River Cruise Dinners on 3 Riverships
Hank Schrader, USMA '71, Europe Destination & Europe River Cruise Expert
Anne Schrader, Certified Travel Counselor & Certified Luxury Cruise Specialist
This is a report of our experiences having lunch on 3 different riverships during the ASTA (American Society of Travel Agents) River Cruise Expo in Budapest in March of 2023.
This is our 24th Europe River Cruise. We have just returned back from the Danube and it is wonderful as always. River cruising just never gets old, each day and season is different.
We had a rare opportunity to report on dinners from 3 different lines—AmaWaterways, Riverside and Scenic Cruises.
So, let’s explore together and learn about these meals on 3 different river cruise lines.
Overview
The design of the River Cruise Expo was to visit the ships to see their staterooms and on-board facilities, and to have a chance to eat either lunch or dinner on the different line that participated in the event. We got to eat lunch on AmaWaterways, Avalon Waterways, and Viking River Cruises. We got the chance to savor the cuisine offered for dinner on AmaWaterways, Riverside Cruises and Scenic Cruises.
To try to be as fair as possible, we decided only meals served during the ASTA River Cruise Expo could be compared and when possible, select an entre that was the same. Since almost everyone in the industry offers a steak, we used that as a good comparison point. Even though we sailed on the AmaMagna, after the Expo, we felt the AmaMagna had a little of an unfair advantage with its 4 restaurants, so the Expo meal we chose was on the AmaVerde.
I just couldn’t resist a couple of teaser pictures about our sailing on the AmaMagna and how lovely Anne looks in her drindl—the traditional dress worn in the German-speaking areras of the Alps. Enjoy!
Here is our report about these culinary experiences. We will first show you the exact menu we were provided and then pictures and descriptions of each dish served to us.
AmaWaterways
Since we have sailed so many times on Ama, it would be easy to be a little biased, but I think the typical offerings will provide you with a clear picture why almost every serious travel writer and industry experts rate the food on AmaWaterways as the best.
Even the best laid plans sometimes go awry—I forgot to take a picture of the menu.
2 excellent wines for us to choose for our meal
Anne’s Caesars Salad
Beef Capriccio—excellent!
An excellent corn soup—AmaWaterways just seems to have the best soups on the river consistantly.
A stuffed chicken breast main course—I liked it very much!
Anne’s steak—the winner of the 3 we tried on each ship.
A serving of fries—most lines use these type of baskets to serve their fries.
My ice cream sundae
Riverside
We had dinner on the Riverside Mozart.
According to an interview I read in Travel Weekly, Gregor Gerlach, the co-owner of Riverside Luxury Cruises, said “Food is the most important thing for us…Riverside aims to provide the best cuisine and wine cellar on the water and will place an emphasis on freshness and quailty of all ingredients onboard.”
While this was a good meal, they certainly have some work to do—some agents said their food was cold and service slow. To be fair, they are just restarting, so I expect things to improve.
Anne ready for our meal on the Riverside Mozart
page one of the menu
Page 2 of the menu
Our 2 wines selected for our dinner
Donny was our waiter—he had sailed previously with Crystal who has been very successful bring back their ols crew.
The shrimp coxktail was my favorite dish—it had a fresh shrimp paired with smaller shrimps and pineapple mixture,
i had a small pasta dish it was very good.
Anne’s Steak. It was vey tough and disappointing.
the cheese plate—very nice slection
My perfitiros
The cooper designed wine display for the meals
A protriat at the entrance of the dining room
Scenic Cruises
We ate on the Scenic Jasper and the quality of the meal was very similar to our experiences sailing on the Scenic Opal in 2015.
Scenic has consistently good food.
The menu for our meal
Page 2 of the menu
page 1 of the wine menu
page 2 of the wine menu
The 2 featured wines for our meal
Gruner Veltliner is an Austrian White Wine—it is excellent!
Forest Mushroom Essence—a puff pastry dish—very tasty
My chicken breast—it was good
Anne’s steak—very good
Dessert—chocolate fondant
Our Final Thoughts.
This was a fun and eye-opening experience. In our previous comparisons reports, we have voiced our opinions about the differences of the on-board food and our previous reporting is very, very accurate. We hope you enjoyed this report.
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ANNE has earned a degree from the University of Houston in Hotel and Restaurant Management. Serving as the President of Visit Dream Destinations, LLC, since 2016, she is uniquely experienced professional travel advisor with over 26 years’ experience in the travel industry. Among her numerous certifications, she is a Certified Travel Counselor (CTC) by the Travel Institute, considered the gold standard in travel agent certification and she is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC) by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), as well Luxury Cruise Specialist also from CLIA. Having traveled often to Europe since 1989, she has expanded on her certification as a Destination Specialist in Western Europe (DS) with extensive first-hand experience in luxury vacations. She holds numerous other specialty designations from individual vendors. An expert photographer, she delights in capturing the true essence of destinations to share with all.
HANK is a certified Western European Destination Specialist (DS) who has been traveling to Europe for 50 years. He is also an Accredited Cruise Counselor (ACC), conferred by the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA). This recognized expert in cruise and leisure travel is a retired Army Officer, and taught World Geography for 8 years. He is a `71 graduate of West Point and has earned 2 master’s degrees. His other Certifications:
AmaWaterways River Cruise Specialist
Viking River Cruise Specialist
Scenic River Cruise Specialist
Emerald Waterways Specialist
Avalon Waterways Specialist
Brit Agent
