VIKING PASSENGERS - were you cruising on The Danube on 2 June 2013?

If you were a passenger on any of the Viking cruises on The Danube (or any of the other flooding European rivers) on or around 2 June 2013 - would love to hear from you and your experiences and how Viking are now treating you?

I was a passenger on the Viking Danube Waltz which left Budapest on 2 June 2013, on Viking Legend - we didn't even cruise a single millimetre.

I also know the Viking Bragi was moored next to us in Kormano for several days - I think this was Viking's Grand European Tour. I'm guessing you had as enjoyable cruise as us - just guessing! :p

I'm sure we're not alone.

Our reviews are coming ... they're not pretty!

Friends were sailing Amsterdam-Budapest end of May. Up to Frankfurt it was o.k., after it was buses and hotels.

They also were absolutely not happy how things went. Of course nobody has influence in the waterlevel etc., but it probably would have been cancelling the cruise in Frankfurt

Sorry, Amtico, that your cruise turned out to be no cruise at all. But this has been the worst flood situation for more than 500 years! It broke every so far recorded record.

I doubt that any ship did cruise by that time as the rivers were closed for navigation by the authorities. I´ve checked Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest and all cities were "crowded" with stranded river cruise ships. Some ships had to dock offside in an industrial harbor as the main docking areas were already filled up.

steamboats

Thank you.

Yes, we're trying to get in touch with other Viking customers who were meant to be sailing at this time - to find out how they were treated by the company at the time and also since they've arrived home. :)

We were moored in Kormano, a small industrial harbour, alongside the Viking Bragi and two other ships - until evacuated.

Sorry, Amtico, that your cruise turned out to be no cruise at all. But this has been the worst flood situation for more than 500 years! It broke every so far recorded record.

 

I doubt that any ship did cruise by that time as the rivers were closed for navigation by the authorities. I´ve checked Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest and all cities were "crowded" with stranded river cruise ships. Some ships had to dock offside in an industrial harbor as the main docking areas were already filled up.

 

steamboats

We were scheduled to sail on the Viking Vienna for the Romantic Danube cruise. We were taken to the ship near Nuremberg. For the next week, we endured a non cruise, since we didn't go anywhere except for one short "sailing". Instead we were herded around on buses for many hours, not allowed to ask questions of our cruise director and generally treated like cattle. Many of the Viking people were rude and refused to help us at all. We were moved after a few days on the ship and made to travel by bus and change hotels often. Now we are being refused any type of refund! We paid for a cruise that we did not get! I would love to hear from others on our "cruise".

wow lots of disappointed and angry people. really hope their concerns will be addressed soon.

some on other cruise lines have reported they have had their cruises handled in a more positive and appropriate manner on this forum and in other places.

perhaps others had the benefit of advocacy or legal representation? certainly this needs to be addressed. none of us would be happy about the treatment being reported.

clearly some cruises should not have proceeded after state of emergency and rivers were closed to traffic, in some areas?

a lot will be learnt from this disaster no doubt.

Hi angsue - thank you for replying to the thread.

It appears you were treated fairly similarly to us on the 2 June Danube Waltz cruise - though we never actually moved anywhere on board the ship.

Before we finished our 'holiday' a gentleman collected quite a few email addresses of fellow cruisers - both from the UK and USA, so we could stay in touch.

Are you in the UK, USA or elsewhere? :)

Please keep in touch via this thread, if you want to, hopefully some other passengers from your cruise will also join in.

Our cruise should never have taken place or been cancelled within first couple of days and full refunds given.

Viking's treatment of us has been disgraceful so far. :(

We were scheduled to sail on the Viking Vienna for the Romantic Danube cruise. We were taken to the ship near Nuremberg. For the next week, we endured a non cruise, since we didn't go anywhere except for one short "sailing". Instead we were herded around on buses for many hours, not allowed to ask questions of our cruise director and generally treated like cattle. Many of the Viking people were rude and refused to help us at all. We were moved after a few days on the ship and made to travel by bus and change hotels often. Now we are being refused any type of refund! We paid for a cruise that we did not get! I would love to hear from others on our "cruise".

