Viking river cruises

We usually cruise Princess but thought about these river cruises. Can someone tell me what you actually get by way if drink at lunch and dinner which looks to be included. One drink per meal or is it a bit more free flowing?

I assume you can buy additional drinks wine and spirits if you wish.

Thanks in advance.

You can have wine, beer and soft drinks. Never found that there was a limit. We had lots of beer on the Taste of Germany lunch. The servers were carrying glasses filled with beer around to the tables.

We just returned from the Paris cruise, March 24-31. You have a choice of soft drink, tea, water, coffee, beer, or house wine at no charge during meals. On the wine they are constantly refilling glasses, or asking if you need another drink. I usually had both wine and soft drinks. Outside of meal times, you can order a drink from the bar on a tab charged to your room bill. When coming in from tours, they always had a tray of some drink ready, and coffee / hot choc was always available at a help-youself station. Free bottles of water are also available for tours.

Breakfast is a buffet, and if anything is lacking on it..I'm not sure what it would be. Stations of cheese, meat, fruit, cereal, breads, pastries, hot dishes are out, and you can order from a menu -- omelet, pancakes, etc. There is sit-down order lunch in the dining room, or a lunch buffet in the lounge. Usually a choice of 2 main entrees, soup, salad and dessert. Dinner again choices for appetizer, main entree, dessert, and if you don't like the choices chicken, steak or fish is always available to order. We mixed and matched on the menus. I don't think they deny much. They really do try to please.

Some who are used to ocean cruising buffets, and 24/7 food available, may be disapointed. We were not. The selections and servings are smaller, but we never went hungry.

Also Viking offers a drink plan, but it is expensive and both in cabin have to purchase. Don't buy it. We ordered several drinks a day, and our bill was less than 1/3 of the plan price.

Jackieo,

Also, unlike the ocean cruise ships, where they search your bags for contraband liquor, Viking encourages you to bring onboard wine and/or beer from the ports for your enjoyment. Many of the ports you may visit have a specialty beverage which you may want to purchase to enjoy onboard. When we visited Belgium, my husband purchased several beers that he wanted to try, and we kept them in our mini-fridge in our cabin.

jackieo ~ as rjscott said you can bring drinks onboard and even bring a bottle (or more) to dinner ~ and there's no corkage charge! (after all you're actually saving them money if you drink your own wine!)

We found the wine (and beer, etc) free flowing at lunch and dinner - plus a bottle of champagne available at the breakfast buffet! But after a few eveings the guys at our table wanted to try some of the wine from our tours - no problem! They had bought red and one of our ladies only drank white - staff poured her drinks from their bottles and ours from the ones the guys had brought to dinner!!

Very unlike big boat cruises!!!

This is good to hear! I didn't realize the policy was so different from ocean cruises regarding bringing your own bottles on board.

With Viking there's a world of difference - and from what I gather from other comments - most of the River Cruises also allow you to bring on as much as you'd like - althought not sure about bringing bottles to dinner.

Boarding the river boats is also SO different - no security or scanning so almost no lines - even when 2-3 buses pull up at the same time! And I found all the passengers on our trip to be SO polite - especially at the buffet breakfast and lunch (served buffet in the lounge).

After tours, as we reboarded, there was usually some kind of drink for us - also a pleasant surprise! And leaving in the rain they would hand out umbrellas - no matter what level cabin you were in!!!!