Ozjohnno

I'm not hearing much about Tauck. Worth looking at? Some of the reviews make it sound like the on-shore tours is where Tauck is good.

IMO Tauck excels in all departments and we found that if you do a simple spread-sheet you'll find that Tauck is not as expensive as others. They are truly all-inclusive and for me their passenger to crew ratio is the best on the rivers.

Once again I feel I have to put in a plug for the "forgotten" all-inclusive line Tauck. I have no dietary problems but a lady we cruised with did and the Chef went out of his way to ensure she had the best of her requirements. My daughter-in-law is a Celiac and I know just how hard it is to get gluten free food on the run.

As for a classical concert Tauck provide a great night out in Vienna with one of the very best shows I have ever seen. The night at the Palace was the highlight of our cruise. As an Australian I really like Tauck's all-inclusive price with everything covered.

I hope you find the cruise you are looking for but be aware that once you've cruised on the rivers you will be hooked.

I find the question almost impossible to answer. It's like asking someone do you like steak or fish? They both have admirable qualities.

I have no idea where Viking takes you to taste Chateauneuf de Pap but when I went with Tauck in 2014 they took us to the actual vineyard for the tasting and I got to taste some of the best reds I have ever tasted in Europe. I noted in my CC review ....

"and the French Popes own vineyard the Chateauneuf du Pape where I tasted some of the best reds I’d drunk in all of France and even a Roman influence here as the cellars are part of the Roman system."

I also like to visit History but the tour to Pont de Gard was not on that particular itinerary. You have a tough choice but if all that Viking do is take you to a wine bar for the tasting then go see Roman history.

Thanks for posting the stories. How long do cases like this usually take from this point in the Australian legal system?

As is probably the case in your part of the world it will depend on the witness list. I would suspect we don't get an answer for at least 6 weeks. I'll try and keep an eye on it but class action suits like this one don't garner a lot of publicity down here.

Just read this on one of our news sites and thought it may be of interest to our readers. If you recall this incident and others of the floods of 2013 made many Australian Scenic customers very unhappy. The news story is attached.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/luxury-river-cruise-holiday-like-backpackers-tour-court-told/7358206

Incredible ! With all the Viking cruisers posting confusion here on CC. You would think Viking could have taken an extra "sentence" to answer this shuttle question once & for all ! *** is about all I can say :(

From my time on this board all Viking ever do is apologise and request you email them. Not once have I ever read anything that explains any of their staff's actions. You get what you pay for.

We are booked on Ms Emerald Taste of France August 2016. What is the dress for men and women for dinner? We have cruised AMA and Viking and men did not wear jackets for dinner on either

There is no requirement for a jacket at dinner when you sail with Tauck. I wore slacks and either a short sleeved shirt or a polo at dinner and that was as formal as it got for me though some Americans preferred to wear a coat. As for the ladies they all seemed quite lovely in whatever they chose to wear. I'm very sure you'll enjoy your cruise with Tauck and I'm looking forward to your review and comparison with the other lines you have cruised with on the rivers.

What many forget is that when you add up all the "extras" you could have had an all-inclusive cruise for a similar price. Even those who wave the Viking flag proudly have to admit that to charge $89 p/p to see an attraction that the public can see/taste for free is just a bit much.

This going to come across as biased and it is.

As an Australian who has been fortunate to taste and more importantly drink many wines from around the world except for a Chateauneuf du Pape 2008 that I had the great fortune to drink on a Tauck cruise in 2014, I have never found a wine that has the body of an Australian Shiraz or the South Australian Cabernet's. I could talk for hours about Australian wines and I did particularly on our river cruises with any nationality that would listen but everybody has their own personal taste. During my "wine appreciation learning years" the best advice I got from a famous Australian wine maker was - never recommend a wine to someone as the best you've ever tasted because if he doesn't like it then he'll always think your taste for wine comes out of your bum. Offer wine at all times but never recommend it.

Told you I was biased.

I agree that the article above does not give every little detail of what is a most distressing incident but once again it highlights the customer service or more importantly lack of it with Viking who seem to spend more time addressing incidents in these forums that should have never have gotten here if their customers had been given straight forward truthful answers when they first phoned in. I've been reading about incidents with their customer service division and the subsequent putting out of the fire by Viking on CC since I joined this board back in 2010.

