Countries You Have Visited

Just returned from a Viking River Cruise on the Danube. We visited Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, and Passau (Ger.) That means I can add Hungary and Slovakia to my list. I can recommend Viking if you're old like me and don't want to have to figure out what to do each day.

 

I will tag team on this to ask about what there is to do on the boat, and how they handle any excursions at the stops (do they have many, do they vary in type and level of pace and strenuousness). My wife and I have done 11 ocean-type cruises (Caribbean, Med, Baltic, Bermuda, Alaska, New England/Canada, and now Japan), but haven't pulled the trigger on a river cruise.

 

Why I like Viking. Yes, I'm pretty sure you can tour for less money than Viking, although I've never really priced a different tour company except Odyssey (who I also recommend). With Viking, pretty much everything is taken care of. All you have to do is get to and from your home airport. They book your flights to (and from) the cruise destination. On some tours the airfare is included. Once at the destination airport, you are met by a Viking rep who arranges transportation and your luggage to the ship or hotel. The hotel is almost always 5 stars. If the tour starts at a hotel first, they transport you to the ship. The shipboard accommodations are what you would expect for a top cruise line, tight but comfortable quarters. You can upgrade to a larger cabin or suite. The food is excellent, prepared by Viking chefs and features dishes native to the country of travel. However, there are always American alternatives on the menu at all meals, such as burger and fries. Breakfast is usually a buffet. The whole tour is orchestrated by a Viking tour director who you get to know pretty well. He or She coordinates land tours and evening activities which can be a diverse assortment of fun. There are also shipboard lectures related to the tour. Land guided tours are conducted by local guides. Some of the guided tours are included, but for some, purchase is required (a new development.) At tour's end you are transported to a gateway airport for flight home. Viking offers pre and post tour options if you so choose. The guests are mostly graying Americans.

Caveat: No children and no gambling.

I have taken 5 Viking tours, 4 river (Vietnam, China, Rhine and Danube) and 1 ocean (Cuba.) Another caveat: On this last tour (Danube), I booked my own business class transportation to and from, because Viking wanted 10K if I booked through them, I booked it for 6K. As a result, I had to do my own transfers even from the hotel to the boat which was only 6 blocks away. So there we were, my wife and I, pushing our roller baggage through the streets of Budapest down to the river. A minor inconvenience compared to the savings, but thought it was bush league of Viking not to take our bags when they were taking everyone else's.

Hope this answers everyone's questions.

 

That is amazingly bush league. My wife and I have done a bunch of Tauck (land) tours, and they always include airport transfers as part of the cost, whether you book flights through them or not (I never have, as I've found that their flight offers are not competitive at all). And of course all hotel transfers are included as well, including ones to a train station or airport. On the other hand, I've always had to handle airport/hotel transfers myself on cruises, so maybe I'm being a little unfair, although for money Celebrity will handle that too.

The biggest worry my wife has about river cruises is that they are like land tours in that the itinerary is pretty much set, with little opportunity to do other things officially organized by the company. Is that the case with Viking? Friends who have done a river cruise (not Viking) told us that there were typically three options at each stop, corresponding to mild, moderate, and strenuous pace. Was that your experience?

 

My experiences with check-in at Celebrity have been very good. The Fort Lauderdale cruise terminal is very efficient, and I've never had to wait a long time to check in (they do it by time slot, so it's very well controlled). And Yokohama was even more efficient than Fort Lauderdale! The others I've done, like Civitivecchia (Rome) and Barcelona were years ago (pre-Covid), so I wouldn't want to say anything definitive about them now.

Once you're on the ship, you can expect crowds at the buffet for breakfast and lunch, but otherwise we are amazed at how uncrowded the ships seem to be. If you're going to ports where the ship docks, getting on and off is very fast; if it's a tender port, you'll definitely have to wait on lines for the boats to be available.

On hot days at sea, getting a chair by the pool in the morning can be a challenge, but it opens up in the afternoon. On port days, it's easy to get a lounge chair in the sun (wife) or shade (me).

 

Yes, the itinerary with Viking is pretty much set as well, which is one reason I like them. When I tour with them, it's always to a place I've never been before. I don't need or want to see these places in depth. I'm happy to see the highlights, which Viking does very well, and say yup been there. For example, we spent one day in Vienna. In the morning was a tour that took us through the main part of the city. In the afternoon we were encouraged to tour on our own. Vienna is like most major cities, there is so much to see, you can't see 1/10 of it in a day. However, if ever I decide to return to Vienna, I don't need a Viking tour to take me, I'll go on my own now that I've gotten a taste of it. The land excursions are programmed for everyone, no variations. I have neuropathy and was worried about the pace of the guided tours, however, I was able to do all the tours, provided I found a place to sit when the tour made a stop. Fortunately, there are lots of benches in Europe. Nevertheless, the tour itinerary, available on their website, gives a guide to how strenuous the guided tours are.

 

I admire your desire to travel.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness." ---- Mark Twain

 

We're heading to Machu Picchu in October.