add on to river cruise

Taking a Viking river cruise in April..last port is Budapest. I would like to add about 4 days on. Is it worth doing their extension to Prague, staying longer in Budapest or going to Prague on our own?

We enjoy both cities but, if I ended in Budapest I would definitely add nights there on my own and forego the group trip to Prague. Both cities are easy to visit independently.

With some planning, it is easy to visit on your own. Check Trip Advisor, too.

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We faced the same situation. Ended up planning (2) days in Prague pre-cruise and (2) days in Budapest post-cruise on our own. We are using AMA’s transportation from Prague to Vilshofen to make it a little easier...

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Where did your cruise depart from?

We enjoy both cities but, if I ended in Budapest I would definitely add nights there on my own and forego the group trip to Prague. Both cities are easy to visit independently.

Thank you! Any hotel suggestions?

I think Budapest is good for 3 nights max.. i can highly recommend the Four Seasons hotel. Check Trip Advisor for hotel reviews and rankings.

Where did your cruise depart from?

It will depart from Vilshofen, Germany - about 3 hours from Prague. We are traveling first week in April...staying in King’s Court Hotel in Prague and Kempinski Hotel Corvinus in Budapest. Both get good reviews on TripAdvisor and are pretty reasonable / good location.

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Scenic uses the Art Deco Imperial in Prague and the Budapest Marriott in Pest. We have upgraded to suites in both hotels.

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The Marriott Millennium Apartments in Budapest are very centrally located. We stayed there a few years ago--shared a 2 bedroom apt. with friends. Living room separated

the 2 bedrooms. Each had their own bathroom. Great restaurant just to the left towards Vaca Utci. Across the street was a bakery. We sent the guys for breakfast and enjoyed a quiet time before boarding the boat.

We have also stayed at the Best Western Parliament a bit further from the center of town--really nice included breakfast and afternoon treats.

It will depart from Vilshofen, Germany - about 3 hours from Prague. We are traveling first week in April...staying in King’s Court Hotel in Prague and Kempinski Hotel Corvinus in Budapest. Both get good reviews on TripAdvisor and are pretty reasonable / good location.

 

 

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Thanks for the suggestions..Ill look into those hotels!

The Marriott Millennium Apartments in Budapest are very centrally located. We stayed there a few years ago--shared a 2 bedroom apt. with friends. Living room separated

the 2 bedrooms. Each had their own bathroom. Great restaurant just to the left towards Vaca Utci. Across the street was a bakery. We sent the guys for breakfast and enjoyed a quiet time before boarding the boat.

We have also stayed at the Best Western Parliament a bit further from the center of town--really nice included breakfast and afternoon treats.

Thank you ! Ill check into those apps - not sure yet if the other couple we are going with will be adding on to the trip but this sounds perfect if they do!

Maybe the answer depends on when (or if) you plan to return to Europe. I am also assuming that this will be your first visits to these cities, so you need/want to hit all of the major sights.

Both Budapest and Prague are well worth a few days. Four days between the two of them would be tight, and you'd lose half a day traveling so you might come away from the visits with a sense that you missed a lot, and need to go back to both of them to fill in the gaps.

We did a river cruise out of Budapest in April 2016. We arrived on a Friday night, spent two nights at the Four Seasons, then embarked the ship on Sunday. The ship did not sail until Monday dinner time, so we had 3 full days in town as well as the first night, which we spent entirely on our own.

Even though we hustled around and got a lot done, there is still stuff left to do there. If we'd only had two days, or 1-1/2 days, I'd feel that it would not have been nearly enough. I did a picture review/blog on cruise critic, if you want to see exactly what we did in that time - link in my signature.

We went to Prague independently this past May and gave ourselves 3 days (arrival day, and two full days). That was enough to see most but not all of the things on our list. Anything less would have been too little time, I think. I posted pictures elsewhere from the Prague trip (link).

So, do you do a superficial visit to both, or do one in-depth and come back to visit the other later? If this is your only trip, I guess you should try to see the highlights of both, but realize that it will be superficial. My preference would be to visit Budapest in depth and save Prague for later...this is how we did it, but we knew that we'd be back.

The Marriott Millennium Apartments in Budapest are very centrally located. We stayed there a few years ago--shared a 2 bedroom apt. with friends. Living room separated

the 2 bedrooms. Each had their own bathroom. Great restaurant just to the left towards Vaca Utci. Across the street was a bakery. We sent the guys for breakfast and enjoyed a quiet time before boarding the boat.

=

Another vote for this great property. Loved the location and the space.

If you have never visited Prague I highly recommend going there. Everyone should visit Prague a least once in their lifetime. It's a magical city and was one of the highlights of our Grand European Tour.

We did spent a couple of nights at the Four Seasons in Budapest prior to taking the train to Vienna for our last cruise. Outstanding hotel! There is a reason it is consistently voted the top hotel in Europe. We loved Budapest but felt it deserved more time, so we're spending 4 nights pre-cruise there in 2018 and 4 nights post-cruise in Prague (our first visit there). I wouldn't stay less than 3 nights, whichever you choose.