Views, pro and con, on the new Viking Mississippi River Cruises.

[OnTheJourney]

9 hours ago, gsutiger2 said:

Does it appear Viking is working out the Mississippi River kinks?

 

Judging from our cruise back in October, I'd say they have things running pretty smoothly. Problem is with the river (low water level / barge traffic), not Viking. Only thing was not enough turnover time between disembarking / embarkation. Trying to get to lunch that first day was a nightmare. You could wind up standing in line for over an hour. Part of the dining room wasn't open either. Ship is beautiful though.

Edited February 22 by OnTheJourney

[big_red5312]

On 11/15/2023 at 5:58 AM, Host Jazzbeau said:

Yes, for us too. Hoping for same in NZ and Oz next year. 

WE are using  cell over wi-fi on viking sky where we are currently on world cruise. .Good reception all locations around NZ, Aus, Tasman SEa and all over south pacific ocean

[steamboats]

13 hours ago, OnTheJourney said:

 Problem is with the river (low water level / barge traffic), not Viking.

 

As in Europe it is partly a Viking problem... Also the ship for the Mississippi river draws too much water and therefore is getting into troubles early when the water is low. They did not listen to the experts when they buildt the ship. Same for "we don´t need a stage to get people on and off the ship".

 

steamboats

[gsutiger2]

On 2/22/2024 at 11:23 AM, Roz said:

Blown away in a good or bad way?

Bad

[OnTheJourney]

On 2/23/2024 at 2:19 AM, steamboats said:

Also the ship for the Mississippi river draws too much water and therefore is getting into troubles early when the water is low. They did not listen to the experts when they buildt the ship.

Based on what supporting information? Not saying you're wrong, just interested being that I was on the Sept. 30 sailing northbound that had lots of trouble with water level issues. I read that the river is kept dredged to a level of 9 feet, if possible. I also find info stating that 90% of the tow boat fleet on the river requires drafts of at least 9 feet, which is what the Viking ship reportedly draws. This is a subject worthy of further investigation given the likelihood of more droughts in the future. I've posted a link to this thread in another one where the issue of low water levels was discussed.

Edited February 24 by OnTheJourney

[steamboats]

Yes, the channel is kept to 9 feet of water - but that´s not be the case with low water. I don´t have the exakt specs of the Viking Mississippi. I have a lot of friends in the river business there and some of them were asked for their advice by Viking on how to build the ships. As well as in Europe they do draw more water than the other boats. Therefore they are the first which have to stop.

 

steamboats

[chengkp75]

While the main shipping channel may be kept dredged (and on the Mississippi, that is tough)(I worked Miss River pushboats from NOLA to Paducah), the places where the river cruise boats pull up to the bank to "dock", or even public docks, may not be dredged that deep, or kept that way.

 

And, while the Viking boats have a draft of 9', and in normal times most barges load to a draft of 9', the channel must be maintained to a deeper depth than that, as vessels must maintain a certain amount of "under keel clearance", normally for rivers to be 10-20% of the normal draft (or 1-2') both while underway, and while docked/moored as well.

[steamboats]

With low or high water the other boats can "choke a stomp" - tie up to a tree instead of a regular landing area. They use the stage to get the people off the boat. Viking needs a concrete dock where they can go alongside. Most landings are sloping down into the river. Therefore the boats have a flat bottom hull so they can literally ran aground with the bow and then use the stage to get the people off.

 

It's totally different from European rivers where you either have a floating docking area or a concrete dock where all boats can go alongside.

 

A couple of river towns did built a new docking area for the Viking Mississippi.

 

steamboats 

[big_red5312]

On 2/26/2024 at 4:44 AM, steamboats said:

With low or high water the other boats can "choke a stomp" - tie up to a tree instead of a regular landing area. They use the stage to get the people off the boat. Viking needs a concrete dock where they can go alongside. Most landings are sloping down into the river. Therefore the boats have a flat bottom hull so they can literally ran aground with the bow and then use the stage to get the people off.

 

It's totally different from European rivers where you either have a floating docking area or a concrete dock where all boats can go alongside.

 

A couple of river towns did built a new docking area for the Viking Mississippi.

 

steamboats 

On our 12/31/22 Memphis to NOLA cruise we tied up to trees and as I recall rarely used a concrete dock except in Nola.

