The Ms Bellejour is a comfortable ship with excellent food and a cheerful crew. We were the only Brits aboard but all announcements were in English. We were advised before travelling that the lower standard cabins would be partially below the waterline for some of the journey due to low bridges. In fact this was the case most of the time and was a bit disconcerting at first with water half way up the windows!

The title of this trip is a bit misleading as the first half of the holiday was on the River Main and a canal. Interesting scenery and towns en route though and we passed through nearly 60 locks on the way

Unfortunately when we reached the Danube low water prevented us from sailing any further. The cruise company did arrange alternative sightseeing by coach for the last 4 days, but I feel we missed the best scenery and towns. We had a 5 hour coach journey to Vienna on the penultimate day and stayed in a hotel overnight. Originally we should have had all day in Vienna but ended up with  just a short city tour. I think the company did their best in the circumstances but it was still disappointing.

I did enjoy the holiday with a great group of people, but a couple of lessons learnt would be to upgrade to a cabin on a higher deck if possible and do more research on the high/ low water level impact before booking.

P.s. if any of my fellow travelers read this, the Manchester flight home was cancelled . Hilary and I flew Vienna- Dusseldorf--Heathrow-Manchester arriving 10 hours late and our suitcases caught up with us on Thursday. Quite an adventure!

Heather