As we dragged our suitcases along the cobblestone streets of Avignon, France, my husband and I were not worried about finding the Viking cruise ship that awaited us. How hard could it be to find a big boat docked along the Rhone River just a short walk from the city center?
As we headed outside the 14th-century city walls, we put the address provided by Viking into Google maps, looking forward to an early arrival for our first river cruise. Alas, it turns out that a ship’s address when it’s docked on a river is a bit like pirate code — more of a guideline than an actual rule — so the map directions took us right when we should have turned left.
Adding to that, France’s famed mistral winds were huffing and puffing vigorously. While these winds contributed significantly to the delicious wines we enjoyed throughout the trip, they do not make for pleasant walking conditions. After a mile-long schlep along the river, we were wind-blown, frazzled and starting to regret not just calling an Uber.
Taking shelter at a nearby bus stop, we texted Viking’s customer service number (a Los Angeles number) and got a quick and helpful response. They contacted the ship directly, we traded a few screenshots, and we were soon headed in the correct direction.
Our fortunes quickly changed. As we approached the ship, crew members hustled out to help us with our luggage — and that was the last time we carried our own bags until our final departure 10 days later. Once inside the lobby, the staff greeted us, checked our room status and offered us a refreshing glass of juice.
Then we headed into the comfortably modern dining room where we spent two enjoyable hours chatting with other guests — having lunch and drinking wine with the first of several new friends we made — as we waited for our rooms to be ready.
And that’s when we realized we’d been seamlessly ushered into the world of Viking, a culture in many ways as distinct as Disney. As first timers with both Viking and river cruising, two things stood out:
- Unlike ocean-going cruises, there was no line to get on the ship, and that didn’t change throughout the entire cruise. With fewer than 200 guests on board, there was no backup for checking in. And the lines we encountered during the rest of the trip were minimal – we’re talking a backup at the omelet station or waiting to board a tour bus for an excursion.
- There was no extra charge for that juice, which we soon learned was a regular welcoming touch when you return to the ship. When we’d previously cruised to the Bahamas as novices, we thought it was a nice gesture when they welcomed us with a large fruity drink, until we realized how much those drinks with umbrellas had cost. Viking advertises “no nickel and diming” and essentially lives up to that.
Take the Plunge
We had been considering a river-type cruise for a couple of years, and events conspired for it to happen last year. In January we booked a cruise for October — a timeframe that is extremely short in cruise-booking terms.
Viking makes it easy to book and plan these trips yourself. All you need to do is go to the website and put down a deposit, sometimes as little as $25 to hold your spot. But popular cruise destinations and sought-after rooms fill quickly, so people book well in advance — often more than a year out. That gives you more choice over the cruise details and more time to pay for it. And we highly recommend the “shoulder seasons” of spring and fall, which tend to have milder weather and smaller crowds — and frequently lower prices than the summer high season.
We booked the eight-day Lyon and Provence cruise, entirely along the Rhone in southern France, which translates to eight days and seven nights. That’s Viking’s shortest length for river cruises, and frankly a couple more days would have been nice. With this length, you’ve just gotten the hang of the schedule, you’re understanding how the actual river cruise elements work, and you’ve made new friends with both fellow cruisers and crew members, so maximizing all that with a 10- or 14-day itinerary might be beneficial.
If you’ve seen the stream of ads for Viking’s European river cruises, you may be wondering if they live up to the picturesque hype. A few points may help answer that:
- If you’re looking for a discount cruise, Viking isn’t it. The starting price point for Viking’s cheapest river cruise is currently $2,199 per person. But the actual price will depend on which room you book and how many options you add.
- That being said, once you’ve settled on those choices, then it really is about as all-inclusive as you can get for a cruise – and the quality does not disappoint.
- If you’re looking for a cruise with on-board pools and entertainment venues, this is not for you. A Viking river cruise can be as active — or leisurely — as you want it to be, but ultimately it’s an immersive cultural experience on a ship that boasts a library rather than a casino.
Here are things for first timers to consider that won’t rock the boat. Keep in mind that these tips apply only to river cruises; while Viking also offers ocean cruises, those ships and itineraries are different. And while our experience was on Viking, many of these tips also would apply to European river cruises offered by other companies.
