Scenic River (Europe) Cruise Questions

[BlairsvilleCruiseGirl]

We've booked our first river cruise on Scenic in September, 2025 (10 day Danube).  The Scenic US website is definitely not the most user friendly, so I have many questions:

1. Flights:  Our fare includes free Premium Economy flights.  I used the on-line chat on the Scenic website to ask how this works and got nowhere.  Do we pick our flights when they become available and then contact Scenic to book them?  According to the booking confirmation documents we received, if we book Business Class, they will cover $2500.  Will Scenic ticket the flight/reserve seats immediately and bill us any difference in airfare?  The docs they sent said we could also book our own but they would only credit us $1500 for not using their flights.  Definitely would prefer getting $2500 credited towards the business class flights of our choice, but worried that we'll be assigned by Scenic to crummy flights, forcing us to do-it-ourselves and then being out the extra $1000.

2. Early arrival: We'd like to go into Budapest a day or two early.  Scenic includes "private airport transfers (RR category)" but will they cover it if we go in early and to the hotel of our choice?  Or would they pick us up at the hotel of our choice and take us to the ship? Or would we be on our own?  Based on Scenic's website, there are no pre-cruise extensions for Budapest (just Prague and somewhere else, I forget), so we can't book the early arrival through them.

3. Shore Excursions: When we booked, Scenic sent a list of shore excursions, but no information about when/how to book these excursions. Is this done in advance or only once onboard? 

4. Room Service:  One of the reasons we chose Scenic was the ability to get room service for breakfast, lunch and dinner (I'm not sure if all categories get this or just the Royal suites?).  Is there a standard room service menu or do you just order whatever is being served in the main dining room?  And for dinner, would we have to wait until the main restaurant opens to order (meaning we couldn't order dinner until after 7pm)?

 

OK, that's all the questions I can think of at this moment - any input would be helpful!

[Host Jazzbeau]

I suggest you call Scenic with the air questions, as your combination of issues may not be in anyone's experience.  If you don't have confidence in the explanation from call agent #1, hang up and call again to get a different one!

[Kristelle]

Cannot answer the air questions - partly because we came from Australia and the packaging is probably not the same

 

In our case our TA booked the flights and they were all included i n the fixed price.

 

We did Amsterdam t o Budapest - but we spent 3 nights in London first and 2 nights in Paris, on our own, not a Scenic extension - Scenic still charged us same total price even though we did not fly into the country the cruise started from ( ie we flew to England) or on the dates we started being with Scenic.

 

Whether this is the norm or our TA was good at negotiating  I do not know

 

We did not use private airport transfers, we caught taxi t o London accomodation and like wise to/from Eurostar in Paris/Amsterdam.

 

Shore excursions - we selected some before, the ones TA said might book out - but in practice you could change your mind once on the ship anyway and you filled out a booking sheet on the ship

 

Room Service - yes you are limited by times meals are running. Husband did use it once for evening meal - he had full choice of options same as if we were i n the dining room (menu is TV screen as well so he could pick from there)

We didnt do this but several people got room service breakfast  - we saw the tray outside their rooms. We were in ordinary balcony room not a top suite.

 

 

[jimmymac613]

We were on a Scenic Nuremberg to Budapest cruise (with 3 days in Prague as the starter) just this past May.  We added 3 extra days in Budapest at the end through Scenic and stayed at the Budapest Marriott (excellent location).  Scenic bussed us from the ship to the hotel and also arranged the free transfer from the hotel to the airport at the end.

[sbjornda]

1. About 6-10 months prior to departure, I recommend phoning Scenic and spending some time with their air travel agents to go through all the options. I have found them to be quite helpful and flexible, within certain limits - e.g. they have preferred travel partner airlines. You might not get the most rock bottom price across all airlines, but they will help you get all the Scenic travel credits and the seating classes you want. If they're not able to assign a seat that early on, you'll get a flight booking number that you can then use to assign a seat directly with the airline closer to the travel date when that becomes available. 

2. I've had no problem booking flights directly with Scenic and telling them I want to arrive a few days early. But if you want the transfer from the airport to the hotel, you need to use their recommended hotel. You'll need to decide how price-conscious you are; if their hotel is more expensive would you rather deal with your own airport transfer to save the money? (Another option is to transfer the booking to your own travel agent and let your travel agent figure out private airport transfer and pre-cruise tourism; just be aware that once you've transferred the booking you can't transfer it back to Scenic again and you'll have to go through your own travel agent for any changes.)

