We have made scores of ocean cruises into the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, but the Viking tour from Budapest to Amsterdam, July 3, - July 17 2013, was the best of all. My son, his wife, my wife and I boarded Viking ODIN after a wonderful Viking-arranged two-day land package in Budapest.

We found Viking ODIN far above our expectations. ODIN is a super clean ship, with fantastic food, and a top-of-the-line captain and crew. Our cruise went smooth until we encountered a diesel generator failure. Viking Basel base, and Captain Geza Peter Toth, brought aboard technicians who solved the problem. The passengers suffered only minuscule inconveniences. Based on the captains assurances, we were still on schedule. But, it was not to be. The lockkeepers strike kept ODIN tied up at Regensburg  actually not a bad place to stay an extra day. It was here where the combined efforts of Captain Tot and Viking Basel base showed their mettle. As a former member of the military, I know that logistic problems are always the most difficult ones to solve, and Viking ODIN solved them with extraordinary vigor. Out of thin air Captain Geza Peter Toth had arranged bus tours to Nuremberg. In the meantime, with the lockkeepers' strike solved, ODIN left Regensburg, bypassed Nuremberg, and had scheduled an improvised passenger pickup at an undisclosed location along the Danube-Main Canal. Two busses loaded with ODIN passengers drove on Germanys back roads, and dirt roads, to the location for the pickup. Assisted by the hotel crew that had accompanied the bus tour, passengers scrambled up a grassy dam and came to a bulkheaded section of the canal. ODIN was nowhere in sight, but the hotel crew assured the passengers that ODIN would arrive any moment. Passengers joked about having to go to the bathroom, and about hitchhiking a ride on some barge. Everyone was in high spirits. A short time on the dike, we noticed a white spot far down the canal; it was ODIN. Cheers arose as ODIN came alongside the bulkheaded site. The gangplank was lowered, and the hotel crew stood alongside serving refreshments and offering cold towels.

What could have been a dreadful moment became an enjoyable adventure. The rest of the trip was without excitement, but the adventure on the dam, in a place without a name, became an admirable incident showing the great Viking ODIN organization and its logistic competence.