My Viking journey began with a booking number. From the moment my reservation was confirmed I was able to log into myvikingjourney.com and start getting excited about my upcoming trip by viewing and reserving various shore excursions as long as I first completed my Guest Registration Form.
There is a free excursion available in every port we visited and there were also extra optional excursions that could be purchased for a reasonable amount. Some of the optional excursions were planned around the free one so a guest could book more than one outing in a day, where others took the entire day or would conflict with the timing of the free ones so choices had to be made.
Outside of browsing excursions the only other thing I needed to do was get familiar with the travel protocols for each of the countries that I was going to visit. The Viking website made it easy to navigate to the different countries’ websites to fill out various forms. I was taking the Rhine Getaway from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It’s a tour that visits four different countries throughout the 8 day, 7 night itinerary.
Once I had registered with the countries I was going to visit and picked my shore excursions, the only thing I had to do was wait for my flights to be scheduled and purchased. I had a few weeks from the time I received my flight information and the time I was to leave. My flights were favorable with only one stop in Paris on the way to the ship and a non-stop flight home from Amsterdam.
It felt as though most of the passengers on the plane were on their way to a Viking vacation, and I was able to make some friends who would be on the same ship as I was before I even left the ground in Atlanta! The flights were smooth and we were greeted at baggage claim by Viking representatives who instructed us to take our bags to the bus where we would wait to get to the ship. It was around 11:30 am when we arrived and the rooms weren’t made up yet, so we were given a laminated piece of paper with our room numbers on them and told that we could go to The Restaurant where we could grab some lunch and wait for them to finish making up the rooms.
By the time we finished eating lunch all of our rooms were ready. It was perfect timing since there was a walking tour at 1:30 or 3:30 and we were able to go to our staterooms long enough to freshen up before leaving for the excursion. I knew it would be tough after such a long day of traveling, but the shower upon our return was going to feel so good! Little did I know until I was ready to take that shower that I was going to love stepping into the bathroom just for the heated floor.
The cities along the Rhine all have so much history and character. The guides that provide our tours throughout the itinerary were all excellent and were able to put a personal touch on their stories to help us gain a better understanding of what it is like to live in or near those regions. The fact that excursions were all staffed by people wearing Viking logoed shirts and the transportation was always in a Viking branded bus made me feel that there was a lot of thought and care in selecting what we experienced. I’ve taken other tours through other cruise lines and it was obvious that they just hired an outside company instead of investing their own resources to make sure that the guest would have the best possible experience.
The ship didn’t have a lot of extras, in fact there was only one lounge and one restaurant. On the top deck there were many chairs for relaxing and watching the scenery as we went up the river along with a walking track. For games there was only shuffle board and a putting green. The library was small, but every day was so full that I never felt like taking out the book I had brought with me.
We were usually off the ship early in the morning for the first tour and wouldn’t get back until dinner time. Depending on the city we were in and how far we had to go next we would either stay in port late or leave during dinner. There was always nightly entertainment on board, but the days we were in port late I opted to explore the towns on my own. I always slept great since I was so busy each day!
I should have opted to stay in Amsterdam for at least a day at the end of the cruise. My flight was at 8:00 AM so I disembarked at 4:00 AM to head to the airport. Needless to say, I didn’t get to see much of Amsterdam so it was a good thing that I was at least able to see the windmills in Kinderdijk the day before. Leaving as early as we did, the kitchen wasn’t open for breakfast yet, but they did have hot sandwiches and coffee for us. The transfer to the ship was smooth and I was lucky to not have any issues on my return flight either. We landed a bit before noon so I was able to still have a full day to get ready for regular life.
