Scenic Crystal

The river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest was an excellent way to travel. It was fully catered and the food selection was varied to provide dishes from the country you travel through. It gave us an opportunity to taste food that we may not have ordered from a restaurant elsewhere. We enjoyed the ability to integrate cycling with our sight seeing. The Scenic river cruise was indeed scenic and the onboard app provided great insights to the various castles, churches and towns as we passed by.

The staff on this Scenic river cruise were friendly and very pleasant to deal with. Our cruise director was the best we have ever had compared to our travels. He was always around to help people with their queries and had a great dry sense of humour. We really enjoyed this cruise and would recommend it to others. Our booking through Global Journeys was simple, easy and without any problems. Anything that was promised was delivered on time and without any need for us to chase. This gave us the opportunity to start our trip in relaxed frame of mind and to enjoy the experience.

The trip started in Prague where the hotel was very good and centrally located. All you get from Scenic here is a walking tour of the old town on the first morning and my only criticism would be that the walking tour was a bit too long. The rest of the time was ours to explore the town.

The river cruise is difficult to fault. Everything was very well done and totally stress free. A word of advice for those who think river cruising is like the advertisements where you sit on your balcony and watch the world go by. Reality on this cruise is that most cruising is done overnight. The best daytime cruising happens on the day between Passau and Linz but most people miss it because they are off the ship on all day excursions to either Chesky Krumlov or Salzburg. If you don't want to spend 10 hours on either of these excursions with a lot of time spent in the buses getting there and back, stay on the ship for a very nice and quiet day of cruising.

About 20 people stayed on board that day and we enjoyed a nice relaxed lunch while cruising a very nice stretch of river. You also get time to walk around Passau and Linz whereas those on the excursions don't see these places as they leave at 8 am and don't get back until 6 pm. The only other daytime cruising occurs one afternoon through the Wachau Valley and an afternoon between Vienna and Budapest.

Overall we had a great trip and would not hesitate to recommend it.

This was our third river cruise, and it is still the best way to travel. Unpack once, sit back and watch the world go by. However tours are available every day in a different city. Please yourself with what you do. All people are different and expect different things, we rarely used the butler as it is not our thing. We have been with another river cruise company (Avalon) and found their food and entertainment much better. Once again it's the only way to travel and relax.

We enjoyed the river cruise but were very disappointed to be told that the itinerary was altered due to lock maintenance on the Moselle. The tour director was of the opinion we knew about this but all the Australians onboard had not been notified. The English knew 3 months previously. The main reason for selecting this river cruise was to sail the Moselle. The highlight for us was catching up with friends in Koblenz.

Although we got to see places that two decades ago would not be easily accessible we found that, apart from Ruse and Belgrade, we needed to be coached for some time to our selected location. The time ranged from an hour and a half to almost four hours. Indeed the trip to the Black Sea ( Black Sea Explorer) took 3.5 to 4 hours there and the same back. It made the day very trying. The ship and staff were wonderful as usual -

the on board piano player was excellent.

The Sundowner was a hurried waste of time - off the boat, over the bridge, on to a barge, down with one beer, group photo, off the barge back on the coach back to the boat. One hour tops.

Would not recommend this particular cruise to others.