We had sailed Emerald before and rated it highly, so when we decided on the Danube they were our #1 choice. It’s an attractive well maintained ship with plenty of crew. The weather wasn’t so great so the top deck got little use, but that’s April in Europe. The pre cruise stay in Prague was really good, a very nice and helpful tour director and a comfortable hotel (Majestic Plaza). Well organised transfer to ship, all luggage taken care of, easy boarding and shown to cabin by staff.

On almost all the included excursions ( and one optional extra) there was a lot of walking and mostly on cobblestones which I found tiring, and I’m used to walking, but my wife found extremely hard going even in the “slow” group. The cities visited are interesting, old and what one goes to see, but it’s hard, tiring work.

River cruises do not offer the menu choices of the ocean vessels and that is where we encountered real problems. My wife as an allergy to cheese of which she had notified Emerald in advance. At lunch all the food seem to have cheese in it, even ham sandwiches, and they were not always able to get anything different from the galley. Eventually the restaurant manager got the message and tried to ensure the evening dinner had cheese free options but the staff didn’t know what was in dishes resulting in her eating a dessert she was told had cream in it but was sweetened cream cheese and she was ill. We wonder what they were doing regarding nut allergies and one person we were with was vegetarian and her choices were terrible. One evening her meal was veggie curry, but she didn’t like curry, no alternative! Read more