Travel can be work. Unless you take a tour. That can
be fun. Unless it’s mostly on a bus with people you don’t like. There’s always a cruise. But seasoned
travellers fear them because of the crowds, especially when the jockeying gets rough at the buffet table. For
years I recoiled at the thought.
Then my wife and I found a cruise we couldn’t resist: a river cruise through the middle of Europe on a
compact engineered marvel of a ship called the Scenic Diamond.
The longest river cruiser of its kind at 445 feet, the Scenic Diamond is owned by Scenic Tours, an Australian
company founded by travel mogul Glen Moroney. For years, Moroney sent busloads of Aussies onto chartered
boats as part of his tour packages. Unsatisfied with the level of service, he built four of his own, dubbed
“spaceships,” each one a $30-million boomer dreamboat that includes the first private balconies, butlers, a
range of meals, and complimentary wines and beer at lunch and dinner.
All winter, I kept seeing Scenic spaceships in big, full-page ads in the Globe and Mail. A little bell kept
ringing in my head.
“Wake up.
“You are at a stage of your life when you can experience this sleek, white, gleaming, rectangular, five-star
boutique hotel ship, all green glass and teak decks, with obviously happy guests waving from their private
balconies as they pass the ruined castles and legendary vineyards of the Rhine.
“You can be one of them.
“Fifteen days of fine food and guided tours. Old European towns and cities you wouldn’t normally get to
visit. Without unpacking your suitcase. Without suffering traffic or transfers or… people you don’t like.
“What are you waiting for?”
We bit.
It’s a shame, really. Because we were so thoroughly spoiled by this experience that the more common ways of
travelling now interest us much less. Most trips have flaws you bravely overlook. This one, for us, had none.
They have figured it out.
The service was blushingly attentive. From the moment we boarded in Amsterdam until we debarked in Budapest,
we were treated with such helpful cheerfulness we kept wondering when it would stop. When would they run out
of patience with 150 fairly affluent guests requesting everything from a bottle of Grey Goose at 7 a.m. (odd
but real) to a final shuffling dance after midnight when most of the other guests had long since gone to
sleep?
They never did. The staff, largely young Eastern Europeans, fetched cold beers as we sat atop the viewing
deck absorbing castles, refilled our wine glasses with an authentic smile at lunch and dinner, cleaned our
rooms and fluffed our duvets, greeted us as we re-boarded the ship after daily excursions, and did it all
with such sweetness that we missed them when we left.
Consummate luxury on this cruise is served warm and without pretense. Our room, on one of the two private
balcony decks, was concise but lacked nothing. The bed was large, the comforters comforting, the closets
generous. The bathroom was larger than one we had in a Paris hotel and replenished daily with complementary
high-end L’Occitane soaps, lotions and shampoo.
Eating on some all-inclusive tours can get monotonous. Not on this trip. Breakfast on the Diamond is as large
or modest as you wish, from heaping custom-made omelettes to fresh baked goods (created overnight by the
pastry chef) and lavish trays of fruit. Lunch is a buffet of salads, soups, pastas and meats, or entrées
ordered from the kitchen. Dinners were beyond our expectations: Rib-eye steaks with sauce béarnaise; poached
filet of German trout; mushroom-stuffed pork tenderloin; roast leg of lamb; thick bouillabaisse; grilled
garlic prawns. All with artful starters and inventive desserts.
Off the ship, we had smooth, gapless touring experiences. Consider our day in Vienna. After breakfast, we
were bussed to the Hapsburg’s monstrously excessive summer palace, Schloss Schonbrunn, and guided through the
ballrooms and bedrooms of the super-rich of the 18th century. Lunch was back onboard the Diamond,
followed by an informative walking tour of inner Vienna. My wife and I spent a lovely hour on our own at the
Belvedere Palace viewing paintings of Gustav Klimt, including his erotic masterpiece, “The Kiss.” A
four-course dinner was served on the ship before we were bussed to the jewel box-like Liechtenstein Palace
for a private performance that featured a 10-piece orchestral ensemble punctuated by thrilling ballet
dancers, a young man and woman, and two vigorous young operatic soloists. Moved almost to tears, we boarded
our buses on a balmy Viennese summer night and were greeted back at the ship with warm strudel and cream in
the lounge. As we tucked into bed, the Diamond gradually pulled from the dock and slipped into the river’s
current headed for Bratislava.
We fell in love with the rivers. On ocean cruises, you are normally high above the water. On the river, there
is a far greater intimacy. The dining room on the Diamond rides only a few feet above the water line so life
along the shore is always just outside the window. Cities come and go. Refineries, factories and shipyards
with stork-like cranes swing into view. Monuments to the military loom then fade. Vineyards rise on steep
slopes behind charming villages like combed green carpets. Vacationers in trailer parks stare back as you
churn past, mere metres from their lawn chairs.
The best view was from our private balcony. None of the other 100-plus ships in the European river cruising
world have private balconies. I can’t imagine the experience without one. We drank coffee on ours in the
morning and sipped wine there at night. At twilight in quiet rural areas, we watched the ship’s wake lap the
shore as we motored alongside darkening forests and marshlands, birds singing in joyous profusion, passing
people waving, strolling, cycling, picnicking, fishing, swimming, and occasionally embracing passionately,
oblivious to the glittering hotel gracefully floating past.
The overwhelming sentiment? Gratitude. For the privilege of sharing these rivers and canals from such an
elite vantage.
There were no surprises. I’ve travelled enough to be cynical about many aspects of the touristic experience,
like the one-fee-covers-all promise. On this trip, it did. Our only expense on board was beer or wine
consumed outside of meals, and the prices were fair. All guided tours were covered. Evening entertainment.
Cappuccinos any time. And the Scenic Tours no-tipping policy is real (most of us gave the staff a modest tip
anyway, via a sealed box in the lobby so anonymity is respected).
Naturally, leaving was painful. After checking out in Budapest, my wife and I spent an extra two days at a
small downtown hotel. We liked it well enough. But we were on our own. We had to take care of ourselves. We
had to find restaurants, negotiate cabs and stand in lines. It just wasn’t the same. And might not ever be
again. Pampering is addictive. Scenic Tours knows it. •
Photos courtesy of Scenic
Tours
