My wife and I recently went on a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest on Scenic Amber.
It was without a doubt the most disappointing holiday we have had in the last 12 and a half years of our retirement travels.
The excursions in each port were good but the ship over all is not fit for purpose both as a luxury vessel and for the river it cruises.
Number one problem. Is the lounge area its too small for the number of guests. You are invited to congregate there each evening to listen to the port talk. Each night there would be at least several fellow passengers standing as there were not enough seats, standing for 45minutes to an hour is not great when your supposed to be relaxing.
Number two problem. Is the lack of service during the port talks there is not enough staff to keep up the service to the 1800 or so passengers. Our supposed butler was there serving drinks which means if we wanted to have service in our room at that time it was non-existent. Once waited over 25 minutes for a staff member to take my order.
Number three problem. The ships design has not allowed for the often seasonal low water levels that can occur during the year. At one point in the journey we could hear the ship touching the gravel bed of the river. Unfortunately for us the last 3 days of our journey could not be completed and we had to endure a bus journey to get to Budapest.
The bus Journey is certainly no luxury cruise. Imagine being strapped into your bus seat unable to get up and walk around for 5 hours. No free-flowing drinks no mingling with the other passengers, no lounging around outside of the evening talk time. No ordering a snack at the bar. Packing and unpacking your bags in the hotels was not a relaxing holiday. The food at one hotel would not have passed the quality of the Sunday roast at the local pub in Australia, so much for luxury.
Number four reason. The food and wine served up was sub-standard for a supposedly luxury cruise. It’s over $1,000 per night per couple. The only Australian red wine on the menu was Penfolds Koonunga Hill shiraz retail $13.95 a bottle hardly a luxury offering. The European wines were of a similar standard the cheap variety. The food was pretty ordinary and one steak I got was too tough to eat. The smorgasbord area did not have what would be considered high quality cuts of ham, small goods etc. The ships kitchen area I suppose is small and cooking for the 180 + passengers is hard. The range of meals was also substandard for a luxury cruise.
I regret to say that I was also touched (scammed – taken advantage of) by the company employee.
Now the company policy is if you don’t take up your flights or your package does not include flights you don’t get any transfers and that is fair enough. So when the disruption occurred and we were bussed the company representative proudly announced the company would arrange transfers, thinking that’s one less thing I have to do great. Well it so happened my less than 3 Km trip cost me 20 Euro. The fellow picking us up was a free lancer not a registered Uber or taxi but he did have a plastic sign on the dash that said Scenic. In fact a registered taxi fare for that Journey is between 5-6 Euro.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the Scenic fleet can have Problems due to the water level especially from Vienna to Budapest. But I note there were other river ships of European providers that were able to traverse the stretch of river between Budapest and Vienna when our Scenic ship could not.
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