Uniworld: Handling the floods on the Danube

I returned from a vacation where I had booked a river cruise on Uniworld River Beautrice- Enchanting Danube. Unfortunately, due to severe flooding, the cruise was unable to proceed.

I just wanted to say what a high class operation Uniworld is. I would not chose to take a river cruise with any other line. While many companies experienced cancellations to trips or ports, I am sure that no outfit could have handled this better. I spoke with other people who had taken cruises on other lines, and they were bused from city to city- often enduring flood situations, with no information about any money refund as a result. I do not know when they returned home if they were given anything.

Since River Beautrice could not embark, we spent had 3 days on board with food and tours and then were told we could stay on board for the full week as if the boat was a hotel. In either case, we received a refund for the trip. Their logic was that if you went to an Italian restaurant and got Chinese food, it was not what you ordered. We did not order a bus trip- I would not have chosen to do one.

The boat was beautiful, the food wonderful, the tours we had great, the staff could not have been more helpful (and this was definitely a stressful issue).

I loved Budapest and Prague which we arranged to get to on our own.

Thanks for the review. That is exactly why we cruise with Uniworld. Passengers are their first priority. They are a class act.

Glad to hear how they handled this situation.

Keith

I returned from a vacation where I had booked a river cruise on Uniworld River Beautrice- Enchanting Danube. Unfortunately, due to severe flooding, the cruise was unable to proceed.

 

I just wanted to say what a high class operation Uniworld is. I would not chose to take a river cruise with any other line. While many companies experienced cancellations to trips or ports, I am sure that no outfit could have handled this better. I spoke with other people who had taken cruises on other lines, and they were bused from city to city- often enduring flood situations, with no information about any money refund as a result. I do not know when they returned home if they were given anything.

 

Since River Beautrice could not embark, we spent had 3 days on board with food and tours and then were told we could stay on board for the full week as if the boat was a hotel. In either case, we received a refund for the trip. Their logic was that if you went to an Italian restaurant and got Chinese food, it was not what you ordered. We did not order a bus trip- I would not have chosen to do one.

 

The boat was beautiful, the food wonderful, the tours we had great, the staff could not have been more helpful (and this was definitely a stressful issue).

I loved Budapest and Prague which we arranged to get to on our own.

Ah, how I wish this had been our experience with Viking. Sadly not.

How a company handles problems like this tells you more about them than the good times.

I have cruised several times with Uniworld and although I never encountered any problems, from my experience I would have expected no less from them in such a difficult and stressful situation. I will certainly continue to go with them.

We just got back from the European Serenade. We got switched to the River Ambassador (one of the fleet's oldest boats) instead of the River Princess, as the Princess could not get to Amsterdam due to the flooding. We got almost everywhere, though we had to stop at short of Passau as the port was not open yet to cruise boats, but we bused there or to Salzburg that day. Then a lock was clogged with debris, and we had to stop 75 km from Vienna, but they bused us there as well. We essentially did the entire trip.

There were some complaints about the size of the regular cabins, as they were quite small. Not too many complaints, but some. The boat also lacked a public laundry and separate library. They did not make people pay for the laundry service, and on the last night, they announced that they were refunding 25% of the fares and giving everyone a $500 credit for a future cruise good through 2015.

WOW !!

cb

That's great to hear. We had already booked with APT (AMA) before I had cruised with Uniworld. We experienced flooding last Christmas with AMA, what an awful trip. The Uniworld boat passengers were treated very differently to us and Viking.

When it came to booking another European river Cruise we booked Uniworld, even though we know the cabin will be a bit tight for our liking.

Uniworld took care of me when I was in trouble in Europe on another trip, which was beyond what I expected, and they have our River Cruising business from now on :)

We had a similar interrupted cruise due to high water on a Uniworld Christmas market cruise.

Like the people above related, Uniworld went above and beyond to make our experience satisfactory, and gave compensation as well.

The test I have started to apply to cruise lines is how do they handle problems. Uniworld does it very very well.