Viking Freya

Viking tried to make the best of a bad/tragic situation. Result was more a bus tour than a cruise and not at all what we expected. I trust that Viking will do right by the passengers in terms of compensation, but that remains to be determined.

We had the unfortunate experience of being tied up to a concrete pier next to a recycling station for over two days -- we spent the time listening to concrete or something being crushed and seeing dust.  As my husband and I are 88 and 83 three years old respectively, once we got on the boat we decided that we wanted to do only one excursion and that was the one scheduled on Friday to see the Hungarian Horsemen.  Obviously that never happened and that was a big disappointment as we had owned horses at one time.  While we were docked by the recycling station, our family got taxis and went into Roth and visited a museum and went to lunch.  We were on the boat with our three children and spouses so there were eight of  us.  We arranged this trip to Roth on our own.

I realize that Viking had no control over the lock problem, however, I think the ensuing two days could have been handled much better and I think your people need additional training on how to deal with passengers in a difficult situation,  We received much misinformation and condescending attitudes on the part of the people in charge of keeping us informed.  They did a very poor job and the result was that many passengers were very angry.

However, I would like to compliment the crew as they were congenial and well trained and the food was excellent.

You have given a credit on future voyages to the passengers on this unfortunate trip but, because of our ages, that will not benefit us.

I will not recommend Viking.  If anyone asks, I will suggest that they check other cruise lines to see how they have handled difficult situations such as we experienced.  Four of us had to leave the boat on Friday morning because of our flight schedules and four stayed on the boat until Saturday. 

perfect in aimost .every way. minor problem in that elevator did not work for 4 days - important for handicaped passengers

The Viking Freya is a new ship for 2012. It was very clean in staterooms and in general areas. Staff was super and helpful.

We recently took the Viking Romantic Danube cruise – it was the maiden voyage from Nuremburg to Budapest. We were picked up at the airport and delivered to the ship hassle free.   I would like to start by warning there were several “issues” they blamed for being the maiden voyage, I would suggest not taking the 1st cruise of the season.  There were no issues with the water level this time of year; however, I would have liked to sit more on the sun deck to enjoy the scenery.  The temperatures got to the high 50’s – 60’s, but at 9am it was still only in the 30’s – which is too cold to enjoy the sundeck, also very cold for the included morning tours.   Most of the trees & foliage were not budded out yet – still seemed like winter.  We have taken quite a few ocean cruises so my comparison is based on a larger cruise ship.   As far as the Ship - the crew was excellent & the Program Director gave nightly “briefings” for the next day’s tours.  However, the WiFi did not work for 2 days; there is a bar, but for non-drinkers there was no place where our group could sit at a table to play card games - as the only entertainment after dinner was piano music. On a few occasions they brought aboard some locals, and had a “game night” that lasted about 45 minutes.  The Program Director gave a “narration” while we cruised thru the wine country -  this could only be heard on the sundeck, once again too cold to be up there, even in the afternoons.  As for the food – even though there are only 200 guests, dinner still took 2+ hours & didn’t start until 7pm.  I would like to suggest that they have 2 dinner seating’s.  The food is “European style” – meaning my meat was served “very rare”, not to my taste; there seemed to be an issue to get it cooked well done, also not like an ocean cruise ship where you could order several appetizers - this confused our waiter who brought only soup OR salad.  Breakfast had a good selection of items (eggs, cereal, fruits & breads); lunch was usually something characteristic to the area we were traveling.  My review of our stateroom is below.  Lastly the “included tours” – it was very nice to have tours at every port included – but because we did a few “paid” tours we could see the difference in the quality of tour guides. (the optional tour guides were much better).  There was never enough “free” time to shop or explore on our own & our biggest complaint was in Vienna, the ship docks 30+ minutes by bus from the old town & center for shopping.  Our morning tour took us to old town and back to the ship – there were no shuttles to go back into Vienna in the afternoon, we were on our own by either subway or taxi.  Their "suggested" gratuities seemed to be pressured to add when closing our account. The last day we had to get up at 2:45am to get to the airport for our return flight to the US - we had trouble at the airport finding our flight as we were dropped at the door and not informed as what airline we were using. (we booked our flights thru Viking).   All in all, it was a very unique cruise in comparison to the large ocean ships – we got to know a lot of the crew and the passengers.  I don’t know how to plan the right time for a river cruise as in the warmer months it seems to be an issue with the water levels, this is something we don’t have to be concerned with on an ocean cruise.   We also noticed that this type of cruise was adult oriented - definitely not for children.  Mostly the retired age.