Viking Hemming Review

4.0 / 5.0
87 reviews

Delightful Douro

Review for Europe River Cruise on Viking Hemming
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bcoris
10+ Cruises • Age 80s

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Sail Date: Oct 2014

This was a cruise tour of Lisbon and the Douro River Valley. This was our first river cruise and it was everything we expected and more. From the 5 star hotel Tivoli Lisboa in Lisbon to the top notch buses and the beautiful Viking hemming every thing was first class. The Viking staff were friendly and could not do enough for you. Our tour director Patrica was excellent. The tour guides all spoke good english and were very knowledgeable about every tour we were on. The bonus, for us, was the excellent weather - 70-80 deg and sunny daytime, 60-65 deg at night. This is normally the start of their rainy season and we really had anticipated some rainy, cool weather but shorts were the order of the day. So our sweaters and umbrella stayed in the cabin. The scenery in the Douro Valley is spectacular, terraced fields of grape vines, olive trees, and pine forests. There was no other river boats, in fact, no other river traffic of any kind. Sitting on the front terrace of the boat with a fine glass of wine, watching the beautiful scenery slide by was, without a doubt, one of the best experiences we have had in our travels around the world. The food on board was excellent (over worked word I know but, Oh Well). There were 98 on board so dinner was like dinning in a fine resaurant every night. There was an herb garden on the top deck which the chef used regularly and fresh fruit, vegetables, etc were purchased at local markets each day. Lunch and dinner inclued all the wine and/or beer you wanted and many of the day trips included a lunch or dinner off the ship at a local winery or monastary. The feature wine of this area of Portugal is Port and believe me it is the finest in the world. The only thing we did find was the pace of the trip - i.e. every day there was at least one included tour and at times additional tours if you wished them. This meant that in order to be ready for a 9:30 am tour you had to be up at least by 7:00 am to shower, have breakfast and be on the bus 15 min ahead of time.There were some people by the fourth day that were simply tired and just wanted to relax and stay on the ship. However, this was not a big deal and I only mention it because I felt they may want to lighten this part up a bit. After all this was a senior crowd and we all can't "cut the mustard" like we used to. In conclusion I would recommend this trip to anyone who likes good wine, good scenery, great staff and a first class company in Viking.

Cabin Review

Cabin Veranda

Cabin was spacious, lots of closet space and well appointed with every ammenity of a fine hotel room.

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