[JazenW]

Our 8 day NOLA-to-NOLA "Southern Charms" cruise aboard Viking Mississippi ended on 3/2/24. As already noted on this forum, US laws mandated that Viking Mississippi be US-built and its crew be US citizens. Low water levels often altered itineraries, especially north of Vicksburg.  Whether because of all this, or in spite of it, early Viking Mississippi reviews and experiences reported on this and other forums were mixed at best. So we were a bit worried. Happily, however, our experience was very much on par with the Viking Ocean, Expedition, and European river ship experiences we have enjoyed before. 

 

What changed? Our crew said our cruise was the first since the ship had come out of drydock. (On one early voyage the ship was damaged by floating debris. Each day we watched large tree trunks float past). The only post-drydock physical change we noticed was that the Explorer's Lounge Upper Level was converted into auditorium space (appointed like auditoriums on the Ocean and Expedition ships, but much smaller) for Port talks and enrichment lectures.  Many of the crew were brand-new to Viking and fresh from (presumably improved) training.

 

Dining: Food and service in River Cafe (buffet) and in both bars was enthusiastic, competent, and as pleasant as a customer could hope for. We only tried The Restaurant (table service) once, because items arrived slow and piewcemeal even though the place was 75% empty. Maybe the reason it was empty is because other guests also preferred the River Cafe. Another downside of The Restaurant's emptiness was that the River Cafe got pretty busy during peak intervals.

 

Shore excursions and enrichment: Viking now has its own immaculate 8 bus fleet that shadows the ship up and down the river. Therefore, organization, execution, and guides were on par with the European river experience.

 

Shore Excursions can only be as good as what's on shore. We chose mostly Included Excursions, so for us Antebellum Mansion Fatigue set in by our third house tour.

 

OTOH other Included Excursions exceeded our expectations and were well-matched to onboard talks. For example, the Baton Rouge Included Excursion stopped at the Louisiana State Capitol and passed through the corridor in which larger-than-life Governor Huey "The Kingfish" Long was assasinated in 1935. That afternoon's enrichment was an informative, witty talk about The Kingfish and Louisiana culture by LSU professor and Long biographer Richard White.

 

Entertainment: Evening entertainment (7-ish, repeated 9-ish) was in the ship's Living Room, by uniformly polished and professional local performers. Music was themed to the respective destinations. For example, the daytime excursion to the (excellent) National World War II Museum in New Orleans was followed that evening by the Victory Belles, a female vocal trio associated with the Museum, who performed 'forties music. Shows were surprisingly underatttended (maybe 50 per show out of 386 guests), so no problem finding a good seat and interacting with performers. A resident musical trio also played at various times and usually accompanied the local performers.

 

Staterooms: The Deluxe Veranda we chose was very similar in design, finishes, and square footage to a Viking Ocean Deluxe Veranda, meaning quite nice. It was competently serviced twice daily (Evening service included turndown).  

 

 

  

[OnTheJourney]

For anyone that was on the northbound 9/30/23 sailing, and also did the post-extension in St. Paul, I took some screen shots this evening relative to the annular eclipse that took place on 10/14 as we were traveling into St. Paul following disembarkation. I just thought it a cool thing to add to an overall picture collection from the trip. So after cropping the shots, I then had to adjust the date so that they show up at the correct place chronologically in an album. In St. Paul we reached around 47%.

[OnTheJourney]

On 3/4/2024 at 12:19 PM, JazenW said:

Our crew said our cruise was the first since the ship had come out of drydock.

Interesting. Any idea when it went into drydock and came back out?

[JazenW]

No, I don't know when it came out of drydock.

[steamboats]

On 3/6/2024 at 2:08 AM, OnTheJourney said:

Interesting. Any idea when it went into drydock and came back out?

 

The river cruise ships usually go into dry dock during the winter break for regular maintanance and repairs.

 

steamboats

[sharkster77]

With the demise of American Queen, there is one less competitor on the Mississippi.  I wonder who will benefit, Viking or American Cruise Lines?  ACL owns its own shipyard, which may put them in a better position.

