My husband and I were on the Grand European Cruise on Viking Skadi which departed from Budapest on May 17. We enjoyed it and consider ourselves lucky that the weather was mostly good and the cruise went mostly as expected, with a few exceptions that were handled as best as they could be.

Embarkation

Embarkation was very smooth. My husband and I made our own arrangements for the flight (a lot less than what Viking was charging) and we took a taxi from Budapest airport to the Viking dock. The only issue was that we got off the taxi a little bit too far from the ship and had some difficulty carrying our suitcases over gravel / grass since there was no sidewalk. As soon as the Viking crew saw us they came and carried our bags. We got into the ship, gave our names, and were led straight to our cabin by the hotel manager. They didn't even check our ID to make sure we were who we said we were. Read more