We are sitting in Paris now after disembarking the viking hiln in Basel…after the first couple of outstanding days on the ship, some hiccups developed that disappointed us a little. The food quality went down noticeably during the cruise, which surprised us.

On one castle tour, our ENTIRE group was left behind at the ship…. and the confused staff person (her first tour) walked us around for over an hour "looking" for the bus. OK, mistakes happen and we don't judge a whole cruise by one episode….but for the on-board hotel manager to repeatedly blame the "stupid bus driver" for leaving without us….yes, the bus driver drove away in an empty bus… is wrong. An absolute lack of leadership and accountability on the part of a senior staff member disturbed many of us much more so than the screw up.

The most anticipated tour for us was the Black Forest tour…we were disappointed by a poor tour guide and what amounted to one stop at a cuckoo clock store. For those of you that have been on large cruise ships and been "escorted" to a "ship friendly" store, you know what i mean….Our original intent was to buy a clock on this cruise... but that changed once we got there, mostly based on prices…we had done a lot of research prior to the trip for cuckoo clocks so we know enough about quality and cost…we figure we will order on-line from the Black Forest and save money. Basically we had an hour and half bus ride through a magnificent area being distracted by an inaudible guide. Then an hour wandering through one store, then an return ride back to the ship. Read more