While we thoroughly enjoyed our recent "Tulip Time" cruise, our first one with you last year on the Danube ranked higher for the following reasons. Perhaps due to the nature of this year's cruise (Tulip Time), it appealed to a much older audience. Whereas last year we were probably of average age, this year we felt like the youngsters on board. Part of that was attributed to the large number of passengers that were part of various "garden clubs"--a likely older demographic. However, our biggest disappointment was the fact that there were only a few "Active Walker" activities and when we did go on them one had 27 participants; the other had 35! There is NO WAY that you can do an active walker group with this many people. Last year on our Danube cruise we were spoiled by the fact that they were consistently groups of less than 10--often less than 6! That became our expectation for this cruise and we found it unwieldy to have so many people in a group--more reminiscent of ocean cruising where bus loads head out on their tours together.
Having said that, I will say that the food, service and itinerary was excellent. Were it not for the disappointment with the ratio of guides to passengers on the excursions, we likely would have rated it higher.