Viking Rinda Review

4.0 / 5.0
215 reviews

Rhein Getaway 12/21-30/2013

Review for Europe River Cruise on Viking Rinda
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6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Dec 2013

The Cruise

Overall, pretty much what I expected, having read many threads and posts on the Cruise Critic message board, as well as other sites. As we were going during Christmas, I was expecting very cold weather. As it turns out, we got very lucky and had mostly unseasonably better weather than you normally get this time of year. I had bought a new, heavy duty winter coat, waterproof boots, and other winter paraphernalia. I only wore my big coat a few times, and got along with a lighter coat, supplemented by a layer of a long sleeve tee shirt and a light sweater. I also used gloves and a hat most days. The temperature was usually in the 40s, the only bad weather was the last day in Kinderdijk, the windmills, when it was cold, rainy, and very windy. Most of the time the weather was ok, making the trip much more enjoyable. You never know about the weather, though. Just the week before, there had been a major snow storm in that part of Europe. We saw the remains on the mountains in the Black Forest, but that was the extent of snow that we encountered. I probably should mention that we are from New Orleans, so when the temperature gets below 50, we get cold. My wife was also very comfortable wearing a variety of coats, and other layers.

The cruise started in Basel, Switzerland. We booked our cruise, including flights and a two-day post cruise extension in Amsterdam, directly through Viking. We worked with Ceasar Reyes [Ceasar.Reyes@vikingcruises.com], who was extremely helpful, accessible, and knowledgeable about the various tours. He originally suggested the Rhein Getaway cruise when my wife first talked to him. Of course, I then took over the process and was leaning to the Danube Waltz, with a chance to visit Vienna. Ceasar told me he thought the Rhein Getaway would be a better cruise for our first one, and he was right. I'm sure the Danube Waltz cruise is great also, but the Rhein cruise was perfect for us.

Cabin Review

Cabin Veranda Suite (AA)

The Viking Rinda, which is named for the Norse god of the frozen earth, or at least that's what I think the description of the picture at the top of the staircase said, is the river boat we sailed on. It is one of the newer Viking longboats, and I think it is only a couple of years old. It is very efficiently designed, using limited space optimally. When you enter the boat, you generally come in on the starboard (right) side. You walk into the "lobby" with the front desk and concierge located to your left. There is a small gift shop on the far wall. The entrance is on the second deck, there being three decks all together. We were in Veranda Suite 304 on the 3rd deck. We had the first room as the rooms start, which gave us great access to the lounge, which was at the front of the ship on the 3rd deck. The Veranda Suite includes a sitting room with a couch, chair, and TV. The front room is where the balcony is located, accessible through a sliding glass door. There is also a mini-refrigerator located there. The bedroom had a sliding glass door that accessed the outside. We had a nice size, probably queen, bed. Very comfortable. Their is also a TV in the bedroom. The bathroom was adequate, located to the right of the bed. Very narrow, with the shower on the right, the sink in the middle, and the toilet to the left. The bathroom has a pocket door that closes very easily. It is also a step-up into it, so be careful if you have mobility issue or have had too much to drink. There was a closet with a small, two-drawer dresser located at the bottom of the closet. To the left of the dresser was the closet floor, used for storing shoes and dirty clothes. Overall, the room, much like the ship, uses the limited space very efficiently.Storage is an issue, as there is not much of it. Part of it was our fault as we, mainly me, way over packed for what we did and what the weather turned out to be. My wife insisted that she used everything she brought, so I am not going to try to describe or explain packing from the female perspective. Hopefully, there are other threads that the women can get some ideas as to what is needed in the way of clothes, coats, and other items for a trip of this duration during this time of year. I will say that I brought a lot of stuff (bathing suit, short sleeve shirts, too many pairs of socks) that I had no need of nor use for. What I did end up needing more of was long sleeve t-shirts and light weight sweaters/sweatshirts. I only brought 4 long-sleeve shirts, so I used the on-board laundry service to wash them, so that they lasted through the trip, including Amsterdam. The laundry service was very easy to use. You put your clothes in a laundry bag left in your cabin, fill out the sheet describing the articles you need cleaned, and leave it in the room. Your steward picks it up and delivers it back to you the next day. Again, we were extremely lucky with the weather, so most days I went out in a pair of jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt, a light weight sweater/sweatshirt, and a lighter nylon coat, which I threw in my suitcase just as we were leaving the house. I always had my gloves and ski cap, which I used probably 50% of the time when we were outside. We did get a little bit of rain, never enough to really cause problems, it was more that it had rained and it was wet in some of the areas we went to. I wore my waterproof boots on most occasions when it was wet or looked like rain. Other times I wore my new balance walking shoes, or my crocs (with socks). I had purchased 3 pairs of wool socks. I only wore one pair once and it was just too hot, so I stuck to regular socks the rest of the trip. I also brought two pairs of dress pants, several dress shirts, and a blazer. I really didn't need any of that as the cruise is extremely casual. I could have gotten by most nights with what I wore during the day on the excursions. What we generally did, was return to the ship before dinner, shower, and change clothes. I never wore my blazer and only wore one pair of dress pants the first night and the last night, which was the captains dinner. I only wore 2 of the dress shirts, so I could have left probably half of the clothes at home and never missed them. The other thing to think about when packing is that you are in a town or city every day and there are stores available if you forget something or find you really need something you forgot. These cruises are not like going down the Amazon, or to the Galapagos, or to Antarctica. Europe is pretty civilized. As casual as this cruise was, I am curious as to how the dress is during the summer. Are shorts acceptable in the dining room, or are you expected to wear pants?I didn't see any of the other rooms, so I can't really comment on space or storage in them. I will say that because of the time of year, the balcony in our cabin went unused, except to occasionally go outside for some fresh air or to cool off, when the cabin got hot. The boat was extremely warm. I never needed a jacket or coat while on the boat. In fact, we usually slept with the window open in the bedroom to keep the cabin cooler at night. For some reason, I found the boat and most of the buildings we went in very hot. I don't know if people complained that the boat was too cold or if it takes so long to heat things up that once they get warmed up, they don't get cooled off. The first morning, in Breisach, it was pretty neat to go out on the balcony and see all of the ducks and swans hanging out around the boat. I think in the future, we will look at the French Balconies, due to a lower cost and since we didn't spend much time in the room other than sleeping, we can probably get by without the balcony. Although, it was nice to have the extra sitting space.The TV content is interesting. Several channels including CNN, BBC, USA, MGM, and a couple of others that I can't remember. Most of the content was in English, but it seemed to change to German in the mornings. Weird, but we didn't spend a lot of time watching TV. There was also a pretty good selection of movies to watch, all made in the last 10 years or so, with a lot of variety. There was also several music channels, which is probably what we kept the TV tuned to most of the time. There was Country, Pop, Musicals, Classical, and a couple of other channels. Very good variety and kept a nice atmosphere in the room. The TV also had the current weather and two boat cameras, one on the bow (front) and one in the lounge.

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