Dowtown Abbey advertisements attracted us to investigate Viking Cruises. This trip was a celebration for my wife and I for her retirement from the local bank she worked at for 45 years. The staff met and beat all our expectations. In addition to being helpful and friendly they would anticipate things that we would need. Great job. And the scrabbled eggs each morning were over the top great. This anticipation also applied to the company. With the high waters on the Danube the Baldour was unable to complete the trip to Amsterdam. Because Viking had the equipment and people we did a ship swap around Nurmburg which was seamless. We arrived at all our destinations on time and without incident. We had never been on any kind of cruise before. We always knew that we wouldn't want to cruise with 3000+ of our friends. The river cruise was, for us the way to go. The ratio of crew to guest was low enough that we always felt that we were the most important people on board. I am sure all of our cruising companions felt the same.