Overwhelmingly most of the cruisers were Viking River alumni. This was my first time on any Viking product so I did not have anything to compare it to (Viking wise). We have several friends that rave about Viking (river) and that along with the itinerary prompted me to book the cruise. As an aside, I did not realize that the cruise I was on was an inaugural cruise until I was on the ship. I had never been on an inaugural cruise previously, but certainly understand that their could be hiccups with any new product. I know people told me that I should have realized that it was an inaugural cruise, but anyone who has tried to utilize the Viking website, you realize quickly it is not very very intuitive.

We have been on many cruises, however lately have been moving more towards the smaller ships (e.g. Azamara, Oceania, etc.) so not the luxury ones, but above the mass market ones. The Viking Ocean was marketed to me as an upscale, five (5) star service. This was articulated both pre-cruise but also on ship by Viking Corporate and ship senior management staff. In my opinion, they have a very long hurdle ahead to become a five start cruise line.

The front line staff certainly were nice, tried unbelievably hard (with quite noticeable shortages of staff) but did not appear to be trained appropriately and management was pretty much non-existent during my 21 days aboard. Once again, I do not think they know what they are (as far as level of cruise) able to do/not do. Read more