Viking Alsvin Reviews

Many thanks to Juliet (who has since left!) and Jodie for organising our holiday. All dealings with Global Journeys were excellent and I have recommended your services to many others. Whilst we enjoyed our river cruise with Viking, and it was reasonably priced, it wasn’t quite what we expected. Firstly, it wasn’t as relaxing as we thought it would be, ...read more as the included tours left around 8.30am most mornings, which meant getting ready and having breakfast quite early in order to board the coach on time.

Secondly, the walking tours were painfully slow so quite frustrating for those of us who are quite fit, even though they broke the groups into “classic” and “leisurely”. The city stays at both ends of the cruise were okay, but it did mean long days travelling in the coach to get to the destinations i.e. from Paris to the ship via Luxembourg then from the ship to Prague. The included tours were pleasant (apart from the snail pace!) but the optionals were rather overpriced in my opinion so we didn’t do any.

The ship itself was quite nice. Not luxurious, but tastefully decorated and our water level cabin was adequate for our needs. We had envisaged we wouldn’t be spending much time in there and we didn’t. We were travelling with my brother and his wife and we were the only Australians on board with predominantly Americans which we found a bit loud and demanding! One man actually apologised to us for his “fellow countrymen’s behaviour”.

The tour director was lovely with a wonderful sense of humour and the service onboard was excellent. The meals and included drinks were great although the portion sizes were way too big. We did write on our review sheet that perhaps they should offer a smaller sizing for those of us who don’t usually eat that much as it seemed a waste not to eat it so we did at the start, but towards the end just couldn’t as our waistlines were expanding too much! If we were to do another river cruise we would probably look at going with a company with more Australians, New Zealanders & Brits as the clientele...

This was our sixth European River Cruise and whilst it met expectations in most areas it fell short in some areas and those were ones which we are important to us. In terms of the cabin, the catering, the friendliness of the crew, the on-board facilities and the routine on board, we found that Viking were on par with the other major operators we have ...read more cruised with.

The areas we were disappointed with were the on-board entertainment and the excursions. The on-board entertainment did not include a German folklore/music evening (the cruise was totally within Germany)until the last night of the cruise and many guests did not show up, presumably as they were preparing for departure the following day. There was also a glass blowing demonstration one evening which more of a souvenir/sales event than a cultural event.

The excursions contained too many hours of coach travel (particularly as it had extensions either end in Prague and Paris with several hours by road between ship and hotel). There was also no folklore night offered in advance by Viking in Prague and we booked our own only to find that on the day of our arrival in Prague a folklore evening was being offered by Viking. Also in Rudesheim the main attraction (for us) was the Musical Instrument Museum but not included in any tour offered by Viking, so we and several other passengers had to do our thing. On the other hand the tour to Heidelberg included a local lunch with a foreign student from the university (our student was from Sudan) which we found to be a pleasant change.