Crystal vs Scenic

[RosseauGirl]

Hello! We are long time cruisers with Silversea, and are looking at booking our first river cruise on the Danube. We’ve narrowed the list of possible lines to Crystal and Scenic. Does anyone here have some words of wisdom about either of these lines that they could share?  

Thank you!

Michele

[Roz]

Here you go, Michele:

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=2613

[mj_holiday]

We did a Scenic River cruise on the Rhine River 4 years ago and enjoyed it very much.  We would do another one with them but would avoid the main dining room for several evenings.  The food is very good, but everyone is seated at one time and the service is done for the entire dining room....everyone orders,  everyone is served first course,  then when this is done everyone is served next course.  Basically you are on the schedule of the entire dining room.  We found this very tiring after 3 or 4 evenings.  Everything else about Scenic was very good.

[Texas Tillie]

The dining room on the Crystal river boats are open in the evening for you to come whenever you choose, 7 to 9, meaning you can come as late a right before 9 and still be served. That alone would be enough to make Crystal my pick. (I've done 4 cruises on Crystal river boats.)

[DougK]

My experience on Scenic a year ago was somewhat different than mj_holiday's experience 4 years ago. Everybody was expected to arrive at roughly the same time (after the port talk), but occasionally some people would come in quite a bit later. And the service wasn't in lockstep. Individual waiter stations generally served each course at the same time to their station, but different stations operated differently. And not just one station always before another, but in some unclear manner, so it was quite possible that our station would get soup before the station next to us, but then they got their entrees before we did. And there were times when even different tables in the same station got served at different times. Basically, I think they do their best to accommodate individual diners while still maintaining waiter efficiency, and it's not clear which wins out at any given time. Overall, it seemed to work pretty well, and I probably wouldn't even have noticed how service was done if I hadn't read a thread on the subject beforehand.

[caripoo]

Have not done Scenic, but we just did a Crystal Rhine and LOVED it.....everything about it was great 200% better than our Viking Danube, and we loved that one as well.........The ships are all newer than the Scenics I believe.......

[Canal archive]

Having been on eight Scenic cruises we have taken dinner when we wanted to.  Be pleasant to the staff sit where you want to enjoy your cruise! Ca

[1of4]

On 12/23/2019 at 9:40 AM, mj_holiday said:

We did a Scenic River cruise on the Rhine River 4 years ago and enjoyed it very much.  We would do another one with them but would avoid the main dining room for several evenings.  The food is very good, but everyone is seated at one time and the service is done for the entire dining room....everyone orders,  everyone is served first course,  then when this is done everyone is served next course.  Basically you are on the schedule of the entire dining room.  We found this very tiring after 3 or 4 evenings.  Everything else about Scenic was very good.

we were on Scenic in August and this was not our experience.  You were served when you arrived in the dining room and the dining time was a range.  You could arrive anytime within those times and receive the same level of service.

 

We loved Scenic and Booked them for our first river cruise because of a per diem cost breakdown River Cruise Advisor did comparing all river cruise companies sailing the Danube on a specified week, same or very similar itineraries.  Scenic came out as the best value although they were one of the most expensive to book.  Their all-inclusive policy made our vacation so enjoyable we have booked a second river cruise with them.

[tfred]

if you are used to Silversea then I would look at Crystal.  I have done two river cruises on C and they were spectacular.  

 

Food, service and rooms were at the top