I am just back from a fantastic holiday in Italy, and loved my experience with Uniworld and the River Countess.
We started with the pre-cruise add-on in Milan, which was a great start to our vacation. The hotel was well located and comfortable, and the walking tour gave a nice introduction to the city. The transfer to Venice was excellent, with Verona being a hidden gem that ended up being our highlight of the trip - it is a beautiful town I would love to return to.
Arriving in Venice, embarkation was smooth. The River Countess is a good looking ship for its type, and it has all the advertised features. It doesn't have the range of on-board options we've experienced in sea-based cruises, but I wasn't expecting it to. Food was uniformly good, with some meals being excellent - I am fussy with food and was very pleased with what we received.
Mr first impression was "wow, it's small" but I was wrong. Sure, it's compact, but once I got used to it there was room for everything we needed. There were some minor signs of wear, but overall I was happy.
Before disembarking I peeked in to look at the category 1 and 2 rooms and am glad I didn't upgrade to them. Category 2 is the same size as category 3, but has the sliding window - nice to have, but not worth paying for (IMHO). The category 1 rooms were bigger, but didn't actually add a lot of usable living space. Again, I wouldn't wanted to have paid a big fee for them.