Viking cruise Rhine getaway

We did that cruise. We had a very nice time. We did all of the included excursions and none of the optional tours. We found the optional cruises to be quite expensive and we were able to do most on our own. We also extended our trip on both ends and booked and handled that on our own. I do recommend arriving to Europe at least a few days before your cruise to get over jet lag a bit. What I did was to do some research into all the cities the cruise stops at so I had about a half a day of activities we could do on our own. I had maps for each city ready to go. We got to Basel a couple days before the start of the cruise. We found Basel to be delightful, we did some walking tours on our own. They have an excellent Tourist Information Center that I contacted ahead of time. When we arrived to the ship for the cruise, they were doing an unplanned walking tour of Basel and we did that, too.
There was a Black Forest included excursion which was nice. I don't recall what the optional excursion was but we walked into and around the cute town of Breisach. The included tour of Strasbourg was a few hours and quite good. There was a couple optional tours (one I think was to Colmar) but we enjoyed more time in Strasbourg. Some took an optional tour to a winery in Ruedesheim but we walked around on our own and did some wine tasting. I can't recall what the optional tour for Koblenz was, but we elected to walk around Koblenz. The included tour was to a castle. If we hadn't done Koblenz on our own, we wouldn't have seen it. In Koln there was an excellent walking tour of the old town and the cathedral. Some took the optional tour and did kolsch tasting. We went back to the cathedral and then found a brewery and did our own kolsch tasting (at 1 euro a glass) There was an optional cheese tour that we didn't do and instead we enjoyed the time cruising on the river. The cheese tour people took a bus to kinderdijk. After the cruise, we spent a couple more days in Amsterdam.

The only town that was a bit more complicated to explore on our own was Strasbourg. My recollection is that all we needed to do was take the city bus. Or maybe Viking had a bus, I can't remember.

To be fair, I never heard anyone complain about the optional tours, however, I'm not sure I would have been happy with them because of the cost. Viking will tell you their price includes airport transfers. etc. Well, I've never had difficulty using public transportation on my own to get from any airport in Europe. Also, some people that did do the air and ground transfer with Viking were leaving at the end of the cruise at 5am to get to their flights. Ummm, HARD NO.

We would do a Viking cruise again at some point. We actually were looking at the one into Russia, so that won't happen soon. . .

You aren't required to do any excursion, optional or not. Without knowing exactly what each of the optional excursions are, I can't say whether you could do them independently or not.

You might want to look at Cruise Critic. They have a forum specifically for River Cruises.

We found that the included tours on this cruise were very good; usually they were in the morning and helped us get our bearings in each port. Afterwards we explored independently (depending on how long we stayed in port). I had done my research in advance; Viking staff members helped me with transportation questions (buses,taxis). A Covid-related caveat...if countries increase restrictions, it could be that the only way you are allowed to leave the ship is on a cruise company-operated tour. In that case you may want to consider an optional tour that gives you more shore time.

I can't recall what the optional tour for Koblenz was, but we elected
to walk around Koblenz. The included tour was to a castle.

Viking says that for 2022, the included tour is the walking tour around Koblenz. The optional excursions depend partly on your direction of travel, apparently. From the online itinerary for Viking's 2022 Basel > Amsterdam Getaway tour:

Proceed along the Rhine, disembarking for a walking tour of Koblenz.
Alternately, choose an optional excursion to tour the 700-year old
Marksburg Castle, or enjoy a lively and informative tour of
Ehrenbreitstein Fortress.

For their 2022 Amsterdam > Basel tour, this text appears:

Arrive in Koblenz this afternoon and disembark for a guided
exploration of Koblenz on foot. You may also join an optional
excursion that offers a lively and informative tour of Ehrenbreitstein
Fortress; or, choose to journey into Moselle wine country on an
optional excursion, stopping for a tour and tasting at a local winery.

With Ehrenbreitstein Fortress no matter your cruise direction, these links should be informative:

Things to see/do at Ehrenbreitstein
Tripadvisor reviews of Ehrenbreitstein

You can do the fortress independently. I have no idea exactly where your boat docks for Koblenz, however. From Koblenz proper an aerial tram gets you to the fortress, which sits atop a cliff on the opposite side of the Rhine (this part of Koblenz is called Ehrenbreitstein.) VERY simple.

If your boat docks on the Ehrenbreitstein side of the river, you could maybe walk (or catch a taxi ride or bus??) to the hillside elevator (€6 round trip) to reach the top:

Marksburg Castle (€11 at entrance) is an outstanding example of a medieval castle. Not sure what your time allotment is, but it's certainly doable on your own. It's in Braubach, a DIRECT 20-minute train ride from Koblenz' City-center ("Stadtmitte") station, the closest station most boat docks in Koblenz proper. Direct trains for Braubach leave there at :44 after the hour. Round trip fare is €10.40 on a day ticket. Once there, it's an uphill hike of about 25 minutes. Or you might arrange a taxi ride if you see the walk up as undoable.

(If your boat docks on the Ehrenbreitstein side of the Rhine, you can catch a train from the Ehrenbreitstein rail station to Braubach. It's about 25 minutes from there and includes a change of train in the town of Niederlahnstein.)

