We'd never been anywhere in Eastern Europe and wanted to see Budapest and some of the other places we've always heard of. The river connected all of them and was an easy way to get a glimpse. We arrived in Budapest by overnight train from Prague (not a Viking extension--on our own) and showed up at the pre-cruise hotel, the Hilton Budapest, at about 9:30 AM. Viking had two reps already at the welcome desk, so we could check in with them right then. They let us know about an afternoon walking tour, suggested that we check with the hotel to see if they had a room we could check into early (the hotel did), gave us some info on the neighborhood and we were on our way!

Viking includes one tour each day of your trip and offers just a few optional excursions for extra cost, but only 10's of dollars, not 100's! We went on one of them and had a very enjoyable afternoon.

After two nights at the Hilton, we were taken to the ship (a different one than scheduled, but identical). After lunch, we had the afternoon to run around on our own and got helpful advice from the ship's concierge. The ship sailed right after dinner and we were treated to the night-time river tour we had missed due to misty/rainy weather. Budapest at night is glorious! The ship was moored just downriver from the parliament building and cruised slowly upriver past it--beautiful. We had a wonderful view of Castle Hill as well. Read more