Being as this was a very special occasion for us we chose to do this River Cruise to mark it and were not disappointed. It was however for us, quite an expensive holiday that we couldn't make a habit of doing. We had seen the advertisements on PBS showing Viking cruises and they of course look ideal with blue rivers and few people (which isn't the case and you'd be naïve to think it was!) The Danube is not blue - no matter what the music implies, and Europe's is busy, particularly in the summer time and not only was the boat full (which is expected) there were lots of people taking other Viking river cruises and of course other lines too, all off on tours of one sort or another so the streets were pretty full plus regular tourists of course. The other realization for us was how your trip could be severely impacted by high water, low water and broken locks, none of which affected our trip but did others just before us and after us. That being said Viking does a phenomenal job of reorganizing when need be and the logistics of it all is mind boggling. We were supposed to arrive in one town around 1pm in the afternoon. The top deck had been flattened as the boat would not be able to fit under the bridges otherwise (this was for 5 or 6 days of the trip and standard I believe) so our tour director was aware that people were getting a little stir crazy with only the lounge and a small outside area to go to and arranged for buses to pick us up around 11am and return with us a little further down the river just over an hour later so we could get into the town for an additional amount of time. Very much appreciated - Bamburg I believe.

The other thing I would say is all the information on the trip made my brain feel as if it may explode - you think you know a lot when you're in your 60's and discover there is a whole lot you don't know! The tour director, Giles, was great and knew how to handle a variety of personalities with the different situations that may arise. Another instance was when we arrived in Melk to walk up to the abbey, it started to rain really heavily on the way back. Thunder and lightening and totally unexpected. We were already on our way back to the boat but others were left at the top waiting for buses. The buses being used that day weren't part of Viking and I understand that those drivers weren't very professional in conducting business but the staff from Viking were waiting when the bus arrived to return to the ship with large umbrellas - many of these staff were on their breaks and called in to do this. Some people were upset with all this so there was champagne offered to appease. As I say, this didn't affect us but I thought Viking did the best they could.

I really enjoyed the excursion in Nuremberg World War 2 historical tour but the museum really needed a lot more time that we had. Read more