I am in the US and am in touch with a few fellow travelers both here and in Canada. We would love to hear from others who were in our group. One woman collected email addresses, but we haven't heard from her. We feel there is no doubt that our horrible experience warrants a refund by Viking. So far tey have shown us customer-no-service!

I´m pretty sure that Viking will respond to this thread (as they did before). They are monitoring this board. If you check the other threads you will see that Viking posted information here about the flood situation (as did other river cruise lines).

Please keep in mind that this has been an extreme situation also for the staff onboard. There might have been mistakes. But what would have you done in that situation being the CD of a river cruise ship with 120 or more people on it. Please also think of all those people who have lost everything in the flood. You haven´t lost anything except for a nice vacation. Legally a cruise company doesn´t owe any refund as weather and river conditions are out of their control (read the fine print). Most companies do give a refund or future cruise credit.

I´ve been into that situation during the 2005 flood and my cruise ended after 23 hours. The rest was bussing. We had the choice of a 25% refund or 50% cruise credit. But this was a German cruise company. Anyway we weren´t able to change anything so we made lemonade out of lemons and had fun! This is part of river cruising. I had river cruises in the US which were cut short due to flooding (and I never got anything, no refund, nothing).

steamboats

II understand your points. My point is that we never should have been taken from Prague to Nuremberg to get on the ship. The cruise should have been cancelled while we were still in Prague and our money refunded at that time. In an article the CEO of Viking, Thorsten Hagen was quoted as saying, "Obviously to be on a bus is not nice". I agree with Mr. Hagen on that and hope his company has the integrity to do the right thing.

Steamboats - you presume far too much, with no evidence, that we have not considered the people who live in the region! I feel quite insulted by that comment, frankly. :(

The point is that the cruise should never have taken place or we should have been given the option, after shared information, to either cancel or continue and hope for the best, with refund if cancelled. That option was not given - unlike the passengers of Tauck and Avalon, on similar cruises at the same time.

One of our number has now completed his research in to how The Danube is monitored, condition reports before we sailed and forecasts (this is my idiot summary) - Viking were fully aware, as were all the river cruise lines, obviously conditions are monitored closely by all the operators. Viking decided to go ahead, not informing us, several other cruise lines did not, as mentioned above.

According to Travel Weekly (http://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/River-cruise-lines-lose-millions-of-dollars-to-European-flooding/), Viking should be able to afford to offer more compensation:

As a reasonably well travelled kiwi (about to head north to the otherside of the world for the 7th time in 10 yrs) and leaving in 8 days for a Europe River cruise I have read Cruise Critic twice daily for the last 2 weeks checking on rivers problems and how its being handled.

Amtico - I support your stand 100%

Steamboat - your are off the mark, with no hard facts.

Viking performance is shocking and there should be a big warning that if this is how they handle problems, its is how the whole company operators and I would recommend that no one in their right mind should risk their money on a operator like they are.

I will certainly be advising all our kiwi friends who ask us for travel advise to stay well clear of this company

Thank you - it appears they could afford it, certainly.

According to Travel Weekly (http://www.travelweekly.com/River-Cruising/River-cruise-lines-lose-millions-of-dollars-to-European-flooding/), Viking should be able to afford to offer more compensation:

 

Since Viking River Cruises has the most river cruise ships sailing Europe’s inland waterways, the flooding also caused it to do the most juggling. As of late last week, the company had canceled 13 sailings and modified 25 itineraries.

 

“There is a financial impact anytime we have to cancel a sailing,” Richard Marnell, senior vice president of marketing at Viking, wrote in an email. “

With the 2013 season nearly sold out and vibrant sales already for the 2014 season, Viking’s breadth provides the ability to withstand such an impact.