Plan the Logistics
Airfare: Once you’ve booked the trip, the next thing to think about is getting there. Offering airfare deals is a common incentive for cruise lines, including Viking. The pros and cons vary widely, with many factors coming into play, which unfortunately means there’s no simple answer. The reality is that it’s a case-by-case scenario, so research and comparison shopping will be essential. In our case, we ultimately opted to use credit card points to book our travel.
Ground transfers: There’s also the issue of getting to the ship once you’ve arrived. Since we booked our own flights, we were also on our own to get to the ship, which led to our unexpected hike along the Rhone searching for the boat. If you book airfare with Viking, they will transport you to and from the airport and the hotel. Otherwise, you will need to arrange for your own transfer to the ship, such as a taxi service or private driver. Uber is also a convenient option in many European destinations, although not all, so it’s wise to check in advance.
Choose Your Excursions
For its river cruises, Viking includes one shore excursion at each port. In our case, that meant every day except for arrival and departure days. These excursions are good — think of fairly easy walking tours that provide a general overview and focus on the top highlights of a specific city or attraction. The tour guides are almost uniformly excellent and well versed in both the local area and the Viking process — which is to say that they can answer questions about the historic sites, but they also know what time your ship will be leaving port.
You also can add optional excursions, for an extra fee, if there are specific sights you want to see. For instance, we added a canoe trip on the Rhone that was fantastic. It cost an extra $124 each, which included ground transportation, a delightful guide, plus an additional local French rower who also happened to be an NBA fan. That translated into amusing banter as they led us for an hour-long float that culminated by gliding under the remains of an iconic 12th-century bridge.
But with all the options available, it’s also wise not to fill your schedule completely with shore excursions. Between the included tours and the optional excursions, you could be busy every morning and afternoon. Friends we met on the trip recommended leaving time to tour on your own, visit local restaurants or simply spend time on the ship itself.
You’ll generally choose these excursions several months before the cruise, and you’ll want to research them and allow time to consider all the choices. There is room for everyone on the included tours, but some optional tours do fill up. It’s also possible to add the optional tours during the cruise, if there are spots still available.
It will take planning to find the right balance here. We saw people who only took the included excursions, and that was plenty. We saw people who added a few extras and people who added as many extras as possible. And we saw people who never took any excursions, opting for the leisurely lifestyle on the boat or strolling the cities on their own.
Consider an Extension
Photo courtesy of Jane Fullerton Lemons
Author and spouse on a float trip excursion.
Viking also offers optional land excursions that you can add before or after your cruise, typically two or three days in a location near the beginning or end of the cruise, destinations such as Paris or Amsterdam or Barcelona. These include hotels, meals and local tours.
We added a three-day extension to the end of our cruise in France’s Burgundy region that turned out to essentially be a private tour, since we were the only two guests who booked it. The hotel in Dijon was quite good. But the real treat was the personable guides who knew the area well, were fun to chat with and made us feel we were hanging out with locals — because we were.
It's worth noting that we typically prefer to plan our own travel itinerary, including accommodations and tours. But this trip came at a time when we knew we didn’t have the bandwidth to do it all ourselves. Our answer was to add a few days on either end that we planned on our own, which resulted in a good combination —basically a short trip on the front, the planned cruise in the middle, and another short trip at the end. For those wary of the group tour element of a river cruise, we recommend complementing it with your own activities.
Life on the River
Ship: The company makes much of its Viking Longboats – a sleek design inspired by the boats the Vikings used. We were onboard the Viking Hermod, and artwork featuring the namesake Norse messenger of the gods greeted us at the top of the stairs leading to the upper deck. The ship’s Scandinavian design creates an elegant and understated ambiance, with classical music playing in the background.
The lounge is the ship’s primary gathering spot. There are nightly presentations, and after dinner it takes on a piano bar vibe, often with music or dancing. It’s also the site of activities such as performances, talks and demonstrations that tie into the local region and offers a good view for watching the boat traverse the river and navigate the system of locks.
For those who lean toward seasickness, river cruises offer a safe harbor. This is not an ocean-going vessel. Our ship floated gently along the river, no swaying or tilting. You barely know you’re on the water unless you’re watching the scenery go by. We didn’t see a single motion sickness patch the whole trip.
Noise was also not issue. We were at the end of a hallway, near a set of stairs used by the crew and had worried there would be noise, but at night we heard nothing from either the hallway or the floors above and below.
