Viking had been recommended by friends. Overall the ship is beautiful and service is excellent. Tours were disappointing. For the most part the tour guides did not offer comprehensive in-depth perspectives. Many just plain boring and blah. The worst were in Norway where the guides are not local. The best tour was Soviet Flashback in Estonia where the guide gave us a rendition of what life was like in the Soviet times. It was excellent. Estonia is a lovely city and easy to get around, but again, we had a pretty lackluster experience on the included city tour. Viking needs to work on checking out their tour operators and perhaps hire their own rather than use outside agencies. We were not alone in our criticism of the tours in general. Our Russian guide was good although she got sick and stayed with us on the bus and passed on her cold to me.

Best to do your homework and research cruises before wasting your money.