I chose this trip because I had traveled with Viking twice before and had two wonderful trips - both were top of the line. Not this one. We were told that Viking now has 58 ships and is building two more. With a fleet of 60 ships it would seem inevitable that their quality control would go way down, and this is exactly what happened on this trip. First the good: the crew were all very accommodating and friendly (except our stewardess and the delay in fixing our balcony). And the land tours were all excellent. But the bad - the food was not very good - passable but not what you would expect on a cruise - more like a middle class restaurant. One night the entire dining room waited one and a half hours for dinner. No formal explanation was ever given, but one waiter told us that a 'big wig' from Viking was in the kitchen and that backed up everything. (I should think a 'big wig" would be there to make sure every thing went perfectly.) We had paid extra for a balcony but ours was constantly flooded due to a broken drain pipe. We reported it the first day but never were able to use it until the last day of the cruise when they finally fixed it. The cabin was the tiniest of any I have ever seen, and I have been on 34 cruises, six of them river cruises. The beds were so close to the opposite wall that only one person could get past at a time. We had twin beds and they were so close together that my travel partner couldn't even get between them. The stewardess was quite inattentive. We ran out of toilet paper one day and had only one cake of soap for both shower and wash basin for the entire trip. Of course we could have asked for more but we never saw her the entire trip and had no idea even what her name was. There was more but you get the idea. I will never travel with Viking again and am telling everyone I know, " Don't go with Viking."
Response from VikingS, Community Team