ural guy

Great, that's the definition of how to approach these things. A CD with Viking told me that it is surprising to him that people will complain and complain, and never simply tell him what will make them satisfied. He thought they enjoyed the rant more?

Great write up, thanks. Nice that Viking took care of you after your poor experience on the optional cruise. From a business sense, it would be foolish of them not to respond to legitimate issues from such a long term customer as yourself. Judging by the tone of your writing style, I'm thinking it was a non-ranting style note you sent, and you were taken care of to your satisfaction. Cheers!

Wound up booking a September 2024 sailing on Riviera's Budapest to Black Sea cruise, a 14 night RT from Budapest. On 2024 sailings the drinks package is included for North Americans, not sure about other places. Interesting, they offer no pre or post cruise stays, nor optional tours. I'm fine with that, we book our own extensions, just surprised as that seems to be a big money maker on other lines. We had to put down roughly a 10% deposit, with final payment 100 days out. 10% discount for early booking a second deck cabin. We selected an 'oddball' cabin (one of 4 that either back up to the lift or a public bathroom), due to it's odd shape it's roughly 60 sq ft larger than the other French Balcony suites on the ship (Emily Bronte), and they tilt the bed towards the sliding door. Hopefully the lift noise doesn't have us regretting this choice. Wanted to try another line with Vantage going under, and we like the longer cruises, and chance to revisit a few spots we saw back in 2016.

Retirement looks to be good, just booked a Viking Ocean cruise boarding 20 Jan 2025; Italy, the Adriatic and Greece, 14 nights. Due to time of year the price/day was low (for Viking Ocean, not really low). Also looking to book a 14 nights Riveira September 2024 cruise, Budapest to the Black Sea, it's a round trip from Budapest. It is scheduled to stop at a few places our 2016 Vantage Lower Danube didn't, and it will be interesting to see how Vukovar is doing in their rebuilding effort. Spouse still will be working at this point, so had to clear with her work. With the 9 night Viking river cruise down the Rhine over Christmas coming up this December, that will be a full dance card as far as cruising goes...now just have to hope our dog sitter plan stays solid.

Wertheim, yes I remember now, in '14 Viking picked us up there, and we had a short amount of time. I think it was combined with a glassblower demonstration/sales event. When we went independently, we caught up with an old friend at a local festival, she lives just outside Wertheim. Ochsenfurt, I think they do a small walking tour in town, after Rothenburg. Either way, that area along the Main and the Tauber River, you could definitely spend a week or two wandering around. I extended twice to stay longer, and that was after 3 years being there. Mespelbrunn Castle, 1/2 way between Frankfurt and Wurzburg would be a great spot for any line to add. It's a short bus ride off the Main, maybe checking out .Aschaffenburg, board buses to the Castle, then get on boat in Wertheim. 63 km's on the road. https://www.gettingstamped.com/mespelbrunn-castle-germany-water-castle/

Notamermaid, thanks for posting. I'm looking at an April sailing with Riviera on the Rhone, and this thread came up on my search for info. I like the new 10 night cruises mentioned in the article you linked. "Cologne, the Rhine Gorge and Medieval Germany (from £2,999pp), which includes 10 guided tours of Cologne, Andernach, Rudesheim, Mainz, Miltenberg, Wertheim, Wurzburg, Ochsenfurt, Bamberg and Nuremberg. It also features a visit to Braubach, a drive along the Romantic Road to Rothenburg, and a sailing through the Rhine Gorge" Wertheim and Oschenfurt are two interesting small towns, definitely off the River Cruise path. Both are within 30 kms of where we were stationed in the 80's. Oschenfurt especially, my wife and I remember as a grey town we drove through, nothing memorable. We went back in 2013 with our two oldest daughters and revisited both. We enjoyed both, from the castle in Wertheim that you could climb all over and the great park riverside, to the new landscaping installed along the streets in Oschenfurt. Oschefurt had some really interesting fountains and waterways which I really liked, and was pleasant to stroll through. Both were such pleasant surprises, so happy to see their efforts recognized. Combining both towns with another stop is wise because even though charming, they can't fill more than a few hours. And the river distance between them isn't that great that they could fill time with sailing. Lastly, this cruise is nice in that you don't have to decide between Wurzburg or Rothenburg odt. You can do both.

