A Cruise Line Won’t Tell You They’re Awful.
I Might.
Let's get something straight.
A cruise line isn't going to tell you not to book with them because they're shit, I mean, why would they? They're trying to sell you a cruise, and a cheap booking website isn't necessarily going to tell you either.
To them, it's about the price, the availability, the commission and getting the booking over the line, but I look at it differently. I’m not about how many bookings I can get over the line, rushing them through to make a quota on a call centre wall.
I've been in the travel industry for over 30 years, including 18 years specialising in cruises, and I've seen some absolutely bloody brilliant cruises, but I've also seen some that I'd happily never put a client on, or one i’d never go on myself quite frankly.
I have opinions - And I use them, even if that means losing a potential booking, because I don't sell something just because I can.
If I wouldn't book it myself, recommend it to a friend, or be comfortable putting my own money into it, why the hell would I recommend it to you?
One of the questions I ask myself when I'm researching a holiday is: “If it was my money, what would I do?”
And sometimes the answer is: “I'd book it.”
Sometimes it's: “I'd look at another option.”
And sometimes it's: “Absolutely not.”
I just don’t want something awful to come back on me and my business.
You don't just pay for the cruise
There's a phrase we all know, which is “You get what you pay for,'“ and I'm not talking about booking the most expensive cruise, or the biggest suite on the ship.I'm not saying that the £10,000 cruise is automatically better than the £5,000 one, because that's far too simplistic.
What I'm talking about is - what happens when things don't go according to plan, because when everything goes perfectly, it's very easy to think every cruise line is brilliant, but we all know that Mother Nature can be a bitch sometimes!
What happens when your ship can't get where it's supposed to go?
What happens when an itinerary has to change?
And, perhaps most importantly...What happens when the cruise you've paid for isn't actually the cruise you're going to get?
That's when you really find out what you're paying for.
2026 gave us a pretty good example
This summer, European rivers gave the cruise industry one hell of a headache.
Extreme heat and prolonged dry weather caused exceptionally low water levels on rivers including the Danube and Rhine, resulting in itinerary changes, ship swaps, missed ports and, in some cases, sections of journeys being replaced by road transport.
And before anyone starts blaming the cruise lines for the lack of water...NO, it’s not that.
It's about what they did, or didn't’t do, when the problem happened.
Some cruise lines stepped up
Avalon, for example, used a combination of operational planning, swapping & rerouting ships to minimise disruption.
AmaWaterways also has contingency plans for low and high water, including alternative docking locations, modified excursions and ship swaps.
And Riviera Travel took an interesting approach this summer - Rather than simply continuing to sell certain Rhine and Danube cruises regardless of the conditions, Riviera temporarily paused sales on affected itineraries because it didn't believe it could deliver the experience it promised.
Now, that's something I pay attention to, because that's a cruise company effectively saying: “Hang on. We don't think we can deliver what we're selling, so we're going to stop selling it until we can.”
I love that attitude.
AMA Waterway’s AMA Dolce
And then there was TUI
I'm going to be careful here because there's an important distinction - The low water wasn't TUI's fault, but the way some customers say they were treated certainly caused a lot of anger.
In August, passengers on TUI river cruises reported major itinerary changes because of the low Danube. Some described spending huge amounts of time travelling by coach instead of cruising, with some passengers saying they weren't offered refunds when the holiday they had booked changed substantially.
One UK couple told the BBC they had paid £3,700 for their cruise and were offered no refund despite the revised itinerary involving multiple coach journeys. Another passenger described spending 14–15 hours of the holiday on coaches.
And this is the bit that really matters to me, as the passengers weren't necessarily angry because the river was too low, but because of how the situation was handled.
TUI has said that extreme heat caused the low water levels, that it reviewed sailings individually and that affected customers were sent revised itineraries before travelling. It also said it arranged coach transfers, hotel stays and adjusted travel arrangements where ships could not sail sections of the river.
TUI's own customer information also makes clear that low or high water can result in changes to berths, shore experiences and sections of an itinerary being operated by coach.
So, legally and contractually, there may be very good reasons why the company took the position it did, but that's not really the point I'm making. The point is this: If I'm recommending a river cruise to you, I need to care about what happens when the brochure itinerary meets real life.
If you have spent thousands of pounds on a relaxing week cruising the Danube and instead find yourself sitting on a coach for hours, that's a pretty significant difference in experience.
And not only that!
Being offered alternative hotels that fall below the standard you expected, or spending hours travelling by coach instead of cruising, is one thing. Unfortunately, when companies have to make last-minute arrangements for large numbers of passengers, the alternatives aren't always going to match the standard of the holiday originally booked. It's not ideal, but sometimes these things happen.
However, there's a difference between an unavoidable disruption and failing to address problems that are within your control.
Reports from passengers indicated that some TUI river cruise ships were operating with broken air conditioning, despite the problems having been reported, during the stifling heat of summer. There were also reports of broken toilets.
