After a very nice three day pre-cruise extension in Prague, we took a day-long but comfortable and scenic bus ride to Budapest. The city was beautiful to drive through, and the Viking Idi was waiting at its usual dock directly under the magnificent Chain Bridge. Boarding was a simple process, and each crew member went out of their way to make us feel welcome. After a less than 30 minute wait in the lounge, we were escorted to our "B" Veranda stateroom; middle deck aft. Although the stateroom is somewhat smaller than what you'd expect on an ocean-going cruise ship (mostly dominated by the very comfortable Queen bed), it was nicely appointed and spotlessly clean. The veranda is small, but big enough for both of us to sit on comfortably. Something to be aware of: our starboard side stateroom, middle level, was right at the level of most of the docks we tied up to along the route, including Budapest, so not much of a view from the balcony while tied up. Bathroom was very nice, although small; it's set up to maximize the space, and was more user friendly than that on the ocean cruise ship we were on a few months earlier. TV had lot of choices of free decent movies and a handful of news shows, a couple of old American TV shows, two CCTV cameras (bow and lounge), near real-time GPS map of the journey, and itinerary.

One feature that attracted us to this cruise was a daily tour of whatever city we were in, followed by ample free time in the afternoon and evening to explore on our own. The Budapest tour was very good; excellent guide, comfortable buses, and wireless communicators so we didn't have to strain to hear the guide (these are provided in the rooms and used for every tour along the journey). First day was great; had the whole afternoon and evening to explore Budapest on our own, and location of the dock was ideal for walking to the various palaces, churches and other landmarks that make this city so interesting. Plenty of stores and ATMs close by. We enjoyed Budapest so much we wished we could spend one more day. Be careful what you wish for, they say. On the afternoon of the second day (we were scheduled to depart at 9:00 PM) we were told that the first of the 71 locks we were to traverse enroute to Amsterdam had broken and closed, probably for several days. This meant the Idi, as well as every other ship on the Danube, was unable to proceed either direction past Bratislava, scheduled to be our first stop. Our cruise director was very clear that this was a fluid situation and that any estimates on when the lock would re-open were pretty much an educated guess at this point. We were confident that Viking was giving us all the info they had available, and were sincere in their promise to keep us updated as more information became known to them. At this point the ship's staff began an obviously frantic and difficult attempt to keep everybody happy by salvaging what they could of the cruise. The preliminary plan wass to spend another night in Budapest (that wish I spoke of), and set out at 10:00 PM the following night to position us closer to the broken lock. A second complimentary tour to a nearby palace was arranged for the following morning, and we had the next afternoon and evening to wander about the abundant scenery on our own. We did, indeed, pull out at 10:00 PM the next night, and had the unforgettable experience of sailing past the magnificently lit castles, bridges, and churches, as well as the stunning Hungarian Parliament building (the one you see in many of the Viking commercials). We cruised through the night and docked in the small sister villages of Komarno, Slovakia and Komarom, Hungary. Not a lot going on there, but with dozens (perhaps hundreds) of other river boats stuck on the Danube, likely one of the few places that were available to tie up and wait for the docks to be fixed.

By this time we learned that the lock repairs were probably going to take several more days, which launched us into what was to be a pretty heavily modified schedule. The tour of Bratislava took place as scheduled, albeit with a longer bus ride from Komarno. On our return we discovered that since the ship couldn't go anywhere, Viking had arranged for us to be bussed to our next scheduled stop of Vienna, Austria. Instead of the scheduled one night tied up outside the city, Viking had booked us for two nights at the 5-star Vienna Grand Hotel, located in the heart of the city, adjacent to the famous Opera House. The preliminary plan was to regroup after these two nights, with the possibility of re-boarding a different Viking ship which would (hopefully) by then be in a position above the broken locks to accept us. The possibility of spending a third night ashore in a different (as yet undefined) hotel closer to our next port of Passau was discussed, but this had yet to be finalized. While this meant packing all our belongings and moving out of our staterooms, all luggage handling was done by the Idi's crew, and our effort was limited to boarding the very comfortable Viking buses for the several-hour drive to Vienna. Read more