Marksburg website
Braubach photos (scroll through)
One family's visit, with walking footage included

Moselle River wine tasting outing... This is nearly as simple as getting to Ehrenbreitstein.

Walk, bus or taxi to Koblenz Main Station (Hauptbahnhof) directly to Winningen (a 10-minute ride leaving at :25 after every hour) and ride the train along the Mosel River. It's a small, beautiful old-world wine town that's easy to walk around with cozy places like this to have wine and snacks/lunch. €8.10 gets you there and back on a day ticket.

We did this tour from Amsterdam to Basel and elected to do the pre and post extensions with it. It was a great tour and if available, I highly recommend the extensions (however they may not be available for your time frame) The pre- Amsterdam tours with Viking are a definite must if capable. We learned so much and had a wonderful time. The post tour was in Luzern and the additional paid tour was probably the best tour of the entire cruise..although quite expensive, but it lasted 10 hours.

As for the included tours on the cruise, some are very good and we found them worth doing. We did do extras though as we had previously been to a few of the places. We elected to take the top of the cathedral tour in Cologne and it was breath taking ( if not scary to be on top of the roof of the tallest Gothic church in Europe ). Also the Colmar tour has made us really want to take the RS Eastern France tour as a result...so beautiful. The wine tasting tour was excellent as well the evening out tours with music and dinner..I don't think we could have done any of these ourselves.

We have been on 4 Viking trips (2 river, 2 ocean) We like the river trips the best and have found the air-service, pick up service to be excellent and definitely well worth it. As far as somebody saying you have to be picked up by 5:00 am...not really...you can arrange what flights you want to be on by simply electing the Viking air+ service for $50.00 each. You can pick your own airline and flight and determine your own fate....I would not simply use what they give you for flights...you never now what you will get. Viking allowed us to extend our trip from Luzern and go to Cyprus for a week before returning home...no extra cost from the free air fare they gave us...only the $50.00 air+ (and we paid our way to Cyprus and back to Basel) for the return home flight.

Forgot to say that we also did the Viking Grand European tour in November and it was wonderful. Cool and crisp, beautiful fall color and leaves...we would do November again in a heartbeat!!

jetlady51, we did this cruise a few years ago. A couple of general notes about the excursions. Viking has these set up and timed so that you are back at the ship for mealtime (unless the excursion is for dinner). Its very convenient as the transport is there and ready. The downside is there isn't a lot of time at any location because of the large group of people to manage. One good thing is they do make accommodations for "slow walkers". Note that the ship often docks at a location that is far away from the town center (except for Cologne) and therefore arranging for your own transport somewhere is trickier. We did have one couple who didnt make it back on time. Make sure you know the departure schedule.

So, we did all the included excursions, and many of the optional ones. I think we saw more by using their excursions (some of them were pretty far from the city we were docked at) than we would have on our own. But if you just want to sit and have a leisurely coffee, by all means skip the optional excursions. Just pick the ones that sound interesting. Bottom line is I don't think we could have easily duplicated the optionals on our own. PS there is nothing to do on the ship, if you stay there.

As far as the extensions, we stayed extra days on our own in Luzern for a fraction of what the Viking extra would have cost. We'd been there before so knew our way around, and managed the logistics just fine. Viking had no problem with arranging our departure flight from Zurich to accommodate our plan (at a slight extra cost).

That's too bad about Koblenz and Marksburg. For us, Marksburg was the included tour. The walking tour of Koblenz is easily done independently Our ship docked by the town of Koblenz. Burg Ehrenbreittstein is doable from Koblenz as it is right across the river from where the ship docks..

We looked at doing some Moselle wine tasting on our own from Koblenz. There was not enough free time to use the bus to get to the closest wine town, a taxi might work. You will have to look at the amount of free time you have that day. From what someone posted above, if you do one of the optional tours for Koblenz, depending on the length of the optional tour, you may not have time to visit the town of Koblenz on your own.

And, that brings me to another factor. Look at what you miss by doing the optional tour over the included tour or having free time. For, us, we never had difficulty finding something to explore. In the end, I think your decisions come down to budget, your interest in the various excursions and your ability to be independent.

I think you should look at each optional tour and pick out the ones you may be interested in. From that point, you can figure out the ease and cost of doing it on your own and post where you need help.

In regard to Stan's comment about where the ship docks, for us, the ship was convenient to get into explore every town except Strasbourg. Strasbourg wasn't that difficult as there was a bus that would take people in.

EDITED TO ADD: I just noticed that Heidelberg was deleted from the Rhine itinerary. That's too bad. Remember as you review the comments you get, your itinerary is likely different than previous itineraries.

Keep in mind that the boat docks at each location dependent upon the season...busy dates (summer) are docked further out, fall, closer to the location. For our November trip we were docked within walking distance to EVERY single town. We even walked back to the ship when we needed to use the restroom. For our July trip, we were docked MUCH further away and docked side by side with other boats so that we literally had to cross each boat to get to shore. No way to get to sights without the bus or a taxi on that tour.