MyDogRudy

I am looking for dailies from the new Viking itinerary of Lyon, Provence & The Rhineland, particularly how the transition from the Rhone River to the Rhine River is handled. I am assuming it is land transport from one ship to another ship? I am also interested in the port times for Avignon when taking the Avignon to Amsterdam route. I have been on the Viking Rhine Getaway in 2019 and will be going on the Viking Romantic Danube early this summer, but am trying to plan a Viking river cruise with friends new to river cruising for 2025 as part of a retirement/birthday splurge for several in the group. Since some of us are still going to be working, I am hoping if we take such a long (for us at this time) cruise we would not need to do add a pre-stay in Nice/Avignon to be able to enjoy the area, but I feel even though it lists an overnight in Avignon, you really only get the first afternoon to explore before heading out the next morning to Arles, which does not leave much time for any exploring if there are any travel issues, much less getting over any jet lag. We do not have unlimited funds to just travel Business class to rest on the plane or the time off to take extra days off when looking at this longer (for us) cruise. Any info from those of you fortunate enough to be taking this itinerary this year would be of great help to us as we start the fun of planning the next adventure. Happy cruising to all!

Thank you so much for this information! It doesn't matter to me whether the extra tour is before or after the included tour, just was curious to know if you could do both. One thing about researching river cruises is there are fewer detailed reviews that show the itineraries for each day, so it is more difficult to plan ahead. For the ocean cruises I have done in the past I would book excursions directly with each vendor in each port, but Viking did such a nice job with theirs that I am likely to use their excursions - they just do not let you know when they are going to be, so to book them prior to seeing the schedule for the day risks missing something else, I have posted on the roll call thread and added our names to the roll call excel document. We will be sailing after you, but it is still a nice way for everyone to share any helpful hints they have learned specific to these cruises.

I hope this is the right place to post this question. I was an avid Cruise Critic researcher a few years back prepping for ocean cruises, but I am a little less familiar with the etiquette of postings for River Cruises with the fewer thread options and I have not found as much information specific to my questions in my reading thus far. I'm also still getting used to the newer format of CC - so much so that I haven't even figured out how to change/update my signature. I'll be doing a Romantic Danube cruise on Viking in June 2023 (traveling with someone who has not taken a river cruise before) and am trying to determine which excursions to book through Viking for when they become available in October. I have only done one river cruise myself on the Rhine in May 2019 with Viking and loved it! We are very interested in the Bavaria by e-bike optional excursion, but since we don't have specifics on how long we are in the various ports, I don't know if that would still allow any time to see much else in the city of Passau. The tour is 3 hours but it looks like we have the whole day in Passau, so I am hoping we would still have time to tour a bit on our own either before or after lunch, depending on when the e-bike tour would be. Anyone out there who has done this tour with any feedback? I have seen a few clips of this from others' videos on YouTube, but nothing more specific. I will also be posting in the general river cruise forum area looking for anyone with some daily programs from a somewhat recent (but not modified due to low water levels) Viking Romantic Danube sailing from Budapest to Regensburg to help plan our other stops. Thank you to those who have already posted information from their previous journeys - I hope to do the same after our cruise next year.