Overall we had a great time - there were quite a few rough edges but we attribute them to the fact that the ship was brand new and many things needed to be ironed out. Our relative took the same cruise in Sept. and it appears that many of the issues have been corrected.

Here were some of the items that warrant improvement on our cruise - extremely long lines for dinner service; spotty cable/internet connections; unilateral changing of shore excursion times without prior notice; confusion at the excursion desk came boarding time for the shore excursions; less-than-robust nightly entertainment offerings; ports of call selection/shore excursions that can be improved. Let us expand on that last point. We'll be blunt - there are more desirable ports to stop in Greece than the one selected (substituting Santorini or Mykonos would be highly desirable); there was little to do at Provence even though it's along the way (We personally would have preferred to skip it, get to Barcelona one day earlier as there's much more to see there).

The coverage of the shore excursions also can be improved. For example, we were left to hang out at the Vatican in Rome for 5+ hours - the lines were very long and there's no way we can get in; we were told about taxis and public transportation to get to the Spanish steps/Trevi fountain but no one told us about the "skip the line" option to get into the Vatican. One member of our cruise watched Rick Steves ahead of time, knew exactly where to go and was able to see the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican. For most of us, we were neither here nor there. We just stood by the tacky souvenir shops around St. Peters Square waiting for the tour bus to come pick us up. Rome ended up being an underwhelming stop because of how the shore excursion was executed. By the way, for some unknown reason, Viking told us to bring our passports on shore in Rome. We checked with friends who went with other cruise lines and heard no such thing. Having your passport on you is not such a good idea - two members of our cruise got pick pocketed and these incidents are hardly rare in Europe. Read more