River Cruises - All Cruise Reviews

A memorable and fun experience…. The scenery is so varied from all rocks, to trees, to waterfalls, to the high plains wheat fields. Excursions are well planned….a few less because of the last year, but nevertheless fun and educational to go on.

The itinerary was very good and the Ardeche excursion well worth the price. There was almost no cruising on the cruise in part because of high water and in part because of the itinerary, ie, 1 day in 7 mostly at night The issue of docking next to other boats was infuriating. There was inadequate segregation of passengers by physical ability so included excursions were at the pace of the poorest conditioned people.

We visited/toured many interesting cities along the rivers showcasing wineries, museums and many locks and hydroelectric plants/dams. Some of the tours we visited are shown below: Richland, WA – We toured the REACH Museum. This museum discusses the Manhattan Project and the Hanford Research Facility. It also covers the local geographical features and history. A very interesting museum. We also toured the Sacajawea State Park on the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. This location also includes a little museum. A good place to learn about Sacajawea and her involvement in the Lewis and Clark “Corps of Discovery” in 1803 – 1806. The Dalles, OR – In The Dalles, we walked into town and toured the National Neon Sign Museum. Later in the day, we took The Dalles Loop, a bus ride around the town provided by the cruise line. Stevenson, WA – We took the Multnomah Falls trip in the morning and the Bonneville Dam Tour in the afternoon. The water falls are very impressive; great place to take photos. I went all the way to the top of the falls and the view was amazing!!! The Dam is a very significant hydroelectric plant along the Columbia River. It's a very interesting tour. It also included a trip to a fish hatchery showcasing some of the largest sturgeon around. Kalama, WA – In Kalama, we took the bus trip to Mount St. Helens. It's a 4 to 5 hour round trip and it was a phenomenal stop! Astoria, OR – The dock is next to a interesting museum and a Coast Guard Station. We took the trip to Cape Disappointment in the morning. This is the end of the road (river). The drive is fantastic and the visitor center very well done. It's larger than you think so plan on at least an hour in the area. In the afternoon, we toured Fort Clatsop, the last winter stopping place for Lewis and Clark. The fort is a full sized replica and the museum is very nice. American Cruise Lines provided bus tours to get to the excursions and always had water on board for everyone~ The fees for the museums and bus trips, in most cases, were included in the cruise cost. On board staff tips were also included In the cost of the cruise. Overall, we learned a lot about the Lewis and Clark expedition from the historian on board, the museums and local guides. You will learn about the extensive history and geography of Washington and Oregon states on this trip. The Harmony staff were wonderful … always ready to help. The cruise was great. You will see many beautiful areas, museums, churches and houses along the rivers and you will meet super nice people on the ship, both staff and cruisers. The other cruise guests were professionals so I found them to be very interesting! You will also walk a good amount! Bring good walking shoes. American really took good care of us; they were always there to make sure everything was taken care of during the trip and on the excursions. They really took the time and effort to show how much they cared. A great trip and the first of we hope, many, aboard American Cruise Lines!

This was a bucket list trip for a couple in our travel group so we went along with not very high expectations. The itinerary, planning and execution of this trip by Viking (amid some extenuating circumstances) plus the amazing sights and experiences were incredible. I will now encourage everyone to make this trip and enjoy the culture, temples, tombs, pyramids and history of Egypt. Viking has made sure that they include all the major sites, add on some bonus ones, cover all security issues, have extra staff to make each transfer seamless and have excellent onboard staff to oversee it all. The Ra is beautiful, comfortable and well designed. I'm hoping that the trip hasn't spoiled me for the Viking Homelands cruise in September and the Waterways of the Tsars trip scheduled next year!

Other than a little fog in Budapest, we had fabulous weather so the trip was perfect. Nuremberg Xmas market was way too crowded. Go early in the morning to avoid the crowds.

Great river boat cruise along the Danube, Canal, Main and Rhine Rivets.

This cruise was our 1st river cruise, and we are planning on doing another river cruise in the next 5 years . We have a 13 day ocean cruise coming up in 48 days . And even if we will have fun. This river cruise has spoiled me.

agent Sandra Delph was excellent to work with on planning cruise. Cruise Director, Gayle Walter was excellent & did a great job of working with you. Cruise needed to spend a day in Marseille. A nice town/

I would not go on this line the rooms were too hot and no comfort for what we were paying , no views with shades closed to try and cool off room , even the dining room was hot ,so hot dinner was uncomfortable and you sat there and sweated ,dinner was very small portions and food average . Buffet lunch was better and beer and wines were good . Enjoyed the ports ,take another line like Viking where you are comfortable in your room !