One thing to note is that ships cruising European rivers often share limited docking space. That can result in “rafting” – meaning that one ship is tied next to the land, while another ship is tied next to that one. This happened to us a couple of times, and we simply walked from our ship, through the lobby of the other ship, onto the shore. While it’s interesting to get an inside view of another ship, it also meant that our balcony was right next to the other boat.
Rooms: This turned out to be exactly what we’d envisioned – a luxurious floating hotel. We were able to completely unpack and make ourselves at home, while our boat chauffeured us from one location to the next.
Yes, it’s a boat, so the room was not large. But it was well designed with a layout and clever storage that maximized the space. All the rooms are exterior with some kind of window. The lower deck rooms that are partially below the water line have a small rectangular window at the top, while the upper deck rooms have either full balconies or French balconies, both of which have sliding doors. We did appreciate our balcony, but the reality is that you spend most of your time elsewhere. There are plenty of places for enjoying the views, including the sun deck on the top level and the terrace at the bow of the ship.
Amenities: Viking pays attention to smaller details, such as the U.S. power outlets and USB ports in the rooms. There’s free Wi-Fi on board, and our service was generally good. We also used the onboard app to track activities, which repeat guests told us has been improving, and there also are printed copies of the daily itinerary distributed to rooms every night.
To underscore how clean the boat is kept, when we were docked in Lyon, we watched two crew members in a rowboat slowly circling the ship and touching up the paint.
Food: Overall, the food was significantly better than we anticipated. Each meal —breakfast, lunch, and dinner — included regional specialties along with more standard fare that was always available, which is to say you can eat steak every night if you want to. The kitchen also accommodated various food concerns —allergies, vegetarians, whatever — personally checking with the passengers who had specific needs.
During the nightly port talk, the chef described the local specialties on the dinner menu, which included some fabulous French cuisine. So be adventurous! On one of our first evenings, my husband went with the trusty steak, dismissing the coq au vin as potentially banquet-level chicken, a decision he instantly regretted when the smell of wine and garlic hit the air.
Even with the local specialties, don’t eat every meal onboard. Reflecting on the trip, friends said they wished they’d taken time in Lyon, known as the capital of French gastronomy, to have lunch or dinner at one of the city’s excellent restaurants. The staff can make recommendations and help with reservations.
Drinks: Viking includes beer, wine and soft drinks in its cost, plus there is a 24-hour coffee and tea bar. But if you like wine, or have top-shelf taste in co*cktails, we recommend upgrading the drinks package. While the included wine and beer are fine, there are many more options and much better bottles available with the “silver spirits” package. We had not initially planned to do this, but at the last minute we upgraded at the recommendation of others who had been on Viking cruises previously and were glad we did. For our cruise, this cost $175 each, and we definitely got our money’s worth.
Make no mistake: This is not a booze cruise. But you can expand your palette, particularly if you are in a wine region, like the Rhone valley regions we visited. We tried a wide variety of wines at both lunch and dinner, and the crew quickly learned our preferences. In addition, with an open bar available, we were free to sample interesting new spirits that we otherwise would not have discovered.
People: The people you meet on board contribute greatly to the experience. Our cruise drew an eclectic assortment of both guests and crew members. Beginning with that first lunch, we enjoyed stimulating conversations, traded stories — and even mastered a new card game with new friends. The ship is filled with interesting people, so strike up a conversation.
Viking’s guests do indeed skew older, and children under 18 are not allowed. While many were retired, we met several like ourselves who were not. It appeared that the majority of guests on our cruise were in the 50s-70s age range, but we also met people in their 40s and 80s, including one of our fellow canoers. The majority were Americans, and we met folks from across the country – from California to Missouri to Massachusetts to Florida. While there were plenty of first timers, there also were many repeat Viking cruisers, including groups who travel together regularly.
Viking crew members, mostly from across Europe, were extremely professional and highly competent — not to mention fun to talk with, from the bubbly 20-somethings who served our meals and cleaned our cabin to the multi-lingual program director who amused with pun-filled jokes and the ambitious young maître d' climbing the company ladder who kept our wine glasses filled.
By the end of the cruise, like the Vikings of yore, we felt we’d conquered a new region, albeit peacefully: We’d seen historic sites, savored local food and drink, made new friends — and even learned a few things along the way.
