Our first Viking cruise and definitely not our last... everything was impeccable, from being met at the airport when we landed to the service on board, the food, the wine, the crew... We were on the Alruna, which was a brand new ship and although we heard of a couple of incidents involving the plumbing for the fire suppression system, we were not affected by either of them. We chose a cabin with balcony... probably won't in the future as it would give us a valuable extra couple of feet of space in the room and frankly we weren't on it that often. As I said above, the food was amazing and the wines were superb. We chose to take the upgraded beverage package and it was well worth it. As a certified sommelier, the rest of our travelling group relied on me to choose the wines for our meals and the list did not disappoint. The on-board entertainment was relaxing and non-intrusive. The excursions were the perfect length and presented the perfect amount of information on the city being visited. The only optional excursion we chose was the full day in Strasbourg and, while the description led us to believe that we would be accompanied by a chef and sommelier the entire day, that was not the case. The excursion itself was still thoroughly enjoyable and our tour guide was most informative.