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We have just come back from our first river cruise. While we have been on over 80 ocean cruises taking our first Viking river cruise was drastically different. So whether you are new to cruising or taking your first river cruise, this video will help you navigate the waters of river cruising.
What We Wish We Knew Before Taking a Viking River Cruise
0:00 Introduction
0:50 No Announcement Policy
1:40 Download The Viking Voyager App
2:58 What You Can Bring Onboard
3:52 Streamline Embarkation Process
4:40 Seamless Travel Experience
5:30 Casual Onboard Vibe
6:12 How Tours Work
7:35 A Quietvox Hack
8:41 The Pace of the Tours
9:45 Port Maps and Contact Cards
10:40 You Need to Be Flexible
12:00 Cozy Cabins
13:10 There is No Self-Service Laundry
13:52 Pack Several Layers
14:46 Open Dining
16:00 Limited Dining Options
17:22 You Will Know Everyone Onboard
18:00 Getting Around the Ship
18:46 Who Is Onboard
19:28 Getting On and Off the Ship
20:26 What’s Included on the Cruise
21:46 The Onboard Experience
First Viking River Cruise? Prepare for Surprises! (Things We Didn’t Expect)
Planning your first Viking River Cruise, or even your first river cruise ever? Buckle up, because we’ve got some surprises in store for you! This video dives into the unexpected aspects of a Viking River Cruise, helping you set sail prepared and ready to enjoy the unique experience.
We thought we knew what to expect on a cruise, but Viking threw us some curveballs (in a good way!).
Here’s what surprised us:
Silent Ship Sailing: Forget constant announcements! Viking has a “no-announcement” policy. You’ll get daily itineraries and info through the app, so pack your sense of adventure (and maybe a watch!).
Drinks Onboard… Really? Unlike most cruises, Viking lets you bring unlimited alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages onboard. Stock up on your favorites and enjoy them throughout your trip!
Explore at Your Own Pace: Tours are included, but some are more leisurely than others. Don’t worry if you’re an active traveler – you can still explore independently with Viking’s handy maps.
Small Ship Camaraderie: Get ready to meet your fellow travelers! Viking longships have a smaller capacity, fostering a friendly and social atmosphere onboard and during tours.
No Room Service Dilemma: Viking offers twice-daily room service, but there are no buffets or late-night eats. Plan your meals accordingly, or grab a pastry from the Aquavit Terrace for breakfast on the go.
Limited Onboard Entertainment: Viking prioritizes exploring destinations over onboard activities. Expect a relaxed atmosphere with fewer shows and more opportunities to soak up the European charm.
Even with these surprises, our first Viking River Cruise was amazing! The relaxed pace, delicious food, and unique destinations made it an unforgettable experience.
Intrigued? Watch now to discover:
More unexpected aspects of a Viking River Cruise
Tips for navigating the “silent ship” policy and onboard dining
How to make the most of your time both on tours and exploring independently
The unique Viking onboard experience and the amazing people you’ll meet
Viking River Cruises offer a surprising and delightful way to explore Europe. Prepare to be surprised and set sail for an unforgettable adventure!
LEARN MORE ABOUT VIKING RIVER CRUISES BACK ON THE BLOG
What We Wish We Knew Before Taking Our First Viking River Cruise
——TRENDING VIDEOS FROM EAT SLEEP CRUISE——
What its Really Like on a Viking River Cruise: https://youtu.be/UFgUN6IRN68
21 Cruise Boarding Day Mistakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u3NdtH7mdE
The 15 Things Cruise Lines Need to Stop Doing in 2024: https://youtu.be/cNSsqH7NwLg
10 Sea Day Cruise Mistakes: https://youtu.be/2fGrEUP0470
25 Cruise Essentials You Need to Pack: https://youtu.be/xa-0mxKWkeo
Join us on Social Media as we “Sea the World, One Port at a Time.”
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45 Comments
Many other cruise lines allow you to bring food and alcohol on board.
Incredibly this method of „Give me money and I just read out the promo text“ still exists in 2024…
Will do! The Viking city of lights cruise through our travel agent was handled with them. The flight was a crowded nightmare from the states to Paris. It was a horrible. The arrangements made through Viking was a complete dump of a motel with horrible food. I hated it. Everything was broken in the hotel. The Paris tower was shut down because of pickpockets. 14000 dollars of a waste of money and time. I hated the boat the food and the breakdown of waiting for parts and watching the concrete of the locks. The ships crew were rude and the food was almost uneatable. I wouldn't go on a Viking river cruise if it was free. The worst time ever spent on a trip. Don't do it go with any other line! You won't be able to understand the guides anyway.
too long-winded. get to the important points quickly, THEN give the minute details.
Think of the life experience of these elderly partners. I bet you could have some great conversions
i'm looking for a Paris to Normandy cruise in sep-oct (7-8 days). Room size is most important as long as service and food is ok. How would you recommend deciding what's the best cruise line to take?
