UNPACKING THE TRIP, Part 2.

Amsterdam to Budapest.  Fourteen days.  Twelve hundred miles.  Sixty-six locks.  Five countries (Netherlands, Germany, Austria, a slice of Slovakia, Hungary). Three rivers (Rhine, Main, Danube).  

This is the Viking Grand European River Cruise.  

And we added to it by also electing to purchase a "pre-cruise extension" of 2 extra nights in Amsterdam and a "post-cruise extension" of 2 extra nights in Budapest.  And as if that were not enough, we personally planned a pre-pre-cruise extension of 3 nights in New York City just for fun and to get us a bit acclimated to the time change ahead.  So we were away for three weeks.  

I barely remember New York.  Or Amsterdam.  Or at this point, much of anything before Budapest.  Memories were made, but must be prompted with reminders and photos.  There was so much crammed into a relatively short amount of time.

Well, first of all, I credit/blame PBS for all those Viking commercials leading in to our favorite Masterpiece programs.  We finally decided to just do it.  We are Rick Steves Europe tour veterans and wondered what it would feel like to be pampered the Viking way.  Pretty darn good, as it turns out.  

Our Longship was lovely, very comfortable, well-appointed.  The management staff was capable, attentive, and super friendly and kept everyone and everything working like clock-work.  The staff/crew can't possibly be paid enough for how great they were -- from Management to room stewards (housekeeping) to wait staff and technical staff (somebody has to steer the ship and dock it and get it through all those locks).  Everyone was busy, efficient, and smiling!  I questioned many of the staff/crew and they all seemed to genuinely be happy to work there and loved the "family" they formed together. All 53 were from elsewhere -- mostly Eastern Europe and the Philippines.  They were grateful for the work and reapply to come back to Viking year after year.  Viking seems to treat their crews well, with plenty of time off and even paid them during the Covid shutdown.  So that was a good thing. (Photo is , left, our Hotel Manager, Ole, from Norway who was in charge of all the staff and smooth running of the amenities; and right, Marco, from Serbia, who was the Tour Director and handled all the complicated logistics for excursions, on-board festivities, port talks, etc.  They are dressed here for our German heritage/dinner night, going table to table pouring shots of Schnapps.)

We opted for a veranda stateroom, a bit larger than the others that had no veranda.  Ours opened with  a slider door to a small deck that gave us fresh air and a nice sitting space as we watched the shoreline pass by.  That said, we really didn't spend much time there and what isn't shown on the commercials is that some docking locations are so crowded that ships literally tie up to each other, meaning there were times in port that our veranda was 6 inches from the adjacent ship, affording no view and no privacy!  Curtains closed!  (See photo -- yes that's how close we were.) Still, I'd opt for it again because of the air and the view and also just to get a few extra feet of space over the rooms without a veranda.  I certainly would not be happy with the lower deck, below-waterline rooms with only one small window high up on the wall looking out at water level.

Food was great.  Three meals a day.  Big breakfast buffet and some made to order items.  Lunch and dinner were limited option menu-driven with some choices always available, and some changing daily to feature local fare depending upon where we were on the rivers.  It was all white tablecloth, lots of silverware, fine dining presentation.  The food looked pretty and mostly was delicious.  We had only a few "duds", but that's subjective.  (Always a meat, fish, or vegetarian option, but heavy on the meat.) Desserts at each meal were heavenly (and deadly for the waistline).  Portions were reasonable, not enormous, but satisfactory.  I don't drink alcohol but for those who do there was unlimited "house" wine and beer at lunch and dinner.  Or you could buy a "Silver Spirits" package add-on for a fee that allowed premium wines, beers, and cocktails at any time during the cruise.  It did start to feel like we were constantly eating and with dinner not served until 7:00, ending between 8-8:30, I went to bed too full most nights.  I generally like to eat earlier.

Every day we had a shore excursion that was included in the price of the tour.  We disembarked, usually had to bus to the city center, met up in groups with a local guide, and explored the central city historic areas of whatever port we were in.  The local guides were mostly great; a couple were not.  One could also buy for an extra fee a variety of "optional excursions".  These would be what you see on the commercial of people making cheese, or sampling wine in the vineyard, or going to an art gallery.  We only bought two optional excursions.  They are pricey ($100-$200 per person) and we didn't want to over-schedule ourselves nor did we want to shell out the dough for an unknown entity.  

