River Boat - Latest Developments

River Cruising gets Better and Better:

Scenic Sapphire – Courtesy Scenic River Cruise

In his recent update on riverboats, Tony’s assessment was that Scenic Tours had taken the lead over other river cruise operators with regard to the size and features of their new riverboat staterooms.

Until recent times, a stateroom with a French balcony was the best you could get as far as a balcony was concerned. Scenic Tours now offer 3.85 metre long outside balconies on four of their vessels: the Scenic Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby, and Diamond, while maintaining the size of their staterooms.

What’s New

Scenic Tours call their new river boats “Space-Ships”. As the width of the river boats is limited due to the locks, what Scenic Tours have done is increase the length of their vessels from the average of around 110 metres to 135 metres. So, the room space taken up by the external balconies is compensated by longer staterooms. More than 80% of cabins in their new river boats feature exclusive private balconies, so you can sit outside and literally “watch Europe glide by”. As Tony indicated, this is a definite plus and other operators will have to match this in their new river boats.

Scenic’s Larger Cabins

Not only are Scenic Tours’ cabins larger, the company say that their public areas are on average larger than other river cruisers. And there’s more – you now have a choice of having your meals at two restaurants.

Scenic Emerald and Scenic Sapphire were launched in July 2008. In February and March 2009 Scenic Diamond and Scenic Ruby were delivered to Scenic Tours who now have a fleet of four luxurious “Space-Ships” cruising the waterways of Europe.

They say that every aspect of the ships from the interiors to the service has been created to provide clients with the best river cruising experience possible. So, if you’re planning a river cruise, you may like to check out these new river boats.

See our list of riverboats that operators use.