I was blown away by the service and food on this ship. The entire team was so friendly and helpful. They work well together and never missed a beat.

1. Although the ship was, generally, comfortable and well arranged, the main meeting/social area was too small for the number of passengers onboard and, consequently, chairs were laid out in rows, some hard backed, for any information seminars or social get-togethers, which was really inappropriate. 2. The evening entertainment was dreadful; apart from one evening when local musicians came onboard we were offered two poorly prepared quizzes. The other entertainment was the onboard keyboard players. Clearly Viking would rather you paid out for the expensive evening restaurant/opera/ballet trips. 3. The Viking Explorer Society cocktails event, ‘exclusive’ to previous Viking passengers, was made available to all passengers and, consequently, if there were cocktails and canapés we weren’t offered any. Instead a glass of sparkling wine was all we were given. On other Viking cruises we have also been offered the special Viking shot glass with Norwegian spirit. 4. Viking marketing really went to town on this trip with their use of descriptive adjectives. For ‘lush galleries’ at the Odessa Art Museum, substitute ‘shabby rooms’; for ‘beautifully manicured green spaces’ substitute ‘dusty and dry with few flowers’; for ‘long beaches’ substitute ‘no beaches’ as we were never taken to visit them; for ‘a city ideal for strolling’ substitute ‘uneven pavements with broken kerbs which were over-crowded’. 5. Three days in Odessa became four because marketing had made a mistake with the optional Opera visit which was a day late so all passengers had to stay on in Odessa which, quite frankly, had become quite tedious. 6. Generally the included tours were poorly chosen. The Odessa art museum visit was not to everyone’s taste, the Odessa catacombs excluded those with claustrophobia, the Dnipro historical museum visit caused many a yawn, the folk art centre was a long drive to see artists painting items and the emphasis was on Viking passengers buying said items, hence a visit to three different sales outlets! The home hosted visit involved another long drive to a villager’s cottage where about 30 passengers were crammed into a garden and offered wasp/fly covered sweet pastries and cordial. The dog chained up to its kennel in the heat of the day plus rabbits stewing in their metal hutches were other irritations; Viking could have chosen a more suitable host. Generally, tours involved long coach journeys and an emphasis on buying souvenirs. The Ackermann Fortress involved a 5 hour coach trip with only 45 minutes at the site - Awful ! 7. We had too long in Odessa where there was little to see but just one full day in Kiev and one included morning tour (but four optional afternoon excursions) where there were so many more possibilities but on our last afternoon we were shuttled into town and left to our own devices with no advice given on what to see and do. 8. If some of Viking’s optional tours had, instead, been included tours, we would certainly have felt more ‘enriched’ instead of believing we had been given the ‘cheap and cheerful’ tours. 9. Finally, Oliver Deak, Programme Director, was an unfortunate choice of a, supposedly, customer-focussed Viking representative. Apart from our initial extremely disappointing and concerning contact with him (outlined in our previous correspondence), he made little effort to enthuse his passengers (other than his overly-cheerful tannoy announcements) and customer contact was minimal. In our view this position is pivotal to an enjoyable cruise and we have had two previous Viking PDs who were exceptional and went that extra mile to make a passenger’s cruise memorable. ------------------------------------------------- Response to Viking's brush-off Thank you for your response to our recent communications which, based on the information provided by Viking’s website, cruise itinerary and documents, detail in our view the failure of Viking to provide a cruise that met our prior expectations. Sadly, we feel you have chosen to gloss over most of our observations and complaints. For clarity, we expand hereunder the specific reasons that this cruise failed to meet our expectations and this letter should be read in conjunction with our earlier communications. We invite your comment: • Excursions Let us commence with the Ackerman Fortress excursion, one of the serious failings of this Cruise, and which so many of our fellow travellers commented negatively upon. We were asked to pre-book this included excursion before joining the cruise. Our expectation was that this would be a highlight of the cruise which was strengthened by the description in your brochure which in part read: “At the Fortress, surrounded by walls stretching more than a mile and a 20 foot moat, you will tour three courtyards, the residential wings, the garrison and the arsenal. Use your free time to explore, perhaps taking some beautiful photographs of the serene Dniester lagoon from the heights of the fortress walls”. You must agree, as any reasonable person would, that, aside from in excess of five hours in a coach, 45 minutes would be insufficient time to tour the fortress as described above and be able to spend much free time taking photographs at all. Since you comment that this excursion is an integral site in The Ukraine, please explain how it is that, according to your Program Director, so many guests take the decision to avoid it at his suggestion. This was a serious misrepresentation in your brochure and relevant marketing materials. Yes, Viking does state in the Cruise Documents that the excursion duration is 5 hours but if Viking had added that only 45 minutes is spent at the fortress, we would not have booked it and possibly have decided not to take the cruise at all. The night before the excursion, the Program Director did tell passengers to avoid booking this excursion due to the travelling time and bad road conditions but that was far too late. He added that he could not understand why Viking had not withdrawn this excursion. We were left disappointed and annoyed right at the start of our voyage. Your comment that “guests do generally enjoy the site visit” is definitely not what those onboard the ship that undertook the trip commented to us which concurs with online reviews. Viking