My husband and I recently took the Viking Romantic Danube cruise on the Atla from Nuremburg to Budapest with a group of friends. The small ship was satisfactory, but it was too cold in November to use the third deck for exercise, games, or viewing. Food and staff were adequate. The included morning excursions were enjoyable with excellent local guides. For those who don’t like to shop, there was nothing else to do in the afternoon unless purchasing an optional tour. There were before-dinner lectures but little to do after dinner other than sit in the bar lounge and listen to a singing pianist, except for two game nights and one night of two opera singers with a four-piece string accompaniment, all of which were enjoyable. There were very few TV stations, and the Internet was sporadic.

The disastrous part of this cruise was booking it. We started almost a year earlier with Johnny at Viking because there was a “special” price and free airfare from the East coast until January 31. As we worked with him, we learned that Orlando is not on the East coast, but Philadelphia and New York are! We upgraded the nine-hour flight from Orlando to Frankfurt to premium economy for $900 each. We extended two days in Budapest for a deviation fee of $100 each. We were charged $400 each for the two-day hotel stay. We bought the travel insurance for $519 each. The total cost of the trip was $7,800. We decided to book as this was a group vacation. I left messages for Johnny every day for a week, and he never returned my calls. Finally on January 30 I called general reservations and was given another agent to book before the “sale” ended the next day. When I realized we were being charged $800 for two nights in a Budapest hotel, I called the Viking business office and spent a day cancelling it. I instead booked the four-star K and K Opera Hotel online myself for $80 a night. When we later tried to learn the flight dates and times, we were told we had to pay an extra $164 each from Air Plus, Viking’s “exclusive custom air department,” to find out ahead of time and receive “more desirable” flights. These flights were later changed without notifying us, from the agreed-upon 8 AM flight to a 6 AM flight. We learned of the change only after calling the airline to confirm our flight.

Even though the cruise itself was adequate, it’s not worth the agony of booking, the unprofessional service, or the ridiculous costs of the add ons. This was not our first European river cruise, but Viking was a very difficult company to deal with.