Took a Viking river cruise many years ago (Budapest to Amsterdam) and loved it. We wanted to visit the Nordic countries and while I had been in 4 of them for work, I never spent enough time to really visit (except for western Norway). This seemed like a good way to get a good introduction to each country, which would help us decide if we wanted to spend more time in any of them. The included tours were great as they allowed time to explore on our own. We only took the optional train tour in Eidfiord, which was great, and 3 optional tours in St. Petersburg (since we didn't want to get Russian visas (I lived in Moscow for 5 months over 10 years ago and it was not a pleasant experience)). The St. Petersburg tours were great, but long so those were very long days. Because of the train ride to Berlin, that was also a very long day. That said, we had a great time on it.

As to the ship, the service was excellent. We ate at The Chef's Table 4 times and the five course meal with wine parings compares favorably with any land based restaurant we have been in. In a word, spectacular. The other specialty restaurant was also excellent. The main regular restaurants were also very, very good. We have absolutely no complaint with the food.

The cabin service was also excellent as they attended to it twice a day and the attendant help us discover hidden features of the cabin (which was larger than most hotel suites). The entertainment was fun and the evening port lectures on the next day's stop were very helpful. Read more