themselves have long realised the difficulties with this excursion and we therefore wonder why these seriously unfortunate issues have not been highlighted to potential guests earlier and why Viking’s efforts to improve it have failed for so long and why it has not been withdrawn. You mention that Viking’s UK office staff are always happy to answer any specific questions prior to departure. Are you seriously suggesting that potential customers should check with your office that there are no hidden nasties with the cruise before booking? … Really? Contrast this with Viking’s website which states “All you need included, with no surprises or hidden fees”. This was so far removed from what we expect from a Viking River Cruise, and we had undertaken three Viking cruises prior to this. Generally, the included excursions on this cruise were unsatisfactory in content and not a patch on those on the previous cruises we have taken with Viking and other cruise companies. It is apparent to us that The Ukraine is not in a position, yet, to accept foreign tourists and that really there is little of interest within a reasonable distance of where the ship docked. Consequently there are long coach journeys to visit something of debatable interest and which often turned out to be just another opportunity to buy souvenirs, which is not what we came on holiday for (indeed, Kherson ‘free time to explore the market’ was actually a contrived market; half a dozen stalls set up specifically for the Viking tourists visiting the memorial). This is the opinion of many online reviews too. ‘Poetic licence’ really is the order of the day on this cruise. Focussing upon your comments relating to the excursion to the Opera, please could you expand upon your statement that the date of the opera was changed for “operational reasons”. The news from guests was that it was due to a mistake by Viking. We should have left Odesa in the late afternoon, but we were kept in Odesa because of another unplanned optional visit to the opera which considerably shortened our planned visit the next day to the port at Kherson. We chose not to apply to join any of the optional excursions on this trip for, in common with all Viking cruises, the cost is totally unreasonable. Examples are: • The Opera. Viking charge £68 per guest. During that day, we walked to the Opera and found that tickets were available that evening for around £12 per person. • The Besarabsky Market. We also took the 20 minute walk to the Besarabsky Market which was obviously free to enter whilst Viking chose to charge £38 per person. The Metro system is very inexpensive. • The Shustov Cognac Museum. The most expensive ticket on the Museum’s website is around £20 per person. Viking charge £68. The museum is just a short drive from the ship. Viking have stated that excursions are sometimes provided by third parties. Just looking at the small sample above, we consider that either they or Viking are making hefty profits at the expense of guests. Viking say that there are no “hidden fees” which is debatable when considering over-charging. Is this something that Viking’s guests should expect? • The Ports In general, the ports themselves were unpleasant. Odesa terminal was deserted and we felt quite unsafe when walking in the early morning or evening. The ports were generally dirty and shabby with many hazards for guests, particularly the elderly/infirm. At one, Dnipro, we had to traverse steps leading up to a walkway on a half-built block, avoiding dog poo/human excrement and litter and then walk down crumbling steps to access the coach. It was dreadful and a health and safety nightmare. Not what we expected of ports used by Viking. • Entertainment After dinner there was very little to entertain us and when in port, we certainly did not wish to leave the ship and wander in the dark, particularly when the pavements were so poor. At Dnipro, our guide told us there was a pleasant walk along the illuminated river front. To get there it would be necessary to bypass a building site and walk quite a distance in the dark. Do Viking seriously expect their guests to put themselves at risk? We have enjoyed some great evening entertainment on Viking and other ships which is an integral part of our expectations. When there has been a free evening, at least it has been safe to walk from the ship into a town. When sailing in the evening, there has always been something happening onboard. Could we not have expected the Program Director to have organised more than the two pathetic quizzes? • Inappropriate behaviour by Viking employee We have previously made clear our view of the abysmal attitude of **********, your Program Director. In our view, he is not a company man, complained about Viking’s service in relation to excursions and his comments to my wife should have resulted in his immediate dismissal. We were both left upset and disappointed at the very beginning of our holiday. This regrettable action is definitely something that would be far less than we could ever have expected upon a Viking River Cruise. • Medical Services During the cruise, my wife had cause to visit the onboard Doctor. The service she received was cursory and not helped by the fact that the Doctor did not speak English. Surely that would be a drawback when discussing detailed medical issues. We would have expected that guest safety should be paramount for Viking. We cannot imagine how this Doctor would handle an emergency. • Viking’s follow up to complaints In your position as Senior Guest Services Executive, you will undoubtedly be aware of feedback posted on the internet and not just the feedback provided directly to Viking. Given your comment that Viking take all feedback very seriously and that it “is always followed up with action where necessary” we would be grateful to learn if you could have allayed any fears we may have had should we have read the negative reviews before booking this cruise. Conclusion This trip was a terrible disappointment, far from Viking’s usual standard and perhaps why the marketing is so low key in the UK. Generally speaking, we have lost faith with Viking, especially after your deplorable response of 3rd September which left us with the belief that you just don’t care about customer service. We are unsure if we will ever book with Viking again which is a shame since we were considering Viking’s new ocean cruises.

