My wife and I really enjoyed our trip; in fact we have just signed up for our second Viking cruise, this time a 8-day cruise down the Rhine with a 2-day pre-extension in Amsterdam. Everything was near perfect even though our first river cruise was not as expected. I expected to cruise at night, but I think all cruising was done daytime. Actually the cruise was not much of a cruise, but more like a floating hotel, since most ports were very close together, requiring very little cruising, and half the time the ship cruised while we were on a shore excursion whose bus simply returned us to the new port. The tour buses were very nice Mercedes buses, and we welcomed the comfortable rides to rest since we were always so busy taking advantage of all the included and optional tours. We signed up for, and paid ahead of time, for every optional tour that was not conflicting with other preferred tours. This caused a small problem with our using our ship-board credit. We love wine (in fact I make wine) but there was unlimited wine at all lunches and dinners, and during the day we were usually ashore, so we only spent maybe $50 in the ship's lounge for drinks during the entire trip. Because I had prepaid for all optional tours, there was nothing for us on which to spend our shipboard credit. This next time I will hold off pre-paying for all optional tours so I can use my ship-board credit to pay for them once aboard.

We had the cheapest cabin, a category F, but it was OK, not great. The windows do not allow sightseeing while cruising, but as I wrote, there is very little cruising, and we were usually ashore during daytime anyway. Our room was too small for an easy chair, which I missed, but there was plenty of room on deck to sit and read. The service and food was outstanding. I wish they had a few more excursions to choose from, but they offered enough to keep us busy and tired. I highly recommend the Bordeaux tour especially if you like wine. Be careful in interpreting their cruise prices, since the "2-for-1" price listed is actually the price for one. Apparently they cut the overly inflated normal individual price in half, justifying them to now call the reduced price "2-for-1". It's not cheap, but far worth it, especially if you take advantage of most all the optional excursions. We took almost all of them, and even though some were expensive, we did not regret taking any of tem. We loved them all. John