As you can see from my title, this was our first river cruise. We had tried 1 Caribbean cruise before and we weren't too crazy about our experience with that. We selected Viking because of the Rhine itinerary (been to some of the places before on a Globus tour) and wanted to spend more time in places like Cologne and Heidelberg. Also Viking had a price that was in our range.

Pre-trip. We are a couple in our 50's. We took our 24 yo daughter and 35 yo niece along. The Viking sales agent Alex was very helpful and made several great suggestions. We went with special Viking air and transfers and were extremely pleased with our flights. Viking even called 3 weeks before departure and asked if we had any questions. We elected to go with 2 standard rooms and a post-trip extension to Lucerne.

Arrival. Our plane landed early and we were taken to the Helvetia about 10am. We were greeted by the Cruise Director George who took us onboard. Although our rooms would have been ready by 11am, we elected to have a hot beverage and then head out and explore Amsterdam. Check in went smoothly when we returned at 5pm. Read more