My husband and I had been planning a wonderful birthday celebration for him, so we decided on Viking. We had heard from many friends on how superb and excellent it was to travel with Viking. This was not our first cruise as we have done several cruises at least 1 every 2 years, fortunately enough with other very high-end lines - Oceania and Regent Seven Seas. We are lucky enough that we can afford high-end cruise liners so we thought Viking would be in the same category as our past cruise experiences! We booked the Eastern European cruise from Bucharest to Budapest from Aug 21-28, 2019. Boy were we SO wrong!!! I am currently sitting in my hotel room on August 25, in Sofia, Bulgaria writing this review, we have been here since August 23. The reason I am writing this today and posting to all different websites instead of communicated directly with Viking is because we have already tried that. We had an extremely unsatisfying phone conversation with Viking customer service when we arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria after disembarking. The lady on the phone was quite rude and dismissive of our issues. She was unwilling to admit any fault with Viking Cruises or their services and told us that we “chose to leave” therefore, there was no compensation for our dissatisfaction and that we should of purchase travel insurance. Really? Based on how we have been treated so far, we would not consider another Viking Cruise. We are on the younger side of their demographic, are active on social media, and have a wide circle of friends. If this is how we are treated, I cannot imagine how they dealt with the very elder members of the cruise. This is how are travel story began: We literately got on the ship on August 21 and disembarked and left on August 23 (being my husband's birthday)- two days into our cruise! The last thing you want to do is pack again when you have only spent 1 night on a ship. But it was such an awful and uncomfortable experience and my husband was so unhappy, we made the decision to leave the ship and told the ship's hotel director that we were disembarking on the next port of call (Vidin, which by the way, the ship did not stop there, but instead we made it to Lum as the ship had some issues getting to Vidin! - not surprise, as we were late the day before arriving to the first port of call Russe, Bulgaria to pick up the majority of the passengers who got off for their tours in a different location). Just think to have to decide to either deal with this awful experience for another 5 nights or cut your losses and leave ship, we chose the latter. We had to at least close the day of his 60th birthday in a place we would be more comfortable at. To start, we arrived on Saturday, August 17 in Bucharest from the US as we wanted to spend a couple of days on our own touring the city. We are not big on group tours and prefer doing our own thing (this is another big problem if you travel with Viking but will fill you in on that part of the story later). We were told to speak to our local Viking contact at the Sheraton Bucharest hotel - where we were staying as part of their 1 day pre-cruise land offer (and at least it is a very nice hotel, and since I hold Platinum status with them, we were upgraded to a lovely suite). Pre-cruise meeting August 20th in the evening – Sheraton Hotel: The Viking person there told us to have our luggage out by 7:30 am on August 21 and to meet in the lobby by 9 am. She indicated that there would be a scenic tour through the city on our way to a location for lunch and then a bus ride to the ship. What we were not told or even offered, especially for those guests that had already been in the city for days prior to cruising, was given an option to go straight to the ship from the hotel. August 21, ship boarding day, what really happened: Stop 1 - they bused us around the city again and took us to Old town (our 5th time there, remember, we arrived on August 17th!), then wanted to give us a walking tour of Old town, why??? We told them we had already been there 5 other times, so instead my husband and I sat around some bank building steps for almost 2 hours while the rest of the guest did their so called "tour" what a waste! At this time of day (9 am) all of Old Town restaurants are closed and only some coffee shops were open, we just had breakfast at the hotel as instructed! We sat around from 9 to 11:30 am! I asked Diani (or Dina) our very confused tour guide on bus 14, if there was a better option for us that we could meet them at the restaurant, she actually threatened and said that if we did not arrive at the restaurant, we would have to take a private car to the ship and that was about 1 hour and 45 minutes ride, so my husband and I decided to tag along. Old town tour is done thankfully, and now they tell us we are going to the Parliament building for a 10-minute picture stop and