Thanks for posting, no matter how great a trip it is, it's good to be home. Slainte.

The night cruise is a good idea. You said earlier you enjoyed history, here is a WW2 hospital you can visit: https://budacastlebudapest.com/hospital-in-the-rock-nuclear-bunker-budapest/ We really enjoyed Memento Park, they collected Communist era statues and put them in one place. They have them cleverly arranged, they have a statue of Lenin giving a fiery speech, and a group of soldiers are arranged with their backs to him. It does take a subway/bus combo or taxi to get to. Spouse and I thought this was very well done. https://www.mementopark.hu/en/home/ If you are tired of history and castles, the Budapest zoo was a nice break. Many of the buildings are gorgeous and constructed to look like castles and anything but a Monkey house. The animals appeared to be very well taken care of and the enclosures are a decent size. This was easy to get to on line one of the subway. It's the oldest subway line, only a few feet below street grade, and has gorgeous wood and brass trimmed cars. Or just wander along the Danube, and later go look for the Columbo statue, and if you find it, reward yourself with ice cream. If you fail, console yourself with ice cream. Enjoy.

Do you have extra time in Budapest? Plenty to see and do there, one of our favorite big cities.

Yikes, that heat doesn't sound fun at all. Thanks for asking, yes it was called the Cotton Club. The River Voyager originally had a jazz theme. Billie Holiday and I think Dizzie Gillespie and Louie Armstrong pictures were posted throughout the ship.

CruiseIreland- Looks like you had good weather for your sail through the castle area. Can you get lunch and dinner in the small lounge at the rear of the ship? The grill guy use to set up just outside, had some great meals there. Not being foodies, it was perfect for us.

Glad you got to stop in Pilsen. We stayed 3 nights there before our November cruise, a block from the main square shown in your picture. There was a festival going on for the patron saint, and had a great atmosphere, and tons of gluhwein to sample. A nice brewing city, the brewery tour took you into the fermentation caves and was a fun visit. We missed out first stop also and boarded in Passau, what you experienced happens unfortunately, and sounds like you'll make the most of the change and relax a bit. How many people are on your cruise?

Correct, merely by us being here, we've put more due diligence into this vacation than many. People book a river cruise so they don't have to plan much of anything, and they take the commercials at face value. Over on the Vantage Bankruptcy Facebook, there are still stories from nieces/sons/etc, writing in as their granny was supposed to be on a cruise sailing Thursday, and Tuesday when they went in to check in for flights, they get their fist clue that Vantage is no more. Many find overseas travel daunting, so they go 'set it and forget it' mode. When it goes south, they take the time to find various web forums to make their first post and the rant begins. For the record, we had lived overseas for a few years, and taken 5-6 independent trips at the time when we booked our first cruise of any type, one month prior to sailing. I researched out independent trips, not this cruise (AMS-BUD). Took two 20's daughter. They really missed that upper deck, lots of pent up energy. We somehow survived and had a blast. Docking: Viking does seem to double/triple raft more then other lines, at least from what I noticed. Vantage not owning their docking spots seemed to help, in our three trips with them we rafted infrequently. We did late season sailings that might have given us a different experience.... Yorkshireoldlad- good points, and you bringing them up, maybe somebody new notices them.

Yes, she was the River Voyager, and I see she is heading upstream from Vienna. We liked our FB cabins, not huge but well laid out. We sailed the older sister ship of the Voyager last November, and it didn't have the second staircase back by the Captains Club/second dining venue. Made a long hike to get to the coffee machine. If you are into history, with your three days in Prague, you may want to check out St Cyril's Church/Museum for a sobering experience. Well done exhibits. Looking forward to hearing about your cruise, thanks for posting and taking us along.

CruiseIreland- Have a great trip, we enjoyed our Prague stay last November. We sailed twice on your ship when she was with Vantage. We really enjoyed our time on board, and I think some refurbishments were done during Covid. Are you in aquarium class or French Balcony?