One thing is clear. Viking either have the highest turnover of office staff or they simply don't care. I've found that it is not good business practice to be reactive all the time when some simple proactive measures can be put in place with a little training.

That's rather offensive; are you equating Viking customers with McDonald's customers?

You'll read anything you want into a post won't you? If I wanted to be offensive I would have clearly made an offensive post. To translate from the Australian I was giving an analogy that if you want to travel with a company that has many additional costs not covered in the price of the cruise then you should not complain when you have to pay "for the Fries".

Read into that what you will.

As McDonald's has proven over the years there are many people who like a "Do you want Fries with that" company.

Tauck is very pricey so I'm not surprised they would be considered one of the best.

There is quite a deal of myth in this statement. If you take some time and a spreadsheet you'll find that Tauck is not always the most expensive. In fact for their 2016 sailings many of them were not as expensive as either Scenic or Uniworld. IMO they are very competitive in price and superior in what they offer and Yes! that is a biased opinion.

Tasmania is a wild and beautiful place to tour but personally I would somewhat fear cruising around its nooks and crannies. When the wind blows from the south or the West and it does on a regular basis the waters around Tasmania become very lumpy. I was "lucky" enough to visit Tasmania one summer and to no ones surprise, from Tasmanian's anyway, it snowed on Xmas day in the capital Hobart.

I have cruised twice with Tauck but alas not with AMA but I can say that I could not find one thing to criticise Tauck on from the accommodation to the food and their outstanding relationships forged between the TD's and the customers who cruised with them. They are truly all-inclusive and I continue to be stunned by those who feel they suppress, in some manner, the independence of the cruiser or even more strangely that a component of a Tauck river cruise when compared to AMA would in someway be of no interest to anyone.

Just a thought.

Who is offering the FREE air?? What I mean is that different cruise lines have different reputations as to what you can expect.

Just for information because this appears to be for Australian/New Zealand customers but Scenic are offering free business class airfares on selected cruises and dates in 2017. Perhaps they intend to do something similar for Nth American customers as well?

When I travelled with Tauck in 2011 and 2014 the Australian dollar was quite strong and Scenic's prices were comparable on one and dearer on the other. Currently the Australian dollar has dropped considerably against the US dollar and it is quite logical to see that a Scenic cabin costs less. It is just my opinion that a TA should give a client opinions and options on a number of cruise lines and not push a client towards a "particular one" no matter what the reasons. It's your holiday not theirs.

I've traveled with Tauck and my sister with Scenic and we both had nothing but good things to say about both of them. The one thing though that stood out in the OP's post was that he was thinking of going with Tauck and his TA wants to switch him to Scenic. The first thing I'd want to know is why? Is there an incentive for the OP or his TA to go with Scenic? Just thinking out loud.

Another one sided report. I find it amusing that a writer makes incorrect or even misleading comments on other lines whilst cruising on another. Makes me think this writer had a cruise that was comped.

Well we Australians won't have to worry any more about this offer as Viking has stated it's not available to us.

I realise that travel insurance in Australia is very different to North America but I can't see how Viking can do this. Surely if you pay the insurance cost upfront and then cancel you must lose the cost of the policy otherwise whoever is underwriting the policy will never make any money. It does sound too good to be true.

This holiday and tradition may be foreign to we Aussies but may you all have a great day.

We are scheduled to arrive in CDG before 8 in the morning. I'm thinking of getting tickets in advance and hitting the Eiffel Tower, to the top, that day. Assuming we eat lunch/snack near the Tower, does this seem doable?

Definitely. We did something similar on our Paris visit. We arrived at CDG around 7am and pre-booked tickets for the Tower for that afternoon. We even had time to fit in the top of my wish list - a picnic lunch on the banks of the Seine.

No mention of Tauck anywhere. Perhaps they didn't pay the "joining fee".

This is a thread about Tauck, why is everybody piling on about AMA?

 

Do they have "gentle walker" groups on excursions?

I've cruised twice with Tauck and to my knowledge they did not have an "advertised" Gentle Walker group but as Tauck have 3 TD's they always had someone to look after those who didn't walk as fast as others. Tauck are a class above the the rest and everyone is treated special.