You can’t bring an iron? Are there irons in the rooms?
Thanks for the info – very intersting as we attempt to make a travel decision. QUESTION: Your video makes it look like you are the only ones on the river. I have heard that multiple river cruise ships dock at each port and it can be a bit chaotic, and sometimes your view is completely blocked if you are the second layer (even if you paid for a balcony cabin). That would stink. Is this still the case in 2024? I have been told NOT to take cruises (immuno-compromised) due to the small spaces, large crowds, buffet eating/drinking, hygiene – but the Viking option looks like a better situation. Thoughts??
Rained 3 weeks prior to Danube River cruise departure. Once we all got onboard, after traveling great distances to a once in a lifetime River cruise, we were told ship wouldn't be able to fit under bridges because river was too high. The cruise turned into a bus trip, not what we paid for or expected. Never again Viking! Awful and no refund
Went on the Danube River Cruise last summer after taking 5 Ocean Cruises. We upgraded to the Explorer's Suite as we do on the Ocean Cruises. It was a terrible experience, to the point we will never travel on Viking again. The staff was entitled and less than helpful. We even had staff insult our traveling companions. One excursion was cancelled because not enough people signed up and we were given no other options and the last thing you want is to stay on the boat or walk around the overtouristy port stops.
At every port we were lashed to up to 4 other Viking boats so our wrap around deck was unusable. The menus were limited and not responsive to food allergies. The maitre D apologized excessively saying that staffing was problematic. We were referred to the VIP liaison at Viking Norway and her only response was a discount which was less than my travel agent gets us. The quality of Viking is clearly going down post pandemic
My wife and I have taken 4 Viking cruises. Every journey was a pleasure. I would recommend it to everyone.
The dining situation kind of sucks. It would be nice to have even a minimal buffet in the evening. I'd be all kinds of Hangry in the evening. It's weird because most European, certainly in France eat at 8 or 9.
We did a Rhine River Christmas Market cruise in Dec. 2022. The tour part was disappointing, at best. Compared to our shorter tours on the Rhine in 2008, they were much too long, in freezing weather and most were required to get to the subject Christmas Market – the very reason we booked. By the time we got to the market, we were bored and freezing. Some of the stops – Dusseldorf in particular were a waste of time. We have better in Texas. The Christmas Market in Cologne, by contrast is much larger, however, they elected to stop in Dusseldorf earlier dropping us in Cologne at night – after the beautiful cathedral was already closed. Overall, we got the impression the cruise line was obligated to the tour operators and elected to simply 'shoe horn' the Christmas Markets in. Bad plan. European Christmas Market are wonderful. We'd done Budapest, Kaysersberg, FR, Colmar, Freiburg (included by Viking) and others. The brief glimpse of these Viking market visits was not very satisfying due to the inordinate attention and time giving to the obligatory tours. I wrote to complain. They called to follow up. The young 'un who called rather acted as if I was simply a gripey old man. There was also far too much 'selling' when on board – of themselves, how to properly fill out the surveys to benefit the crew, etc. Compared to our 2008 Viking Rhine cruise, overall it was disappointing.
what is the electric outlet situation on these ships? Do I need to bring an adapter for converting USA cords to a European outlet?
I can think of nothing more awful than being stuck on a ship with 2000 obnoxious characters. I'd sooner go on a snorkelling holiday down at my local sewage works.
No mention of an on board fitness facility. Am I to presume there is none?
Do you some companies that so accessable tour options? My mum would like to do a river cruise but she has two very bad knees and cant walk much
Average age of those cruising on Viking river is probably 75. The tour guides can only go as fast as their slowest attendee. I'm 60 and my wife is 65 and we felt way to young for the river cruise. We took the grand European 15 day cruise. Not a very positive experience.
We have taken 9 river and ocean Cruises. This is Cruising for grown ups. We have never been disapointed
Our first viking river cruise, may 2024, did not disappoint. We would take the low impact tours. Breakfast was buffet style with lots of options plus being able to order from a limited menu. Lunch and dinner menus were of necessity limited and while I have some health issues limiting what I can eat found little difficulty in being satisfied. Of note however dinner can last several hours. One of the first nights onboard we had an evening tour and missed part of dinner to meet the tour guide to a night tour of Budapest. Still was nice enough to go back and do again or probably a tour of a different part of the world.
My husband and I took a Viking River Cruise a few years ago and loved it! What made it extremely special was the crew. They ALWAYS went above and beyond to be as helpful and accommodating whether you needed help with excursions or anything on board. Liking their soups so much, I had asked for the recipes and got them. No questions asked. In the past, I had only taken ocean cruises on big ships. Didn’t know if I was going to miss all the shows, bars, activities on the big ships. I didn’t miss them at all. It was actually refreshing to be in a calm and relaxing setting, especially without children. I love kids, I have kids, but this was certainly a much needed change of pace. And best of all, we got to European towns and countries big ships can’t go to. Would love to go again!
