Viking River Cruise Outstanding

Thank you.

Viking River Cruise is a fantastic company, although yes, not that cheap ... but never forget 'you pay for what you get'.

Oh ... just adding ... for future readers, don't forget to watch this to enjoy your trip even more and cheaper https://youtu.be/B8YmyRpT684?si=NphsNjkr7Fke5CX6

There are TONS of vlogs on Youtube about river cruising, certain lines in particular but also helpful videos about how they differ and which one would work for you. It's much like ocean cruising now.

I think there is a huge difference between river cruising and ocean cruises. It is hard to do an item to item comparison. Just very different modes of travel.

Our first river boat trip was with Viking and it was disappointing. We loved our second river boat trip with AMAwaterways which was perfect in every way possible,

Suki, I would love to know how Viking and AMA differed in regards to your expectations.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our 3 Viking cruises. When I check Ama Waterways website I always find similar 7 day itinerary starting prices more costly than Viking. Which is surprising when people always say Viking is expensive. We stay in inside staterooms. Avalon has higher rates also. We are considering a Loire Valley cruise. Likely Viking. Guess we are not done.

The real problem is that it is hard to compare since no one had taken the same trip on two different cruise line. We have been on three Viking river cruises and thought that each was excellent. One advantage to a large company such as Viking is a lot of flexibility. On our last trip we hit a low water problem. We were told to pack our bags and leave them in the middle of the bed along with the room key and then directed to waiting buses. Spent most of the day traveling the country side. Had a great lunch in a small town and later visit one of the historical, re-constructed villages that was not on the original schedule. Later that PM pulled up to the dock, got off the bus, pick up our room key at the desk and opened the door and the room was just as we left it with our luggage in the middle of the bed. Went to dinner that evening. Everything was the same -- waiters, bar tender, etc. --- only the name on the ship had changed. And we continued down river that evening.

We have friends who had a similar water problem a year earlier with one of the more exclusive but smaller river companies. They ended being docked for several days and bussed to a bunch of place that were of marginal interest to them. They felt more like they were on a bus tour. They did receive some compensation for the "unused" river portion but they were unhappy. It is our understanding the Viking had a boat headed up stream that hit the low water mark as our boat hit going down river. So we just traded. It was so smooth that it was obvious that Viking had done this many times.

I loved my Viking cruise too. I had nothing to compare it to, as that is the only cruise of any kind I've ever done. I have always been a fairly budget minded traveler, so this cruise with some family members was pretty luxurious by my standards. I enjoyed every minute of it. The crew was definitely a highlight - the original poster's description of the crew on their cruise was spot on. They spoiled the heck out of us.

The last two days of our cruise we had a high water problem - it had been raining the previous two days and there was flooding along the Danube. We made it to Passau, the last stop on the cruise, but we couldn't dock in the city due to rising water levels. Viking arranged for there to be multiple shuttles from the ship to the city center for us.