In my opinion, that's simply not acceptable.
Low water levels are beyond a cruise line's control. The condition of the facilities on board, and how reported maintenance issues are dealt with, are another matter entirely.
If a ship couldn't provide a reasonable standard of comfort and functioning facilities in those conditions, I believe passengers should have been moved to alternative ships wherever possible. And where the holiday delivered fell significantly short of what had been booked, I believe appropriate compensation should have been offered, whether that meant a refund, a partial refund or, at the very least, a future cruise credit.
Because there's a difference between a holiday being disrupted by circumstances beyond anyone's control and passengers being expected to accept substandard conditions without a meaningful solution.
Amadeus’ Provence
And this is exactly why I don't work with every cruise line, although I could probably sell you a lot more cruise lines than I actually do, I'm not prepared to put my name behind something I don't believe in.
When you book through me, I don't want to simply find you the cheapest price and send you a booking confirmation.
I want to know:
Is this the right ship for you?
Is the itinerary actually what you're looking for?
Does the cruise line suit you?
What is included?
What isn't?
What happens if something goes wrong?
How does the cruise line deal with disruption?
And, most importantly...Would I book it if it was my money?
Because when I recommend something, my reputation goes with it.
That's something cheap booking websites don't have to worry about in quite the same way. You might book a cruise online because it's £200 cheaper, but if something goes wrong six months later, who's actually going to sit down with you, go through what has happened and help you work out what to do next?
That's where I believe a specialist like me, is worth their weight in gold.
Uniworld’s Bon Voyage
I'm not here to sell you every cruise
This is also why you won't find me recommending every cruise line under the sun. There are cruise lines I know people absolutely love, and there are cruise lines that offer fantastic value. There are cruise lines that might be perfect for one person and completely wrong for another, and there are some that simply don't fit the type of experience I want to put my name behind.
That's okay - I'm not trying to be everything to everyone, I'd rather know the cruise lines I recommend really bloody well.
I've been doing this for over 30 years, spending nearly two decades specialising in cruises.
I've been on ships, seen how different cruise lines operate, listened to passengers, listened to my clients returning from their cruises, and I've dealt with the good, the bad and the downright frustrating.
I've formed opinions along the way - Quite a lot of them, actually, and I'm not going to stop using them just because someone might decide to book elsewhere. I really would rather lose a booking than sell you something I don't believe in.
Emerald’s Liberte
So, what are you actually paying for?
When you're comparing cruise prices, it's very easy to look at the number at the bottom:
£3,999.
£4,499.
£8,299.
And assume the cheapest one wins. But I would ask: “What happens when things go wrong?” Because that's when the difference between cruise lines can become very obvious.
And it's also when the difference between booking with a specialist and booking purely on price can become very obvious.
I can’t make promises that Mother Nature can’t keep, but I can tell you what I know, question things, challenge a recommendation, tell you when I think there's a better option, and, occasionally, I can look at something and say: “If it was my money... I'd give that one a bloody wide berth.”
I think that's exactly what you should expect from someone you trust with your holiday, I know I would expect that if it were mine.
Scenic’s Diamond
If you’re thinking of booking a river cruise, maybe you've got a bucket-list destination in mind, or you've seen a cruise online and want a second opinion. Or perhaps you're simply wondering whether a river cruise, an expedition voyage or a luxury ocean cruise would suit you best.
Whatever stage you're at, let's have a conversation, and I'll help you explore the options, explain the differences and give you my honest opinion. And if I don't think something is right for you, I'll tell you.
No obligation to book. Just an honest conversation to help you make a better-informed decision.
But if you want someone to tell you every cruise line is wonderful, I'm probably not your woman!
I’ve just been reading an article in online travel paper - ‘Travel Gossip’, and have highlighted a couple of statements I think are positive for future river cruises, with 21 new ships due to enter service across the world’s rivers, across destinations including the Rhine, Danube, Douro, Seine, Mekong, Amazon and North America.
CLIA UK and Ireland Managing Director Andy Harmer said: “River cruise continues to offer an enormous amount of choice, and the investment we’re seeing for 2027 demonstrates the incredible breadth of the sector.”
“New ships are being introduced across traditional European rivers, as well as eye-catching, long-haul destinations including Asia, South America and North America.”
AmaWaterways Managing Director Jamie Loizou said: “These events are really unusual. This is unprecedented, but these unusual times are happening more and more frequently. So we’re going from more of a reactive approach to becoming more proactive.”
He said operators were planning ship deployments two or three years before departures, with sister ships positioned at either end of routes to allow passengers to transfer if a stretch of river became difficult to navigate.
APT Travel Group Managing Director Paul Melinis added that ship swaps work ‘seamlessly’ when the vessels were alike, allowing passengers to retain the same cabin arrangements and continue with their excursions.
