We did our first (and so far only) river cruise in 2019: Amsterdam to Budapest. We were 60 and 56 then, and have done many ocean cruises. We chose Scenic which is an Australian competitor to Viking. I don’t really remember why we chose them over Viking but also think the experiences are very similar. Here are my (lengthy) trip notes that I sent to my travel agent:
Two Ship Swaps: About a week before we boarded we got an email from Scenic saying that we would need to board the Scenic Pearl in Amsterdam on 6/10 instead of the ship we booked, the Scenic Jewel, and swap onto the Jewel on the 13th. The explanation we were given onboard was that the Jewel had been delayed in getting to Amsterdam due to high water earlier in the week. So after 3 nights on the Pearl, on the morning of the 13th we had to have our luggage packed up and it was swapped onto the Jewel while we passengers were all on the ship’s excursion to Rudesheim. Unfortunately that was not the only ship swap we had to do. There had been an accident in which a Viking ship damaged the lock at Riedenburg, forcing the lock to be completely closed for a couple of weeks which meant no ships could get through. So we ended up spending just 4 nights on the Jewel before we had to swap to the Scenic Jade. After our excursions in Nuremburg we were bussed to Regensburg to board the Jade.
It was annoying and inconvenient to have to pack up twice to swap ships, since obviously one of the attractions of the river cruise is the idea of taking your hotel with you and only unpacking once. But as our cruise director pointed out, we didn’t actually lose any touring time and were lucky that Scenic had enough boats on both sides of the broken lock to accommodate their passengers. The cruise director said she had a colleague with Crystal who told her they had to turn several of their cruises into bus and hotel tours, which I would not have liked at all. None of it was Scenic’s fault but just one of the risks of river cruises, and Scenic handled everything very well.
General comments on Scenic and river cruising: This was our first river cruise after many ocean cruises. Scenic is an Australian company and the passenger mix was about 55% Australian, 20% Canadian, 10% American, and about 7% New Zealanders and 7% Brits. I’m guessing the average age was about 68? So definitely an older crowd although most people seemed reasonably fit considering their ages. Australians of course hate tipping so the cruise is all inclusive including virtually all alcohol. The only things we paid extra for were (1) a massage, and (2) extra laundry above our 1 kg allotment. At dinner we always ended up at a table with other passengers and over the course of a 14 day cruise got to know several pretty well and made some new friends.
Onboard entertainment is pretty minimal. There was a keyboard entertainer every night and several times local “acts” came onboard for some local type of performance (e.g., a zither concert, a violinist, folk dancing, Viennese waltz lessons). There were two outings where we were taken to locations for dinner/entertainment events. One was for a “medieval” dinner at Marksburg castle and one was for a dinner and Sound of Music/Austrian music performance near Salzburg. In both cases the dinner was banquet quality and the entertainment a combination of a bit campy but fun. DH was especially surprised by how much he enjoyed the Sound of Music performance.
Miscellaneous notes: The cruise director on our cruise was quite different from what we’ve come to expect on an ocean cruise. The river CD is part concierge and part tour manager. We’d have a brief passenger meeting every evening to go over the options for the next day’s activities. At every stop there was a choice of 3 organized activities or DIY suggestions. There was a small cadre of very active people on our cruise who opted for bike tours (ebikes, I think) or other more physically demanding tours.
Our takeaway is that we prefer ocean cruising and land trips, but would consider another river cruise for the right itinerary, especially somewhere where we didn’t feel very comfortable doing stuff on our own. Maybe for example the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar, or a shorter cruise such as the Douro. We felt that Scenic mostly delivered and if looking at another river cruise, we’d cruise on them again for the right price and itinerary but would also consider Viking.