”

Thank you Peter. :)

Viking (in the UK and USA) are so far not responding to any of our communications, we are a group formed largely from both those countries, which is extremely disappointing.

It's a shame, as their reputation is now being tarnished somewhat online, in various locations and, of course, by word of mouth.

I hope your upcoming European River Cruise is wonderful and passes by without incident! :D

As a reasonably well travelled kiwi (about to head north to the otherside of the world for the 7th time in 10 yrs) and leaving in 8 days for a Europe River cruise I have read Cruise Critic twice daily for the last 2 weeks checking on rivers problems and how its being handled.

Amtico - I support your stand 100%

Steamboat - your are off the mark, with no hard facts.

 

Viking performance is shocking and there should be a big warning that if this is how they handle problems, its is how the whole company operators and I would recommend that no one in their right mind should risk their money on a operator like they are.

I will certainly be advising all our kiwi friends who ask us for travel advise to stay well clear of this company

My argument over the years has been that these river cruise companies must know all this in advance of a cruise. We do so why wouldn't they. BUT it's a business and they want to get you onboard then pretend that this situation just happened without warning so onto the busses you go. They'll probably throw in a future cruise credit voucher, take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune from their passengers on CC but all the time they're safe in the knowledge that they have your money in their bank.

Amtico

Good luck in your battle, if I was in your shoes, nothing less than 100% cash refund + discount on a rebooking would be acceptable. Others such as Avalon have offered that.

We are in UK for 10 days for Goodwood Festival of Speed, hope you have some good weather for us. We have major flooding in South Island with major snow storms expected in next 24hrs, so it would be nice to have some summer weather to look forward too.

Indeed. One of our group now has gathered evidence from ICPDR that forecasts conditions on the entire length of The Danube, accurately, 48 hours in advance and also 7 day advance conditions too. (I'm stating it in very simplistic terms there).

These reports are used by all the cruise companies. They knew, well in advance, so could have cancelled the cruise, at the last minute or given us the option to continue, after being informed of possible conditions, so we could make an informed choice.

The Viking Rep who met us at Budapest informed us that "the river was a LITTLE high" & we would be taken to a hotel for about an hour or so, until conditions improved, when we would be taken to the ship to begin our cruise.

Agreed, After watching my flatscreen being flooded with Viking River Cruise commericials I was going to book our first river cruise with the company. While on the Celebrity Infinity T/A in May a couple steered us toward the Uniworld Antoinette. After reading this forum we are so glad they did so.

Many of the Viking people were rude and refused to help us at all. We were moved after a few days on the ship and made to travel by bus and change hotels often. Now we are being refused any type of refund! We paid for a cruise that we did not get! I would love to hear from others on our "cruise".

That is not the impression that i have gotten from reading the viking posts both here and on the viking website. I, as a fellow cruiser on dry land, thought you were being well looked after AND being compensated fairly by viking for a situation that only Mother Nature could control .

I am disappointed as a two time past viking customer to hear of how you are being " handled" . I hope you get some more satisfaction in the near future...keep us informed.

Dear angsue,

Based on your post there is much we need to apologize for. The comments you’ve shared about your experience with our staff are surprising to hear – and disheartening. We know how hard they’ve been working these past few weeks, sometimes under particularly challenging circumstances, and we won’t disregard your sentiment or make excuses, but will simply say that this does not sound like the typical experience with our crew and is not the standard we strive to adhere to – and we are truly sorry.

We hope you received an email from Viking with an offer of compensation. Based on the statement that you’re being refused any type of refund we’re concerned that this email possibly did not reach you. Please contact us at TellUs@vikingcruises.com – we want to help.