One we bought was a "hike" in the Wurzberg, Germany hills that ended up being mostly in the city with a stop in a chapel, a stroll through a big city park with some elevation, and ending at a fortress with some views, but definitely not "out in the hills" as expected.  The other was in Nuremberg to see the "Monuments Men" (movie) underground bunkers where the Nazi-threatened art was stowed. That was pretty cool.  In some cities we had a bit of free time to explore (one whole day in Vienna), but often we had to be back on the ship to head for our next destination.

There was a sun deck on the upper level that afforded terrific views, including that iconic one of castles on the hillsides that is featured in all the commercials.  It looks just like that.  We had great weather, so that helps.  What they don't show in the commercials, however, is that the sun deck was closed for several days due to low bridges on a part of the river.  The clearance above the ship was about 18 inches at times!  If the water level rises too much the ship cannot even get under the bridges and all the passengers need to disembark and be transported around the series of low bridges by bus and re-installed on a different identical ship waiting on the other side.  We were glad not to have that hassle. (This can also happen when the water is too low for sailing.)

There is little nightlife on the ship.  Fine by us; we went to our stateroom after dinner most of the time. We had a couple of local entertainers come aboard and had a few "game nights" led by the Tour Director that were actually fun, but mostly it's one lounge singer type guy at the piano.  This is not the razzle-dazzle of a big ocean liner.  No casino, no stage shows, no pools, no karaoke, etc.  It is a quiet and early-to-bed crowd.  We estimated the average age hovering around the mid-70's, all of varying abilities, mostly physically able-enough; also, one wheelchair, one walker, many canes.  

There were 187 passengers.  Those we met were mostly from the U.S., a couple Canadians,  and a few Aussies and New Zealanders. All were interesting in their way, friendly enough; no one brought up politics, but we had our suspicions.  We are not the most outgoing people, so we didn't really make fast friends with anyone that would last beyond friendly conversation on the trip.  In fact, we got very savvy about claiming one of only two 2-top tables for ourselves at dinner.  Most tables seated 6, 8, or 10 people.  Forced socializing is exhausting for us.

All in all it was a positive experience and many we talked with thought it perfect.  We made our pro and con list.  

Pro:  We were well pampered, well fed, well looked-after.  The crew was amazing.  Only had to unpack once.  Had a home base. Someone else handled all the logistics and did it flawlessly; we stopped in interesting, sometimes iconic places; saw and learned some new things.

Con:  Little to no sense of where we were other than on the rivers.  No chance to see the countryside around us or get beyond the city-center tourist areas.  It was boat to city, back to boat, on to the next stop.   Also we did not like added expenses for optional excursions.  We also were not thrilled with the (optional but every one did it) tips for local guides and bus drivers (they deserved it, but it was awkward at times); as well as mandatory tips for crew/staff.  (You pay a set tip fee ahead of the trip or if you didn't, it's added to your bill at the end, with the encouragement to give extra in cash for those who you thought did an exceptionally good job for you personally) .  We like that Rick Steves tours have a NO TIPPING policy and all sites/experiences are included; his company pays everyone well and doesn't want/expect his travelers to do it.  

At the end, we decided we were very happy to have gone on a Viking cruise and I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in that type of travel.  That said, and I'm aware of "anchor bias" in that we did Rick Steves tours first and measured our experience against that but I still think I'd come to the same conclusion: we are still more Rick Steves tour types.  We just like his philosophy of travel and his insistence on getting a breadth of local experience, not a "travel in luxury, drop in and leave at the tourist-y spots" experience.  Not that a little luxury is a bad thing.  I did enjoy that too, for sure.  But, at times Viking felt like a very expensive and posh Uber ride -- a lovely way to drop in at a series of ports.

We were so fortunate to have been able to do this and to have Hub's 4,000 photos to remind us of where we were.  Next post will be about sights/sites seen.  Miles to go before we sleep...

At least, that's the view from here...©