My wife and I did a Danube River cruise on Viking pre-Covid as the end of our bucket list trip to Norway and Germany. As stephen pointed out, it was expensive, at least from our perspective, but it was worth it for the experience. We saw cities were would not have seen otherwise (Vienna and Salzburg which are now part of a future trip plan) but the time in these places is limited to a day at most. Usually, there's a guided tour in the morning, lunch back on the ship and sometimes an afternoon on your own. This was true for us in Regensburg. Optional tours usually take all day and lunch is included at a nice restaurant. This was our day in Salzburg with lunch in a restaurant dating to 800. We were entertained by six singers doing a medley of songs from the Sound of Music. We had extra time after lunch before boarding the bus back to the ship, so we shopped and had coffee in a streetside cafe. The river cruise mode of travel was perfectly suited to the way we like to travel where we like a home base and not have to move from hotel to hotel and become accustomed to new city. On a river cruise, your room travels with you from place to place. The food was fantastic as was the service and staff on board. We booked a French balcony suite with a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the river which is usually the mid-range cost for river cruise accommodations. The scenery was wonderful, and the river provided a smooth trip that was appreciated by myself who suffers from motion sickness - no problem at all for me. I liked the experience of going through the locks which, if I recall, amounted to two dozen or so throughout the trip on the Danube (many at night). Sometimes cruises are interrupted by low water depths in sections of the rivers, especially in the summer, and cruisers are bused to another destination/ship to keep the itinerary going. We did not experience this, but it is possible. There are added expenses for optional tours and tips, etc. that added to the cost to the point where the 8-day cruise was more expensive than the nearly three weeks we spent in Oslo, Berlin, and the Black Forest combined. I think the initial cost was just over 7 thousand dollars and by the end, all told, we spent nearly 10 grand on the trip. Viking does offer a good rate on flights as part of their plans, but we didn't use this option. I had heard that their flights might include multiple stops, but I cannot from personal experience verify this. We continue to get Viking cruise brochures in the mail and we are tempted to go again but for us the cost is prohibitive. We also haven't found an itinerary of cities/destinations that we would would entice us to book another river cruise - although the Christmas market cruises would be an interesting and fun way to do our holiday shopping.
