My adult daughter and I did this cruise as part of a two month holiday in Europe. Prior to the cruise we had visited Scandinavia, France and Switzerland so boarding at Basel was an excellent choice for us. As we had travelled to Basel by train we were not escorted to the boat, but were met at the dock side by our programme director and from there all our worries were removed. We were fortunate to have a suite on the boat so it gave us ample room to have our own privacy when wanted. My only thought on the room would be that a magnifying mirror would be helpful for older clients with poorer eyesight.

As we were both weary from our travel schedule to this point we opted not to do the tour to the Black Forest, but sat in lounge area on our deck and caught up on bookwork that needed attention. There was no problems with not doing any of the tours on offer: It was our choice. Obviously some of the shore tours suited us more than others, but the audio pieces supplied by Viking made it so much more enjoyable. My daughter opted for the optional tour to the heights of the Cologne Cathedral and was delighted with that. I had to enjoy it from her photos as a bad knee and my dislike of heights precluded me. We did make one mistake in not choosing the cheese tour over windmills when at Kinderdyke, but were able to stroll back to the boat when we had seen enough of windmills.

On arrival at Amsterdam we were heading to a week on a canal boat. As it wasn't to be ready until 2pm we were able to sit in the lounge, have lunch with the new passengers arriving and when the taxi that Viking had ordered arrived, enter the taxi which already had our luggage loaded. Bliss. Read more