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Uniworld likes to challenge the norm when it comes to river cruising. Sophie Griffiths and her dad embark on River Beatrice to discover some of the line’s highlights
The bar is abnormally silent. Denisa throws her arms in the air and instructs me to focus on my breathing, but I’m distracted by the changing vista depicted by the windows that surround us – the lilac slivers of dawn which stretch and slowly spread across the sky and the tips of the spires that signal our next port of call.
The ship’s engine throbs gently beneath me, and I try to refocus and ignore the delicious smells of breakfast wafting up from the kitchen below, as I stretch into downward facing dog.
For some reason the other guests did not fancy meeting in the lounge for a 7am yoga session, so I am lucky enough to be enjoying a private tutorial with our onboard masseuse and wellbeing coach Denisa, in a training session that would cost a considerable amount back home in London. Onboard Uniworld though, it is all just part of the service.
I am sailing with my dad on the 156-passenger River Beatrice, traversing the waters of the Danube and the towns that line its shores.
My morning yoga session is just one of the additional onboard activities offered as part of the line’s “Wellness on the Water” programme, which varies according to the season. In the summer, Denisa leads guests on early morning bike rides around ports, heads out on hiking tours, offers kayaking and performs yoga outside on the top deck.
In winter, she hosts “Nordic walks” and yoga in the lounge area. Which is why I am currently stretched out in the bar, trying to locate my inner chi.
Yoga is unlikely to be the first activity that springs to mind when most people consider a river cruise. But as the market’s age demographic continues to fall, so lines continue to innovate and offer a wider range of activities.
In 2015, Uniworld went even further and became the first river cruise line in the UK to actively encourage children onboard, with the launch of Generations – its kids’ programme, which is offered on 18 sailings this year across several of its ships, including River Beatrice, River Empress, River Ambassador, River Countess, River Queen and the line’s new SS Joie de Vivre, which launches in March.
To cater for its new younger audience, on the relevant sailings Beatrice’s Captain’s Lounge is transformed from a quiet space with board games, computers and library into a children’s games room, complete with a PlayStation.
Beatrice’s hotel manager Sabine Sprau, who has been with the line for four years, reveals that each of the sailings are arranged differently according to the ages and numbers of children onboard. “We have a dedicated children’s host onboard and they talk to the parents.
At dinnertime sometimes the children have their own table, and sometimes they sit with their parents. The excursions are also varied – sometimes they do them with their parents, and sometimes the children’s host runs a separate programme for them.”
Indeed, River Beatrice’s cruise manager Mirela Varga was so impressed with the ship’s offering for children that she brought her own seven-year-old daughter onboard this summer. “She loved just watching the changing scenery,” she smiles. “She said she felt totally relaxed and spoilt – she mainly loved all the attention from the rest of the staff and butlers,” Varga laughs.
Even among the adult guests the average age has been falling. “In the last five years, we’ve really seen it come down,” Sprau says. “The entire river market just seems to be booming. We have a really good mixture of people now, from around their mid-40s upwards, and we get younger couples too – we’ve even had some on their honeymoons.
Indeed, on our sailing I notice a few passengers around my age, 31; some travelling with a parent as I am, but one or two in a couple or travelling solo.
Sprau admits Uniworld’s more relaxed approach – both in its dress codes as well as the way it operates its voyages – may have helped in attracting a younger demographic. “We really do consider ourselves to be a floating hotel – we want our guests to feel totally at home.
“Our dress code is much more informal [than other lines], though we do have two formal nights, the welcome dinner and gala dinner.
And we don’t have any public announcements – we changed that around four years ago,” she says, before admitting that it was this move in particular that proved most controversial among the staff.
“We were really against it at first – we thought, how will guests know what to do, and where to meet,” she laughs. “We love it now though – guests don’t like being ‘babied’. We hear other ships doing their announcements now when we pull alongside them, and they make us smile.”
The ships might have an informal atmosphere, but the service, rich furnishings and overall decor are worthy of a six-star hotel. Our suite is incredibly spacious for a river ship, and even the smaller staterooms seem roomy.
Meanwhile the velvet ochre walls, adorned with sketchings by Matisse that line the corridor outside our room, feel more befitting of a chateau than a ship. As one of the older ships in the fleet however, River Beatrice is more understated than the line’s newer vessels, and while its furnishings are still plush, its decor is more about comfort than opulence.
Evening meals comprise a range of three-course – sometimes six-course – a la carte dinners, and even when a buffet is offered instead, it contains a wide range of options – all equally delicious, and all local.
A common complaint of those reluctant to try cruising – river or ocean – is a fear of missing out on the opportunity to sample local flavours. With Uniworld, we could only taste local specialities: “Porkolt” (Hungarian beef goulash) in Budapest; “Nussdorfer” platter (cured ham and cheese) in Bratislava; and Wiener Schnitzel (breaded veal escalope) in Vienna.
It is the ship’s staff who really make our cruise though. When we first board Beatrice, we are welcomed by name, and each member of the crew takes pains to remember and greet us personally with a smile every time we pass.
On our first night, dad unintentionally puts our butler Boris to the test, spilling bright orange paprika sauce down his shirt. After leaving it in the laundry bag, it is whisked away and returned a day later, like new – all for no extra cost. Boris later admits to me that the stain was so deep he had to wash it twice, and was only apologetic that it couldn’t be done more quickly.
Another day, as the guests huddle together up on deck, braving the cold to witness Beatrice navigating a complicated lock, the crew appear with mugs of mulled wine and hot chocolate.
These moments run through my head as I sit cross-legged facing Denisa. While I might be younger than the average guest I confess to her that I am well and truly converted. Returning to my cabin, my zen fully restored, I catch my dad packing the Uniworld brochure into his suitcase. “Well,” he grins, “I thought I better bring your mother next time.”
Book it: A 10-day Highlights of Eastern Europe cruise onboard River Beatrice starts from £3,039pp based on two sharing a stateroom and including transfers.