We were on a 2016 cruise that was supposed to go to Constanta, but low water prevented it. The good part was that when we left the ship to drive to Bucharest, we had to take a back route that really highlighted what bad shape the countryside was in. All the young people had left, only older people on pensions remained in the small villages. Vukovar was still recovering, and to me that made it more interesting. This was history that was only 20+ years old. Visited a family who had been removed from their home so that Bosnians could live there. They returned 7 years later, and were happy that their photos had been preserved by the residents. So I agree with RobinMN, it's definitely not a Castles on the Rhine cruise but to us, it was still interesting, maybe more so as we had been stationed in Germany back in the 80's, when we thought this region was part of the evil empire. We were able to head up to Brasov for 5 days on our own, and Transylvania was really interesting...but not for you if you're ending in Passau. Have a great time, Passau is also a great spot to spend some extra time if you can.

Only thing I haven't seen mentioned is that 'lounging on the sun deck'...on certain cruises, the sun deck can be off limits due to low bridges quite a bit. That came as a surprise to me on our first cruise, which was AMS-BUD.

I canceled one of those deals a few months ago, I only lost the $25/person. They did not ask for extra money.

Received notice last week of our flights for our 23 December cruise. They had missed our deviation request, which I was able to fix with a phone call and $100/person. Our airfare was part of a Viking promotion and $600/person. Today received our flights, SYR-Dulles-AMS, and return of Basel-LHR-BOS-SYR. Outbound on United, Return on American. Decent flights and connection times. Checking google flights, I couldn't have done better, especially if I booked myself it would be either United or American flights, not a combination. Able to pick all seats except one leg, which I'll try and line up. I was surprised as I wasn't supposed to get flights until 90 days prior to sailing. So we got them 2 mths ahead of schedule.

bundtkate- Great review, you stated what you liked and didn't and why, thanks. I often break away, or don't start the included tour. I've used the onboard bikes (defunct Vantage), or taken the train to a nearby town that interests you. My spouse would typically take the tour. Having the options was great. Some of the German lines offer the tours as add ons, Rad Reisen Eurocycle has cruises where you can rent a bike, or bring your own. Following the Red Lolipop, even with the QuietVox setup, is always going to feel like sheep being herded. I've also noticed that guides are sometimes stuck on 18th/19th Century history, and shy away from more recent events as they may be controversial. I'm more interested in recent events than Sisi mania it seems that we always hear about on the upper Danube cruises. We eat about 80% of our meals in the Aquavit (or Captains Club, Vantage), not a fan of long meals, and typically get to 'know' the wait staff there pretty well. Nice and relaxed to us. So I agree with you 100% here, I hope they are full staffed for our Christmas sailing. You could hop a train up the Rhine from Basel, stopping at various spots and take a day cruise of the castle section. Take a left at Koblenz, maybe rent a car at this point, and head up the Mosel. The vineyards on the slopes along the river were gorgeous when we were there one November. Good luck no matter where you choose to go, and via what means.

Syracuse and Watertown are 'home' airport. We've driven to NYC, Toronto and Montreal to get direct flights. I envy your options. Years ago, in San Francisco for a St Patrick's Day parade, they had floats advertising the direct San-Fran to Dublin flights you could book. Spouse and I couldn't believe that.

I think it comes down to if the non-stop costs more then the offered two connection flight, I believe that you are correct in that there in no mandatory fee for a non-stop flight. Somewhere I saw that Viking is the largest purchaser of airfare in the US. They have good deals in place for what they pay for airfare, and I don't there is a lot of relevance to the price you may see on google flights and what they offer you.

CDNPolar- On Vantage last November they had thin plastic gloves that were mandatory to use going through the buffet area. Maybe 75% complied. You could bring a small ziplock bag of those, for other times when handwashing isn't available. Happy sailing.

This is nice, a question that got positively resolved in 5 hours. Yeah team, good work!

Yep, in my mid 50's, and on Vantage, I was on the very young end. That teasing I'll take all day long!