Viking Longships

We have booked a river cruise with Viking in 2014 on the "The Chateaux, Rivers & wine" cruise. We will be on one of the new longships the

M/S Forseti departing on April 12, 2014. The new ships look GREAT and we are excited to experience the sailing first hand. We have sailed with Viking & GCT before but these new longships are very interesting . We would love to hear from anyone their thoughts & experiences on these new and very modern ships.

We sailed on the Viking Idun a year ago on their 'Tulips & Windmills' 10 day cruise. It was only the 3rd sailing of the Idun, and while there were a few "growing pains", as there would be with any ship or hotel, it was a wonderful cruise. We had a French Balcony cabin and really enjoyed it. There was sufficient storage for luggage under the very comfy bed. Linens were of a high quality, and the cabin, although on the smaller side,was still adequate for my husband and I, and we are not small people (I'm 5'8" and he's 6'4"). There are plenty of 110v outlets in the cabin for charging appliances, and a mini-fridge and flat-screen TV, which offers on-demand movies, some of which are geared toward the ports you will be visiting. For example, on our cruise, we had "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" along with other current choices. The bathroom was spacious, with large shower, heated floor and plenty of large,fluffy towels.

Outside the lounge there is a 24/7 beverage station with several varieties of coffee, teas and hot chocolate, as well as still and bubbly water. Also offered at this station are pastries in the A.M. and cookies at tea time.

The Aquavit Terrace, at the rear of the lounge offers al fresco dining at lunch time and has a light lunch of salads, sandwiches on homemade breads (yum!) and a soup of the day. There is a substantial breakfast buffet in the dining room, and also a short menu for to-order items. At lunch there is also a more limited buffet of salads and a made to order pasta dish, but most dishes are ordered from a menu. Dinner is off the menu and offers a choice of a meat dish(chicken, pork, beef or veal), fish, and a vegetarian choice. Theses were all very good, although some thought the portions were small. For those who thought the portions were too small, the servers were quite happy to bring an addtional portion or even a second selection off the menu. The dining room had large windows and it was quite pleasant to view the passing countryside as we cruised along.

Bottled water was provided for tours and the tour guides could not have been better. Also, a large bottle of mineral water was provided in the cabin each morning.

The top deck of the ship offered teak tables and chairs for relaxing as well as loungers. There were also some deck games and a lovely herb garden which was used by the chefs for the kitchen.

We so enjoyed our Viking cruise, we have another booked for 2014.

rjscott ~ thank SO much for the longship review! Mealtime sounds smilar to the Neptune last year, except al fresco dining - their alternate was the lounge which we enjoyed each day - found the menu almost the same as the dining room.

Hope all the kinks will be worked out by the time we board the Rinda in December!!!

rjscott: thanks so much for taking the time to post about your "longship" experience!!

rjscott ~ thank SO much for the longship review! Mealtime sounds smilar to the Neptune last year, except al fresco dining - their alternate was the lounge which we enjoyed each day - found the menu almost the same as the dining room.

 

Hope all the kinks will be worked out by the time we board the Rinda in December!!!

Hope you like the Rinda. That is the ship we've chosen for our 'Passage to Eastern Europe' cruise in 2014. :)

We really chise the itinerary first - DH wanted to sail on the Rhine River whicj we saw part of in a 2008 car tour. So I thought we'd combine it with the Christmas Markets which I've always wanted to so. The we picked the date and the Rinda was the ship! I knew she was a new ship and hoping by December she'll be "perfect"!!!!!

Will post a review and photos when we return - sounds like a l-o-n-g time off but I know it'll be here very quickly!!!!

We really chise the itinerary first - DH wanted to sail on the Rhine River whicj we saw part of in a 2008 car tour. So I thought we'd combine it with the Christmas Markets which I've always wanted to so. The we picked the date and the Rinda was the ship! I knew she was a new ship and hoping by December she'll be "perfect"!!!!!

 

Will post a review and photos when we return - sounds like a l-o-n-g time off but I know it'll be here very quickly!!!!

I'll be looking forward to your review and photos. We also chose our itinerary first. We are going with a couple whom we met on our 'Tulips' cruise. She can't go until the school break, so we were somewhat limited to early June and thereafter. And, we knew we wanted to go on a longship again, as we really didn't get to enjoy the upper deck much or even the Aquavit Terrace much on our first cruise, as our weather was quite chilly, with the exception of a day or two.

So, we chose the Passage to Eastern Europe for the itinerary, and the Rinda to see what changes Viking may have made since the first generation of the longships. We will be doing a 3-day postcruise stay in Prague as well. This is all very new to me, as before our 'Tulips' cruise I hadn't been to Europe at all. My husband had spent a good deal of time in Europe on business, so it's his mission to get me out of my comfort zone. ;) Prior to our first Viking cruise, our travels together were limited to the Caribbean, Hawaii,Mexico and a couple of trips to Australia.