Blue Danube cruise on MS Thomas Hardy / Oscar Wilde

We went on the Thomas Hardy from Budapest to Linz and back to Vienna. The ship was lovely, well run, comfortable, and the staff were great. Food was excellent in both the main restaurant and the smaller Bistro. The scenery is more stunning on the Rhine than the Danube, but this is a good cruise if you want cities, which included Bratislava, Linz or Salzburg, and Vienna. For us, we would have liked a less pressured schedule to give more time for exploring independently and for relaxed cruising. Visiting cities meant it was more practical to use the walking and coach tours, and the guides on these were all interesting and amusing, but it did mean being ruled by the clock a lot. It was unfortunate that the low water levels meant more coach travel and a transfer to the MS Oscar Wilde on the last night, but all credit to everyone involved for dealing with the circumstances as well as possible. The only thing we would like to improve would be facilities for the disembark day as many passengers were booked on evening flights but had checked out of cabins at 9am. Overall we had a great holiday.