DANUBE CRUISE

Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania

Teresa and Rick Williams
June 7 - 21, 2009
By: terwms@swbell.net

Our big vacation this year was to Eastern Europe – a slam-dunk trip through six countries in ten days followed by a three-day land extension in Romania. This was our fourth time to travel with SmarTours. They call it the Danube Discovery Cruise. After flying from JFK to Munich then Vienna, our guide Dusan (pronounced Doo-shawn) met us at the airport. There were only 18 Americans on the trip, the lowest number they have ever had.

We boarded Der Kleine Prinz riverboat to begin the cruise on the Danube. There were also 52 Norwegians on board who booked the trip through a European company.

 We unpacked and gathered in the bar for an orientation meeting with Dusan. Even though he was born in Serbia, his English is almost perfect due to his many years living in the U.S. After the meeting, we were on our own for lunch. Rick and I walked to a nearby grocery store to buy water and sandwiches and ate on a park bench near the dock.

We had the lowest-priced cabin on the boat in the 1^st level but all the rooms were the same size and had the same size picture windows. Everyone said the cabins were much bigger than most riverboats because the boat can accommodate handicapped passengers.

The first level consisted of cabins, the reception desk and storage. There was even an elevator.

The second level had more cabins, the bar (in photo) where we had nightly entertainment, and the dining room.

Most meals were covered in the price of the trip and were served on the boat. The food was not gourmet but generally good and plentiful. Breakfast was a buffet. Lunch was a salad buffet followed by an entrée and fruit or dessert. For dinner, we had an appetizer, soup, one of two entrée choices, and dessert. They made excellent use of leftovers in a variety of ways so that little food was wasted.  Some of their translated descriptions on the menus were perplexing.  For the captain's dinner at the end of the trip, we saw dessert on the menu described as "Baked Alaska Omelette."  It was normal baked alaska so I'm not sure how they determined that it needed to be called an omelette.

The third level was the helm and deck. A German owns the boat and a Danish company leases it for the cruises. They hire only local people. The 24-member crew was mostly Romanian and Serbian, and the service could not have been better.

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