3. You will pre-book some of the Freechoice excursions via the Trip Personalizer web site (tp.scenicglobal.com) - that link should be somewhere in the emails you received. Others will be selected on-board; the Cruise Director will give a presentation of the options and you'll indicate your preferences on a paper form. 

4. Full room service is only available for the upper-end suites; if you can't find the specific entitlement on Scenic's web site you can try emailing the "info" email address for your country and they'll usually get back to you within a few days, or you can of course phone them. In my experience in a Royal suite there is a room service menu as well as the option for the standard fare. You would have to order ahead of time (I forget the exact mechanism) and they would bring it to you shortly after the main restaurant service begins. Some other suites just have a morning coffee delivery service, which you pre-book by hanging a card on your doorknob the night before. 

Edited July 11 by sbjornda

[pontac]

21 hours ago, BlairsvilleCruiseGirl said:

Room Service:  One of the reasons we chose Scenic was the ability to get room service for breakfast, lunch and dinner (I'm not sure if all categories get this or just the Royal suites?).  

 

All cabins can 'dine in rooms'. I returned this week from an 11 day Scenic cruise of the Douro. The was a card in the room for breakfast choices you can hang from your cabin door handle. But the options do no include hot food.

 

I asked the 'butler' about in-room dining as it had been a forum discussion item before I took the cruise. He said he'd never served any in-room food other then breakfast.

 

You don't say which level of cabin you are in. For a balcony suite there is a small table in room with a stool chair. On the balcony are two wicker armchairs and a low table. I asked the butler if table and chairs were brought with in room dining. He didn't think so and there was no space for them. Unless you have  a larger cabin where you can dine with a knife and fork on a plate at reasonable level, you might have issues with in-room dining, except for food like burgers and sandwiches.

21 hours ago, BlairsvilleCruiseGirl said:

Is there a standard room service menu or do you just order whatever is being served in the main dining room?

 

There was on our boat, it's viewed on the TV under FAQ>FOOD. This is it

 

 

I think the custard tarts are special to Portugal 🙂

21 hours ago, BlairsvilleCruiseGirl said:

And for dinner, would we have to wait until the main restaurant opens to order (meaning we couldn't order dinner until after 7pm)?

 

Menu available 11:00 to 24:00 according to screen above

Edited July 11 by pontac

[Canal archive]

Traditional Portuguese custard tarts - Pasteis de neta terribly moorish.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Pasteis de nata – my favorite!  Portuguese is a very difficult language:  it's pronounced 'pash-taysh' and the singular is Pastel de nata [that was not a problem, because I never ordered just one!]

 

More importantly, the pasteis on Scenic Azure were very good!

[Canal archive]

 

Second from left is Maria Elizabeth our tour guide so much energy. Guess what they are making?

[Kristelle]

14 hours ago, pontac said:

For a balcony suite there is a small table in room with a stool chair. On the balcony are two wicker armchairs and a low table. I asked the butler if table and chairs were brought with in room dining. He didn't think so and there was no space for them. Unless you have  a larger cabin where you can dine with a knife and fork on a plate at reasonable level, you might have issues with in-room dining, except for food like burgers and sandwiches.

 

 

When my husband had dinner room service he sat o n the little stool i n the room and  the butler set meal  up on the little built in dressing table.

it was fine for a full cutlery type of meal - but that was for one person,  I went to dining room as usual, would not have worked for 2 people

 

We were not in an upper end suite - we were in an ordinary balcony cabin - when booking I booked the cheapest balcony cabin

The menu was o n the TV screen and he could pick any of the dinner options for that night.

[Canal archive]

As I’ve never cruised with another company I have nothing to make a comparison with but whatever I’ve asked for or queried has been sorted from the very first in the year dot. I asked the hotel manager who asked the cruise director whoa asked the Captain if my husband could have a sneaky peek in the wheelhouse the Captain was so pleased, no one had asked before it’s now fully accepted thing, it wasn’t then. I’m sure most crews would look at even outlandish requests as somewhat of a challenge it makes any job far more interesting.