finishing up at the Museum of the Villages before lunch. Stop 2 - We crossed through town again, and saw the same scenery, the arch, the revolution square, heard the same stories and finally arrived at the Parliament location again and after 10 minutes those that got off for “picture moments” got back on the bus, where the tour guide and her very valuable assistant proceeded to do a head count and appeared that they were short 1 person as she stated that we were originally 37 on our bus (#14) and now we were 36. She then told us that we could not leave until such person was found and asked us if we knew this person? How could we know such person as we just all boarded 2 hours ago, none of us have even met, let alone know all the passengers on board? She didn't even know if we were looking for a man or woman. After an almost 45-minute wait in the parking lot, they finally gave up and we headed to the Museum of the villages tour. Stop 3 – Museum of Villages - What a dump, The is and old, mosquito infested open air museum that has the different house structures of Romania within its compound, we were forced to be there for 2 hours, so again we tried to find a decent place to sit while we waited for our 2 pm departure. We sat in an un air-conditioning hut where they Come to find out, that during this tour, the tour guide's quiet head sets and microphone were not working so no one could hear her talking about this 'wonderful museum'. Again, my husband and I do not like group tours, and we made this clear to the agent when we booked our cruise directly with Viking, he told us we could also do our own thing, really? Stop 4 – LUNCH - So now we are down to lunch, oh boy, it was at Pescarus by a local lake (why not Hard Rock cafe next door, at least the building is nicer, and they have real a/c and great food). The tour guide made it sound that this was an exceptional high-end restaurant with wonderful local food. This restaurant reminded us of an old 70 diner in Vegas, the food was some type of composition of lots of onions with some 3 pieces of meat, potatoes and bread, with some side salad. Wine, water and if you only asked beer, as they didn't voluntarily offered beer or told us it was included in our meal. My husband had already gone to the bar and paid for his as we didn't know it was also included. This was lunch – nursing home cafeteria!!! Oh, and some local folkloric dancing was provided for entertainment. Guys this is what you call luxury travel and superb top of the line service, read your advertisement, it is a SCAM, total SCAM!!! Then finally we are off to the ship, almost 2 hours into the drive, the tour guide's information about Romania is focused on that people have their own gardens, grow their own vegetables and fruits, and have cows, chicken, and pigs in their lands, and indicates "to the left you will see some cows, to the right you will see how gypsies live. Coming to the right again are more cows and some chickens"? Really... ok so we finally arrive the ship.... Finally, on board - Room was quite small, but appeared comfortable at least, we had room 323 on the highest level with a Veranda (never got to use it). The ship has NO WOW factor, it is small, clean, but small. Our room had a mini bar but of course empty why would they want to even fill it up with sodas, juice and beer for you, like most "LUXURY" cruises do when you pay such a high-price, of course not, we are just cattle and their job is to hurry you up to the next port of call get you off the ship and put you on another awesome tour for the day, give you some petty lunch and bring you back for dinner. We could see this coming. We had a decent dinner and some drinks at the bar and called it a night, we could not get much sleep as people were walking above our room, since we were on the top floor above us was the walking track! There is a taped paper sign by the railing asking guest that as a "curtesy not to walk between the hours of 10 pm to 7 am" did they see, read or listen, no! So between toilet flushes (oh yes, they have some type of vacuum system that is so loud, you can hear everyone’s flushes all night long - remember, the majority of passengers on this ship were over 70, I think we were the youngest, so they go to the restroom a LOT! And the guest walking above our room, we probably got 4 hours of sleep, but we thought when they all get off the boat tomorrow, we can relax and enjoy the ship and sleep in -- not! We were told that for those that were not going on tours in Russe, Bulgaria the next morning, they could lower their room speaker’s volume so you would not be disturbed! Right!!! 