organised - and interesting. All in all, a lovely experience - except the travel!

Ah, the travel. Let's get down to the travel. We opted to fly from Cardiff, our nearest airport. Unfortunately our flight was about 5.30am, so we were picked up (by our door-to-door car - all inclusive) before 2.00am, which meant getting up around 1.00am. We arrived at the boat in Budapest around 1.30pm. Yes, that's more or less 12 hours travel to get from Swansea to Budapest. That's not a good start to a very short break of only 4 nights. The return journey was worse: over 13 hours travel from Vienna to get back home. Why the very, very long travel time? The main reason was that the flights were split: each time, we had to fly to Amsterdam and get a connecting flight to our destination. On the way out, we had to wait nearly 4 hours in Schiphol airport. On the way back it was supposed to be 6½ hours wait in Schiphol but, to add insult to annoyance, our flight back was delayed a further 20 or 30 minutes. We got home around 1.00am the next day! (A contributory factor was the fact that we didn't locate our courtesy car in Cardiff for about 45 minutes due to the driver not meeting us at the right place - Arrivals. He was sat in his car 200 metres away in a corner of the car park in a so-called "pick up" spot that we had never heard of and neither had the airport staff. At the very least he could have given us a call to see where we were but, until we contacted the head office - fortunately a 24 hour number - it appears he did not have any way of contacting us. Where he thought we were is anyone's guess as we didn't communicate on the journey home. He was narked because he had had to wait - and so were we, for the same reason!) While this is not directly the fault of Scenic Cruises, it does need sorting out. So: the cruise itself, 5 star, no argument but our overall rating (above) is heavily influenced by the unpleasant journeys we had to endure to get there and back. We guess that the reason for the split flights is cost. We asked other cruisers, who had come from all parts of the UK, and they all had split flights and lots of hanging around in various airports like Amsterdam, Zurich or Munich, to get to the cruise. Not good. This short cruise is quite luxurious and expensive. Scenic should do something about the travel arrangements. One couple, indeed, turned down the flights offered and booked a direct flight with Ryanair to Budapest from Manchester on their own initiative. Unfortunately, we forgot to find out if they had any price reduction for not taking the company's flights.

Cabin Review

Bigger than we expected with all mod con. The TV was very good, including the sound (hotel chains, please take note). Having a "butler" to bring you tea in your cabin in the morning was super, somewhat mitigated by the service not being available on the final morning.

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