On our Bordeaux cruise one bike tour was so oversubscribed they hired a load more bikes and the maritime crew went along as extra support. The before start training session was a site to behold.

[English Tim]

I have enjoyed several Scenic river cruises and on each one we have had a wonderful time. The crew are always fantastic. that is great because your holiday will be in their hands. What is not always so good is the service from Shoreside Operations and I would most definitely sign up to a good travel agent who can ask all these questions for you.

 

On our upcoming cruise from Bordeaux, we selected our own transportation and pre-cruise Hotel, which we booked and paid for independently, as I didn’t like the flights that we were offered so I opted for Eurostar, which is a very nice train, from London to Paris and another train from Paris to Bordeaux. They are providing transfers between the two stations and from our home to London for the start of the train journey and from the airport to our home at the end of the cruise. we were happy with the flights that were offered for the return journey and so they will take us to the airport and then back home.

 

If making any pre-or post cruise reservations yourselves, Scenic will not provide transfers.

 

All we had to do was choose our method of transportation, within the budget that was included and they organised it all for us. Having a good travel agent means that everything that you were told will be done, actually happens.

[BlairsvilleCruiseGirl]

On 7/10/2024 at 8:20 PM, jimmymac613 said:

We were on a Scenic Nuremberg to Budapest cruise (with 3 days in Prague as the starter) just this past May.  We added 3 extra days in Budapest at the end through Scenic and stayed at the Budapest Marriott (excellent location).  Scenic bussed us from the ship to the hotel and also arranged the free transfer from the hotel to the airport at the end.

I was looking at the Scenic website and couldn't find anything for a pre- or post-cruise stay in Budapest through Scenic.  Was this something you arranged one-on-one with Scenic or was it a standard post-cruise extension (which I have not been able to find on their website)?  Thanks!

[jimmymac613]

1 hour ago, BlairsvilleCruiseGirl said:

I was looking at the Scenic website and couldn't find anything for a pre- or post-cruise stay in Budapest through Scenic.  Was this something you arranged one-on-one with Scenic or was it a standard post-cruise extension (which I have not been able to find on their website)?  Thanks!

We wanted to stay in Budapest 3 extra days so I had our TA ask Scenic which hotel they used there and they said the Marriott.  I checked it out on-line and it looked very good so we booked it through Scenic to get the transfers.

[robertmartha]

May seem like a silly question - breakfast. Assume standard buffet but is there also a limited menu to order things like Eggs Benedict or specialty omelet? Just got off Emerald and thinking of bumping up to Scenic next year.. Emerald had the same buffet every day (same items) so got a bit boring after a few days - looking for a little variety.

 

thanks 

[Canal archive]

robertmartha absolutely DH could not start the day without his Eggs Benedict there are various different items you can order from the waiting staff, there is also an egg station on the buffet so just ask for whatever omelet you fancy.

One year an Aussie wanted lamb chops every morning so he got them. Champagne for a Bucks Fizz or a Mimosa depending on which side of the pond you hale from.

[pontac]

On 7/12/2024 at 6:04 AM, Kristelle said:

it was fine for a full cutlery type of meal - but that was for one person,  I went to dining room as usual, would not have worked for 2 people

 

For one, yes. The OP said "One of the reasons we chose Scenic was the ability to get room service for breakfast, lunch and dinner" which implies two people. But maybe the OP has booked a more suitable (more expensive) room 🙂

[pontac]

1 hour ago, robertmartha said:

May seem like a silly question - breakfast. Assume standard buffet but is there also a limited menu to order things like Eggs Benedict or specialty omelet?

 

The buffet is extensive, including hot dishes such as two types of bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, baked beans, mushrooms, potatoes; there are also dishes on the breakfast menu that can be ordered

 

 

Eggs Benedict are on the menu. I don't know what a specialist omelette is but there is an egg chef on the buffet counter with pans and people were ordering omelettes with fillings to their taste. There were many possible fillings to choose from. 