7:45 am a loud speaker wakes us up, literately we both jumped out of bed, as they had to announce the departing time for tours!!! We tried to reduce the speaker volume, and were unsuccessful as it was broken, so we knew now that sleeping in would not be an option for the next days. We decided to try and go to bed once again after everyone got off the boat and this is where the real meal plan begins. You see they offer breakfast from 7-9, because they don't expect any one to remain on the ship, why would they bother to extend breakfast time to maybe 10:30 for those that do want to stay onboard. All luxury ships provide some type of meal service throughout and 24 hours. This ship does not offer ROOM SERVICE, so you are screwed. You must eat at hours told, if not, you will end up like us with no breakfast or lunch for our first full day on board. By the time I got up on the first day of cruising (Aug 22), we both missed out on breakfast, tough luck! They had some breads and cold cuts, but forget some nice eggs or omelet, bowl of cereal or warm toast. We decided to stay on board to see how the experience would be as we had decided not to join any of the "free tours" based on our pre-cruise tour experience we could see the quality and decided to just get off where we could at each port of call and do our own thing (of course we didn't get to do that as we permanently got off the next day!). 1st full and last day on board - here it goes, we have no real breakfast, for lunch we both napped again and by the time we woke up we had missed the light lunch they sat out for the maybe 12 passengers that stayed on board. So, we ate what was left before they picked up by 2 pm. My husband likes to smoke his cigars, and proceeded after lunch to go to the upper deck to have one and enjoy the river view, to his amazement, they had removed all shading in the designated "smoking" area at the back of the ship, he literately sat in the withering sun at 90 degrees F trying to enjoy his cigar, he could not and just got up and we ended up spending the remaining of the day in the a/c lounge area. There is absolutely no wait service in the upper deck. If you want to get a drink, you must go down to the bar and order one. You are on your own. By this time my husband was so fed up with how the services are on board and the limited staff that is available we were so disenchanted that I only wanted to be off this ship! So, this is how the meals program works, breakfast is 7-9 am, lunch 12-2 pm, however, the restaurant is not open for those days where everyone or the majority of passengers our off on tours. So, the only day that lunch would even be available in the restaurant is the 24th as it was the only "Sailing day" to "enjoy the luxuries of this ship" a joke. Dinner starts at 7 pm as per their program sent to us. Not true, on the ship we were told that if you did not make it past 7:20 pm in the restaurant, most likely you would miss out on your appetizer, and if you got there by 7:45 pm you would might not get your main course, so of course everyone like cattle, herd over to the restaurant right at 7 pm! What a joke, where is the luxury in this, the comfort, why work on your time vs. ours! We are paying for this service it is not a nursing home, but we sure felt like it! We were so disgusted with this that we didn't even put in our dinner order we went back to our room and discussed our options, we decided to cut this trip short and leave! Didn't care where, just leave! I spoke with the Hotel director on board and explained that we were so disenchanted with this whole experience we just wanted off the boat. We left August 23 at 9 am to never, ever turn back. We ended up having to pay for a driver to take us to Sofia, Bulgaria $200 Euros. Booked a room at the Hilton in Sofia for 5 nights and booked two one-way plane tickets $1500 K to take us from Sofia to Budapest on the 28th as we already have the 2 post days in Budapest booked with Viking. We don't head home until the 1st of Sept so it would of cost us a lot of money to change our first-class seats back to the US for an earlier departure, plus Budapest has been on our bucket list for a long time. So, to summarize our experience, if you are looking for true luxurious travel, with all the comforts of high-end cruising VIKING IS NOT, again NOT FOR YOU! Our advice, please do your research, I failed to do this, and we relied on what people we knew that travel like us had shared! I didn't bother to read reviews, or investigate further, since their pricing and advertising is similar to those true luxury lines, we didn't think twice on booking. However, lessons learned, from now on it does not matter how experience travelers we are, we will always check. I am so upset about this, this cost us over $15,000 K, we could have done a beautiful resort in Hawaii or a luxury pent-house cruise in the Caribbean for this price, but no, we chose Viking due to their misleading, false advertising. As I initially stated, I called their customer service number once we arrived at Sofia, Bulgaria to ensure that they would NOT cancel our hotel in Budapest as it was part of the package and to