Wow do you sound like a pain in the ass customer. How would you expect what is a floating bus to have a swimming pool etc on board. American exceptionalism.
80 cruises? You need to go to cruise rehab!
We did a 2-week Viking river cruise. My traveling companions luggage was lost. There was another person with the same issue. They were offered the laundry service at no charge to help mitigatethe situation, even though it was the airline's fault and not Viking's.
(Her luggage was returned to her 3 weeks later.)
After physically visiting a few of these countries in spring these river cruises go to and seeing the state of the rivers they travel I have no interest in going on one of these river cruises.😬 Not as picturesque as they make it out to be.
The balcony was dirty and the chair was broken. Plus you were against other ships or the pier most times so NO view. Room & bathroom VERY small. Could barely turn around in it. Most concerning was food which in our opinion was mediocre to bad. It is not EGGS Benedict it is EGG Benedict. Our bags which we spent extra to ship early, did not end up in our room till late afternoon. We will spend our money in America in the future.
Thanks for taking the time to offer a great Viking river cruise review! We just got back this week from the Rhine Getaway (Amsterdam-Basel). I loved that they did not make incessant announcements over the PA system! Just pay attention to the informative daily guide/evening excursion run-down they leave and you are fine. Two things I would like to share that you may update this video with;
1. Each room now has Wi-Fi access to 2 devices (of course it is sketchy at times, but Viking is up front about that.)
2. They mentioned to us that Basel-Amsterdam is a bit of the better route in that you are actually going down-river this direction and as they usually make better time, they adjust schedule to have more leisure time at the ports.
See you on our next cruise!😀
This was a great video! Thank you for creating it!
You were lucky they were waiting for you at the airport, we were afforded no such feature. Otherwise they're tip top.
Just found your channel and I'm thinking about river cruising, but have never ocean cruised, so this will be a first time cruising experience. I enjoyed this video and plan to watch the other one that you recommended. I don't think I'll ever ocean cruise, I have a number of reasons why I don't want to, but I still watch videos about ocean cruising in hopes that maybe I'll be swayed someday and give it a go. In the meantime, cheers and thank you for the very informative review!
My husband and I loved cruising, and decided to try a Viking river cruise in Russia. Something that nobody tells you, is that river boats sometimes dock one next to the other. Thus, if you have a balcony stateroom, you cannot open your curtain because you have another ship’s stateroom right next to yours! Although we only had this one night, I was sorry for my neighbors across the hall because they had this several times in our 10 day cruise. For me, never again!
I took a Xmas Market Viking River Cruise last Dec. I love everything about Viking as they are every organized and you do not need to plan anything. Just pack and go.The services areb exceptional.The only thing I did not appreciate is, my friend and I needed to join strangers in the dining as they do not have tables for 2 people.
I'm curious, what was your experience like booking the cruise? How was the sales staff?
Hi there, Im doing the same river cruise but with my goto crusiing company Uniworld in October, looking forward to it. Number 5 for river cruises with them
We are thinking about doing this exact cruise and wondering if you think a person using a cane would have difficultly with the planned excursions?
The AI voice is on 45 rpm vs 33 rpm. Very hard to understand!
Would yall do it again? A river cruise?
Look at Ama Waterways for more tour options than Viking, plus a hot tub on board and bike tours. I did, and Viking could jot compare. My AW cruise was awesome!
Onboard dining may be limited, but the unlimited "bring it yourself" options means if you're hungry between dining times, it's pretty much your onfault!
Anyone take a Christmas cruise? Please tell me about it! Thanks!
I have a gluten sensitivity and because we started in Amsterdam and went to Basel, the ingredients for European containing no GMOs. I was able to eat bread products freely without issues. However, the trip was very accommodating and concerned about my gluten sensitivity.
My husband and i have completed 6+ cruises with Viking. The food is tremendous and abundant. The staff is very friendly. You're meant to explore your destination NOT spend all day on the boat. If you have walking disabilities, things can get tough…beware.
I did not like the no announcement policy, so I wrote Mr Torstein Hagen, the owner and complained. Viking is a very top down company, with all decisions coming from high up. And indeed for our next Viking, the announcements we back, but only in the hallway, so you had to stand by your door.
But all decisions from up high, means that you will receive the exact same experiencing on all ships. So as opposed to other cruise lines, where you have to decide between which ship, all Viking ships are the same.
We also love the small ship experience. The river ships are 180 and the ocean are 900 passengers. No mobs, fast lines.
My husband is blind and uses a cane to walk. Do you advise a Viking ocean or river cruise?
What time did you need to be back on the ship on a daily basis? Thanks