 

[BlairsvilleCruiseGirl]

1 hour ago, pontac said:

 

For one, yes. The OP said "One of the reasons we chose Scenic was the ability to get room service for breakfast, lunch and dinner" which implies two people. But maybe the OP has booked a more suitable (more expensive) room 🙂

Confirm we booked a Royal (cat RR) so we would get all the perks, including full room service and laundry. 🙂 

[Kristelle]

4 hours ago, BlairsvilleCruiseGirl said:

Confirm we booked a Royal (cat RR) so we would get all the perks, including full room service and laundry. 🙂 

 

 

so full room service is available in ordinary cabins - the issue would just be space to set up a meal with cutlery etc.

 

Maybe people were having breakfast on their balconies, o n the little table and chairs out there.

 

Pretty sure laundry one bag per trip was included for everyone (but that might depend on lenght of cruise, ours was 2 weeks) and we had $50 obc so we did another one included in cost

[jimmymac613]

10 hours ago, robertmartha said:

May seem like a silly question - breakfast. Assume standard buffet but is there also a limited menu to order things like Eggs Benedict or specialty omelet? Just got off Emerald and thinking of bumping up to Scenic next year.. Emerald had the same buffet every day (same items) so got a bit boring after a few days - looking for a little variety.

 

thanks 

Emerald didn't even have someone making omelets?

[Canal archive]

Although Scenic and Emerald are sister companies they are or were when Emerald was born aimed at different markets. Scenic which for at least 12 years has been all inclusive with Butlers on each deck then Emerald a much younger offshoot aimed at a younger demographic not all inclusive and I could wrong here no butlers. Those aren’t the only differences Emerald has its cinema/swimming pool for instance. As far as I know all Scenic cabins have an allowance of at least a kilo of washing per cruise (I’m pretty sure this isn’t weighed 🤫 and Diamond deck passengers have two items of clothing pressed per day. You get what you pay for our first with Scenic was pre all inclusive so we treated ourselves in those days only Diamond deck got a butler, so the next year we thought ohhh save a few pennies go Sapphire deck don’t need a butler and the system had changed and we got a butler. We’ve always used ours some are absolutely excellent the bees knees some are shall we say somewhat lacking. I appreciate arriving back after a hard day’s sightseeing and being able to order a coffee/tea/snack/cocktail whatever to be delivered to my cabin whilst I change for the port talk, my pressed items awaiting me. Arrange with your butler for your morning coffee/tea to be delivered at whatever time you require. Don’t forget it’s your holiday you put a lot of time and effort into it (you paid for it!) enjoy got a question ask your butler or reception most of all enjoy.

Don't forget you can take off with a picnic just ask at reception don’t let them say ohhh no one’s ever done that! They have.

Edited July 14 by Canal archive

[robertmartha]

TY all - I think a Scenic river cruise is in our future.

While we loved our Emerald cruise - Scenic sounds like it will check all our boxes.

One more quick question - I know the restaurant is open seating but is dinner at a specific set time each evening or is it an open time frame ?

 

thanks all for your responses so far!

[Canal archive]

As far as I remember the restaurant opens at 7 after the port talk. Some rush (I don’t know why) there is plenty of seating round tables, long tables with split off two’s at the end. We’ve sat till late chatting with other cruisers and staff no problems. Well the only I suppose challenge was on the Douro on a Sunday - one of the waiting staff got struck down with an horrendous tooth ache we are almost to the return point and the only emergency dentist is in Porto. This meant the loss of staff members but

 

altogether an excellent meal accompanied with excellent wine, the table clearing suffered but not the service.oh table of six Aussies and Brits.

Edited July 14 by Canal archive

[BobMartha]

Canal - wow - thats some photo! We travel with two other couples (we have been friends since college and are the only friends we would travel with - all retired except me 😔) and two weeks ago on our Emerald sailing we were always the last table to leave the dining room each night and your photo looks very familiar 😂.  I do have to say the service on Emerald was outstanding - EVERY staff member we interacted with was friendly and accommodating - could not do enough for you and we did not even have any special requests! I was the only one in our group with a food allergy (celiac) and the dining room staff went above and beyond to ensure I had no issues.

One night I ordered a Caesar salad and it came w/ croutons on it (which I would have just removed - no problem) - the dining room manager swooped in (no idea how he even saw them!) and apologized profusely the rest of the evening. I guess some people get crazy and make the wait staffs job miserable - life is way to short to be like that - at least that's my attitude.