Grand European Tour with Viking River Cruises

Having been on many ocean cruises, here are some thoughts following a cruise-tour my wife, Helen, and I took with Viking River Cruises (Woodland Hills, CA; 800/304-9616). On the “Grand European Tour,” we traveled from Amsterdam to Budapest, June 10-24, 2007.

Our major tip — book early! We booked and paid for the cruise 14 months in advance plus had a group rate for a total savings of over $1,500. For both of us, the cost for the river portion was $10,008 plus $592 insurance. We felt this was a very good price compared to the costs of ocean voyages (that do not include port tours in the price).

All our arrangements were made with our travel agent, Travel Ventures (Panama City Beach, FL; 800/277-3770).

Since we booked early, we had our pick of cabins and chose Cat. A, No. 306, one of four cabins with a shower/tub combo. At 154 square feet, it was smaller than most of the ocean cruise cabins we have had, but the layout was excellent — really plenty of space to store items. The large picture window was very nice.

Food on the cruise was nice but to us seemed a little bland. Dinner meals normally took over two hours — a little long for us but relaxing, without the “hurry up to allow another seating” feeling as on our ocean cruises.

The price included all the meals AND tours. The local tour guides at each stop were outstanding — very entertaining.

The cruise itself was excellent. We went through 68 locks and saw many very pretty little towns with churches and many castles. The Vienna stop was exceptional, with an optional evening concert at the State Opera House ($54 each).

We had 136 passengers on board out of a maximum of 150 and found this very pleasant and relaxing in contrast to the thousands on an ocean vessel.

One challenge we had was that at each stop there were two other Viking ships also docked, which caused congestion when getting the tours started.

We wished we had checked the weather forecasts for Europe; I packed too many long-sleeve shirts that I didn’t use since the weather was really warm. We ended up shipping some back, along with books and gifts, at a cost of $44 for four packages — a lot less than the $90-$150 in overweight charges we would have paid.

We wanted to keep in touch with our children and grandchildren, so our travel agent arranged for a worldwide cell phone through TravelCell Global Cellular Rental Solutions (877/235-5746).

The setup charge was $5, and we had a toll-free number so the kids could call us for free. Our cost was 50 cents per minute. (Our cost for the month was $183.55.)

Bottom line — with the early planning, we had an outstanding trip.

JOHN H. BARNHART
Panama City Beach, FL