Viking Schumann Review
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I took Viking's Elbe River cruise in August 2014. We were curious about river cruises, so we decided to try it for the first time. It was a marvelous experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We're still talking about now, months later!
The itinerary was Prague - Melnik (Terezin concentration camp) - Lovosice - Bad Schandau (Saxon Alps) - Dresden - Meissen - Torgau - Wittenberg (Martin Luther) - Dessau - Magdeburg - Potsdam - Berlin. This is the historic old Central Europe, off the beaten track from the usual tourist spots in Western Europe. Central Europe is full of historic sites and is comparatively "unspoiled" and authentic compared to the more modernized and gentrified West. It was a trip of lifetime to see these sights that we studied about in school and were unable to visit until the end of the Cold War. The River Elbe itself was a pleasure, a shallow, winding, gentle river passing through old villages and wide pasture land, scenery quite unlike what you would see on the Rhine or the Danube. We could go on and on about the sights, but suffice to say that the Elbe cruise is a unique and, for us, a consciousness-raising experience. One note about the Elbe River: it is shallow, and during certain river conditions can be too shallow for the boat to proceed, in which case the passengers are bussed to another point downstream where they can transfer to another boat in deeper waters. This sounds like a major inconvenience, and we were fortunate it didn't happen to us. It would be worthwhile to check with the cruise company about seasonal conditions before committing to a date of sail.
What about the boat? We were on the Clara Schumann (so cool that they named a boat after a famous woman composer and pianist), a boat designed specially for the shallow waters. It is older and smaller, with about 110 passengers. Though it wasn't as new as the current ships, it was immaculate and functioned well in every respect. The crew was efficient and we had no complaints at all about the ship's systems. We booked late and could only get the smallest cabin, which had two separate single beds, like a college dorm room, and one large window. No problem! We adapted and were quite comfortable. The only time we were in the room much was to sleep at night anyway.