also request a partial refund for such an awful experience. They lady on the phone proceeded to tell me that we didn't buy trip insurance and therefore, we were not owned anything back! As we chose to leave, no lady, you gave us plenty of reasons to leave that is the big difference!! We didn't buy trip insurance, why would we, we are both healthy and had every intention to make this trip, it is my husband’s 60th. She told me that if we would have purchased it, there would have been a partial refund. NOT TRUE, their trip insurance does not refund you for dissatisfied services only for the following as per their brochures: CANCEL FOR ANY REASON WAIVER DETAILS What We Will Do: Under the “Cancel For Any Reason” Waiver, we will waive our cancellation penalties and reimburse you in cash or travel vouchers (depending on the reason for cancellation) for the nonrefundable portion of your Viking trip cost, provided that you cancel before your scheduled departure. We will also waive any additional fees you would otherwise incur for a change in your per person occupancy rate if a person booked to travel with you cancels his or her trip and you do not cancel your trip. How You Are Reimbursed: If you cancel for one of the “Specified Reasons” listed in the Protection Plan document, we will reimburse you in cash. If you cancel for any other reason, we will reimburse you with a travel voucher that can be used for future voyages with us. The maximum amount covered under this “Cancel For Any Reason” Waiver is the cost of the travel arrangements provided by Viking Cruises. TRIP INTERRUPTION AND DELAYED ARRIVAL - Provides You with a reimbursement for the unused prepaid, non-refundable Payments or Deposits for Your land or water Travel Arrangements for Your Trip, plus the additional airfare cost to return home, if Your Trip is interrupted for a covered reason. MISSED CONNECTION - Provides You with a reimbursement for the unused portions of Your land or water Travel Arrangements, plus the additional costs to join Your trip, if Your arrival at the Trip destination is delayed for 3 hours or more for a covered reason. TRAVEL DELAY - Assists with additional travel expenses incurred when You are delayed at least 12 hours due to a covered reason. In the event of a covered delay, You will be reimbursed for additional expenses for hotels, meals, and transportation. AIR FLIGHT ONLY ACCIDENTAL DEATH & DISMEMBERMENT - Provides coverage up to the maximum benefit payable for loss of life, limb or sight resulting from an Accidental Injury. MEDICAL EXPENSE/EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE - Provides Medical Expense benefits for a covered Sickness or Injury incurred while on Your Trip. When required, We will evacuate You to the nearest qualified hospital and will then return You home when You are safe to travel. POLITICAL OR SECURITY EVACUATION - Provides coverage for all reasonable evacuation expenses incurred for Your transportation to the nearest safe haven, if You must leave Your Trip for a covered Political or Security Event. Evacuation must occur within 10 days of any Political or Security Event. BAGGAGE & PERSONAL EFFECTS - Provides reimbursement when Your baggage or personal belongings are damaged, lost or stolen during Your Trip. Personal belongings include such things as loss of luggage, jewelry, passports or travel visas. Ms. Viking Customer service or better yet, Mr. Hagen (CEO and President of Viking) tell me where you would reimburse me if we were unsatisfied with your services if we would have even opted to buy your so called “travel Insurance” oh but yes, another scam. Things to know, the main drive of Viking is to sell you tours, to get you off their ships like cattle herding as they now don't have to entertain you with drinks and meals on board. They put you on buses and bus you around and give you nice bottles of “warm” water and some type of lunch meal, then bus you back to their ship and feed you again to put you back to sleep in your corral and do this all over the next day. I call Viking a low-class glamping service, that really is what they are. There is absolutely no way to reach out to those higher up in the Viking organization, but one wonders if they are possibly well aware of these selling methods and activities. It is all about driving profit. I feel that as a consumer is my right to advocate for us travelers, and if publishing my review throughout all travel sites will have my voice heard, I will do until I have someone in the Viking organization try and appease this situation with us and reimburse us partially for such a disappointing and disastrous experience. I will also be disputing this with my credit card company. Also, anyone would be so kind, please share this review. Again, thank you for taking the time to read my review and feel free in reaching out to us, united we have a bigger voice. August 25, 2019