With sincere apologies,

Viking Cruises

We were scheduled to sail on the Viking Vienna for the Romantic Danube cruise. We were taken to the ship near Nuremberg. For the next week, we endured a non cruise, since we didn't go anywhere except for one short "sailing". Instead we were herded around on buses for many hours, not allowed to ask questions of our cruise director and generally treated like cattle. Many of the Viking people were rude and refused to help us at all. We were moved after a few days on the ship and made to travel by bus and change hotels often. Now we are being refused any type of refund! We paid for a cruise that we did not get! I would love to hear from others on our "cruise".

Hi Amtico,

We responded in another thread, but it very much bears repeating: we are truly sorry for your disappointment in how your cruise was altered and the struggles you’ve had reaching a Viking representative after returning home. We know you’re frustrated and upset and we would like to help, if possible. Please email us at TellUs@vikingcruises.com. And if there are other members of the group mentioned here that you would like to either copy to that email or include their names there within, we’d of course like to help them too.

Our Customer Relations team has been experiencing a very high volume of calls and emails, and therefore it is taking more than our standard amount of time to get back to our guests. We do care and wouldn’t want you to feel like we are disregarding your concerns when in all likelihood our teams are working as hard as they can to maintain individual communications with guests who have returned home, guests who are currently sailing, and guests who are about to travel and have questions – and are struggling a bit to get back to everyone in the timeframe that guests would ideally prefer. Again, we want to help, so please do email us at the above address.

Kind regards,

Viking Cruises

Viking (in the UK and USA) are so far not responding to any of our communications, we are a group formed largely from both those countries, which is extremely disappointing.

Dear Viking - thank you for your response.

I personally am in the UK and booked this holiday directly via Viking UK (I have been in touch with them, with no response) - does this apply to me?

If not, I would be grateful, if YOU could liaise with your UK office so that they will respond to me and my fellow UK passengers.

Please note that our CRUISE was not 'altered' - we did not cruise a single millimetre, it was turned in to a coach excursion trip, trips of quite staggering length, culminating with a 12.25 hour (with 3 stops) evacuation to Munich.

I shall make sure the American passengers are aware of this.

I look forward to reading your follow up post on here. Thank you.

Hi Amtico,

 

We responded in another thread, but it very much bears repeating: we are truly sorry for your disappointment in how your cruise was altered and the struggles you’ve had reaching a Viking representative after returning home. We know you’re frustrated and upset and we would like to help, if possible. Please email us at TellUs@vikingcruises.com. And if there are other members of the group mentioned here that you would like to either copy to that email or include their names there within, we’d of course like to help them too.

 

Our Customer Relations team has been experiencing a very high volume of calls and emails, and therefore it is taking more than our standard amount of time to get back to our guests. We do care and wouldn’t want you to feel like we are disregarding your concerns when in all likelihood our teams are working as hard as they can to maintain individual communications with guests who have returned home, guests who are currently sailing, and guests who are about to travel and have questions – and are struggling a bit to get back to everyone in the timeframe that guests would ideally prefer. Again, we want to help, so please do email us at the above address.

 

Kind regards,

Viking Cruises

Dear Amtico,

We did see that you are in the UK – and yes, it absolutely still applies to you. You are a Viking guest and that means that no matter where you are located, we want to help you connect with the Viking team member (no matter the office or department) best suited to assist with your concern. If you’re open to the suggestion, we’d recommend the following:

• Please do email TellUs@vikingcruises.com. It will help us put together guest details such as name and booking number that can be shared with our colleagues in the UK so that they can assist you as quickly as possible. We will happily do the initial liaising on your behalf, and the UK office will reach out to you. There’s one small thing we ask… it’s quite late here in the States and we’re about to turn in for the night, so please do email us and believe that we’ll begin working on it for you as soon as possible, but there will likely be a bit of delay due to time/day difference. (Very sorry about that, honestly.)
   
  
• Please also share this email address with the other members of your group so that we can try to assist there, as well.
  

Very best,

Viking Cruises

Dear Viking - thank you for your response.

 

I personally am in the UK and booked this holiday directly via Viking UK (I have been in touch with them, with no response) - does this apply to me?

