I Cruised in a Diamond Deck Suite onboard a River Cruise Ship: Let me Show You Around!

I took a 7-night river cruise with Riviera Travel that travelled along both the Rhine and Moselle rivers. I’ve taken lots of ocean cruises over the last few years, but this was my first experience of cruising on a river. In this post, I’m going to show you around my cabin that I cruised in: a Diamond Deck Suite onboard MS Emily Bronte.

If you enjoy this post today (I really hope that you do), then please consider supporting my journey by checking out my YouTube channel, which you can find by clicking here, or by searching ‘Fraser at Sea’ on YouTube. Over there, I document my ocean and river cruises, so hopefully there will be something that you’ll find interesting!

I was invited onto this cruise to sample the product being offered by Riviera Travel, but it’s important to note that everything that you’re going to read here is my own opinion. Riviera Travel have had no editorial input to this post, or any of the content that I have created from this trip.

Before we start talking about my cabin, let me tell you a bit about the ship itself.

I took a river cruise onboard MS Emily Bronte, one of the 5-star river ships operated by Riviera Travel.

MS Emily Bronte was built in 2017, and is MUCH smaller than any of the ships that I’ve previously cruised on. She has a total guest capacity of just 169 passengers accommodated across 88 cabins, and a crew count of just 44. Onboard, you’ll find a number of dining options, including a Main Dining Room and a Bistro that overlooks the back of the ship. There’s also a large guest lounge, a gym, a wellness centre and much more - I’ll show you around more of the ship in another post.

Let’s move on to look at my suite for this cruise.

My Suite was known as a ‘Diamond Deck Suite’, meaning that it was a standard suite on what’s knows as the ‘Diamond Deck’. As someone who had never cruised on the rivers before, I wasn’t totally sure of what this meant before embarking the ship.

Most river ships will operate the same way as MS Emily Bronte, with 3 interior decks plus a sun deck on top. Those three interior decks each have their own name, with the upper deck in the example of this ship being named the ‘Diamond Deck’.

You’ll find 27 of the suite I stayed in on the Diamond deck on this ship, so this room type makes up the majority that you’ll find on this upper level. These suites are all identical, so this review can be applied to any Diamond Deck suite onboard this ship.

Welcome to my suite!

Here’s my ‘home from home’ for this cruise - look at that glass!

As soon as I walked into this room, me eyes were drawn to the far side - that window! I’ll show you what that looks like when it’s ‘open’ in a second, but look at how much natural daylight floods the room even with the curtains closed. To confirm, there’s also a thick set of blackout curtains to cover the window with in the evening, but these privacy curtains still allowed so much light to pass through into the room.

The design of this cabin was incredibly neutral. With so many tones of cream and beige all around the room (and even on the bed), your eyes were constantly drawn to the views outside the window rather than being distracted by the interiors of the room. This is something that, throughout the cruise, I really appreciated. The scenery that we cruised past was absolutely incredible, and I’d be surprised if this wasn’t a key consideration when choosing the colour palettes for these rooms.

Here’s what the room looked like with the curtains, and rolling glass doors, open. Directly outside the doors, you find a glass barrier, essentially acting as a Juliet balcony - this was such an incredible luxury for me to experience, especially when I often travel on cruise ships in cabins with no window…!

With the curtains and doors open, you immediately blend the ‘indoors’ with the ‘outdoors’ - a fantastic space!

From a lighting point of view, you can probably tell that this was a really well lit room. There were LED spot lights on the roof of the suite, a large feature light on the far wall, individual reading lights on either side of the bed, a large LED strip that ran along the top of the headboard, and then others on the other side of the room.

When it comes to bedding, the bed was set up as a large double bed, with the two single beds pushed together. The bedding was for two single beds, even with this formation. If you do book this room but would like to switch to a double 2-person duvet, that’s absolutely not an issue - just speak to the onboard team once you arrive, and they’ll be able to resolve for you.

Let’s take a look at the other side of the suite now.

My suite on MS Emily Bronte was bright and luxurious, with everything that you’d expect to find in a suite on a river ship.

Over here, you’ve got storage in two wardrobes, separated by a desk with further storage directly underneath. Above the desk, you’ll find a flat screen television (this is directly at the bottom of the bed, so perfect for in-bed viewing!).

You’ll also find water bottles to use throughout the cruise (you can also take these home with you), allowing you to always have chilled water when out on tours. These will be beside your digital headsets, which you’ll wear if you partake in any of the excursions. In the example of my cruise, these headsets would be worn on all of the walking tours at each port of call.

You should expect to find both UK and EU plug sockets in your cabin, so always pack a travel adaptor to be on the safe side.

On the right side of the room in the above photo, you’ll find a drinks station. Here, you’ve got some glassware, a coffee machine, a kettle and various teas and coffees. There’s also a mini fridge in the small cupboard on the bottom-right, and that comes with a complimentary bottle of champagne on arrival. Note: not all suites onboard a Riviera Travel ship come with a bottle of fizz - this one does, due to its’ position on the Diamond Deck.

In this suite, you have access to both a kettle and a coffee machine!

Instant coffee and tea can be found in the drawer underneath the coffee machine.

In the drawer by the coffee machine, you’ll find Twinings English Breakfast tea bags, both caffeinated and decaffeinated Nespresso coffee pods, UHT milk and sweetener. These supplies are refreshed daily, but if you need more prior to them being refilled during your daily room refresh, there was a coffee machine available 24-hours per day beside reception. Personally, I’d recommend heading along there as you get fresh ‘bean to cup’ coffees from that machine, rather than using the pods in your room. That said, these pod coffees are really handy for having a brew when you wake up, before you build yourself up to head out around the ship.

Finally, let’s take a look in the bathroom.

Here’s the bathroom: one of my favourite parts of this suite.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked into this bathroom for the first time. The suite bedroom felt luxurious but very traditional to me - it didn’t feel like an overly modern room. The bathroom was a whole other story, feeling like it had been lifted straight out of a modern luxury hotel on land.

In here, there’s an extra-wide wash basin with a raised tap, two glasses for storage, a cupboard underneath the sink, a toilet and also a shower cubicle. The shower cubicle is equipped with a glass screen and glass door, so you don’t need to worry about any pesky shower curtains while you’re cruising in here.

The toiletries were a particularly nice touch - everything was NUXE branded, adding a further feeling of luxury to this space. The water pressure in here was fantastic for a ship, and the water from the tap in here was filtered drinking water - we were encouraged by the onboard crew to fill our water bottles in here each day of the cruise.

So, that’s a tour of my Diamond Deck Suite onboard MS Emily Bronte, the Riviera Travel river ship. Would I recommend this suite for a future cruise? In a word, yes. I was really surprised with how luxurious this room felt - far more so than I’d initially expected to find on a river ship.

If you would like to understand more about my first river cruise experience, then why not come and watch the below YouTube video? In this video, I offer you my full review of the experience. If you do head over to watch that one, please do leave a comment to say ‘hello’!