I really enjoyed this cruise. Easy on easy off for all excursions, well organized. The entertainment quality & variety was very enjoyable. The staff catered to all our needs. I liked the quality & variety of foods. I wish I could have eaten more. The ship/river historian supplied us with a copious amount of information, he was much appreciated.

Not one of Viking's better efforts. They need to improve their travel arrangements. We requested travel from Birmingham. Not possible, we were told. I then realised that if we took the Vienna extension it was indeed possible. Viking expected me to pay for the cancelled flights. We ended up having to incur 2 nights' hotel stays and parking to travel from Heathrow via Warsaw with the not-so-lovely and frequently late Lot Air. It rankled when some people who booked after us told us that they had direct flights from Odessa with BA and hadn't paid any extra. The cruise itself was not the best itinerary. You got the impression that the places we visited were simply time-fillers rather than being anywhere of real interest. Far too much time was spent hanging around listening to the very knowledgeable guides speaking in great detail and at great length in not very good English. Not all of the coaches had seat belts. On one occasion the air conditioning broke down. Fortunately they found us another bus. If this had been our first river cruise it might have been our last.

I loved the trip and how well all my days were great. Met some wonderful people. It was great that time was set aside for a cocktail pre-dinner and entertainment post-dinner.

This was an absolutely horrendous experience. We have been on over 90 cruisers and are very careful to book way in advance to get handicap accessible cabins and accessible boats. The American Queen, The Dutchess, is advertised on line, in their brochure, by them personally, as ADA accessible as is the cabin that we book. Neither is true. Just briefly, the cabin was not ADA accessible especially the bathroom; it was a joke. And it was almost impossible to maneuver around the boat as I have multiple sclerosis and I am in a small ladies scooter. There are a high “lips” that you have to go over to get from common room to common room and I was unable to do that as I can’t walk. Also to get outside to enjoy the outdoor common area as well, was not possible, as there is a full step and I am not able to do, as I am confined to a scooter. The scooter just bottoms out and is unable to go any further from room to room or outside, and can get damaged. We were trying to figure out how to get off the boat and what to do and as my spouse was handling this with the horribly egregiously inappropriate, rude and unkind hotel director, I had to go to the bathroom and was told that one certain public bathroom was ADA accessible. I went in with my small scooter and no basket and could not leave and had to be rescued by the EMT on board. We are appalled beyond words that this company is allowed to advertise and sell products that they do not have. This is also the same company that we went on The Queen (same company, another boat) last year which was handicap accessible so we thought this one would be, based on their lies, however we did have a bad experience on that boat and while we did take care of that with the Coast Guard we are now going to publicly have our experience told. What happened was on August 2, 2018 at the southern border of Iowa on the Mississippi river where many of us passengers saw a continuously running oil leak off the boat, flowing into The Mississippi and we were told by the deckhand that it it was a hydraulic oil fluid leak. We all watched it for two hours and I also took photos and videos. I wanted to make sure that this was reported because I remembered how bad other cruise lines like Princess have been with the ocean; wow I never thought that the American Queen steamboat company would not report a spill like this! We all watched it for two hours and I also took photos and videos. I wanted to make sure that this was reported so a few days later we decided to call the Coast Guard who was in charge of that part of the river. We were shocked as he was to find out that this was never reported and he asked for the videos and the pictures which we sent onto them. I would never recommend this company for a multitude of reasons.

This was a horrible experience for us. Virtually no air conditioning or inadequate air in the room and excursion buses. No entertainment. Unusable balcony due to close proximity to next boat.

Disaster. Sat in the Nuremberg port for 4 nights. Nothing within walking distance. Loud ugly industrial park. Do not do this cruise, it is a bus tour.

Almost too relaxing for me. There was a biking group “Backroads” on board that were too active for me. A lot of time cruising which is just the nature of a river cruise.

Very enjoyable cruise. So much history and great itinerary