If not, I would be grateful, if YOU could liaise with your UK office so that they will respond to me and my fellow UK passengers.

 

Please note that our CRUISE was not 'altered' - we did not cruise a single millimetre, it was turned in to a coach excursion trip, trips of quite staggering length, culminating with a 12.25 hour (with 3 stops) evacuation to Munich.

 

I shall make sure the American passengers are aware of this.

 

I look forward to reading your follow up post on here. Thank you.

Steamboat - your are off the mark, with no hard facts.

Peter,

You´re off the mark! Sorry, but I can´t see any hard facts provided by you either. I´m on this board for years now.

UK Bayern, ingo_e and I are locals and we have been following the German news both on TV and print. All the three of us did keep you informed about what was going on. We also followed the websites showing the water levels. So I do know my facts.

As for Passau the warnings were altered more or less by the hour. At the beginning they did expect a "century high". But no one thought it might be more than 2005 and 2002. Passau hit the record of 1951 and then of 1506 (no older records noted).

Viking started to post changes on June 3rd, see here. Uniworld started posting on June 3rd, see here. Avalon was the first company to react on June 1st, see here. Sure Amtico´s non cruise did already start on June 2nd.

Amtico, I´m sorry, I didn´t want to insult anybody with my remark about the people living there and having lost everything. It was just to remind everyone that there are people who have lost much more. Take it into relation: You have lost a nice vacation experience and whatever you have paid for the cruise (and it´s still not clear whether Viking is getting you a partial refund or not). The people living there have lost their homes and won´t be able to return for months. And there is no insurance covering all the damage. Near Deggendorf they are finally able to see what had happend. But there´s still water in the homes which were covered up to the roof. Along the Elbe river the situation is still grave and they hope that the dams will not break.

For every river cruise company it is a tough decision what to do - cancel a cruise or trying to work it out with partially buses and swaping ships. Maybe Viking has made a wrong decision or maybe their decision to cancel came in too late. From previous high or low water situations I do know that Viking had problems with their communication onboard. I can´t judge about how it was handled this time. But I also know that handling a situation like this is pretty tough. And reading comments like "subpar hotels" (in another thread) or "herded like cattle" is also off the mark. It is pretty hard to accomodate more than 100 people according to the ships standard on a last minute basis. Hotel capacities aren´t easy to get in some areas. And remember it´s not only one ship with this problem. Same with meals. No regular restaurant can provide a meal for 100 people (or more) without any pre warning (they have to buy the supplies first).

Ships can´t cruise when the authorities have closed the rivers for navigation. So what´s the choice? Stay onboard and do or see nothing at all? Or go on a bus and see at least a bit. Sure you all haven´t booked a bus trip and didn´t want to do a bus trip.

I´ve told you that I´ve been in that situation during the 2005 flood. We - at least - cruised from Passau with a stop in Dürnstein to Vienna. There we got stuck for the rest of the cruise. When we departed Passau I saw the parking lot already flooded where we unloaded our bags only a couple of hours before (the car went into a save garage). We were bussed to Budapest for an overnight trip with hotel accomodation. And definitely the folklore dinner was not up to par with the standards of the river cruise company (back then it was Deilmann, which was 5 star). But they wanted to offer us a dinner and entertainment. We had a bus trip to Bratislava and skipped the day trip to Melk staying in Vienna. And of course we had to go back to Passau - by bus on a 6 hour trip which is no fun having a 5 yo kid with you. BTW our CD was on his first trip ever and I´m pretty sure that he didn´t get any sleep during that week!

I´m also aware that they way the staff is communicating and handling the situation is very important and can make a big difference.

I´m not defending Viking at all. I just want to give you a different point of view and some facts you might not have thought of yet. I totally understand that you are upset. And I´m pretty sure that some things could have worked out better. But at some point someone has to make a decision. It might have been a good or a bad one.

steamboats