Edited March 11 by sharkster77

[Host Jazzbeau]

New article on Travel Weekly:

American Queen Voyages ships have uncertain destinations

[Redtravel]

The ship is beautiful.  Our suite was spacious. Teresita was our cabin attendant. She was fabulous. Same day laundry service was nice when they followed instructions and returned the clothes to the correct cabin. Sadly not everyone working on the ship does their job well.  Often in the restaurant, the service was slow, food was cold, orders got mixed up, and nobody seems to care. Some of the wait staff spends too much time socializing. The cafe was a hit or miss affair. We had wait staff tell us that they were short handed. Some wait staff told us to go the coffee station if we wanted refill.  Often dirty dishes were left on table. If you asked some wait staff to clear dirty dishes, they just ignored us.  Food was interesting. Food choices were limited.  They did attempt to include local dishes.  None were memorable.  The best items were the melitta coffee, cookies, and waffles.  The excursions were good and bad. Best one was Vicksburg.  The hotel stays before and after the cruise left much to be desired. At the Peabody, we were given a tiny room supposedly with a queen bed.  It was a double.  At the Westin in Nola, we waited hours until we got a room. At both hotels the included breakfasts was minimal. It was in a private room.  We were disappointed. When we did hotel extensions in Europe, breakfasts were in the regular dining room.  The worst part was the long bus ride from Memphis to Rosedale, MS. I thought that I booked a cruise from Memphis.  The bus ride was very long and boring.  Stopping in Cleveland, MS to buy your own lunch was annoying.  We left Memphis at 9 am and got to ship after 4 pm.  On map, that ride should take 2 hours. We lost a full day.  We also lost day in St. Francisville due to a storm. We were told that St. Francisville tours would operate from Baton Rouge. That didn’t happen. We were told that the cost of the excursion would be refunded.  Didn’t happen. Instead we were told that we could relax. At the price that Viking charges for the cruise, we expected more. I wouldn’t recommend this cruise.

[ural guy]

Recap: Physical ship very nice; pretty much everything else average to well below standard.

 

Redtravel-  thanks for posting this, sorry to hear about your less than stellar experience.  I've never seen a river cruise crew just gossiping with dirty dishes piling up and plates going out cold.  The Restaurant Managers just wouldn't tolerate it.

 

I'd love to know how they made that bus trip so long, sounds miserable.  Did the Dailey handout show a stop at a Plantation or Battlefield that was missed (not too many cathedrals or castles to see in Dixie)?

 

Vantage was 4 months from bankruptcy, and they had us in a great hotel in Prague.  Breakfast was amazing, the orange juice machine putting it over the top.  Then on the ship, we had chicken nuggets for the Captain's welcome the first night.  Viking can do better.

 

 

 

 

 

[OnTheJourney]

On 2/29/2024 at 8:29 PM, big_red5312 said:

Viking needs a concrete dock where they can go alongside.

No they don't. As was mentioned, our experience was also one of often being tied up to a tree along a shoreline. Crew worked hard to tie and untie those long ropes.

[OnTheJourney]

On 4/16/2024 at 8:26 PM, Redtravel said:

I wouldn’t recommend this cruise.

Totally different reaction here. Despite our cruise being the northbound that resulted in only being able to stop at a few ports (the rest of the cruise all sea days), we found everything to be typical Viking high quality, including the food and service. The dining room was fine, but we decided for several reasons to spend the latter part of the cruise in the cafe and found it most enjoyable. Sorry that you had a less than good experience overall.

 

On 4/17/2024 at 6:43 AM, ural guy said:

I've never seen a river cruise crew just gossiping with dirty dishes piling up and plates going out cold.  The Restaurant Managers just wouldn't tolerate it.

That simply didn't happen on our cruise. Service was prompt and friendly, as I would have expected.

 

On 4/16/2024 at 8:26 PM, Redtravel said:

Best one was Vicksburg.

Which was our last excursion of the entire northbound journey. About half the pax got off for a 4-night shore stay - two nights in Memphis and two in St. Louis, and then rejoined the ship in Alton after that, although once we were told that from that point we'd have to sail straight through to St. Paul with no stops, some people bagged out and flew home. We had opted to stay on the ship the entire voyage. I paid to see the river, and despite not having our planned excursions, we greatly enjoyed the very relaxing sea days - about 9 of them if I recall correctly. Never got to read so much on a cruise before!

Edited April 22 by OnTheJourney

[Redtravel]

Ural guy,

I wrote my experience. This wasn’t my first Viking trip. Other trips in Europe were excellent. While I don’t expect perfection, I was shocked by many things that happened on this trip. 
 

The bus ride from Memphis to Rosedale, Ms started at 9 am. We were not given any indication what was to happen that day.  All we knew was that we were on a bus to the ship. Nobody told us the plan of the day. There was no daily sheet until we were on the ship. We got to the ship after 4 pm.  The ride on Rt. 61 was dull and boring. You could see huge empty fields that had been plowed, nothing growing.