We chose this cruise because of the British Isles itinerary. The ship itself was wonderful, the rooms were nice, the ship was well laid out, the entertainment was good, the food was wonderful and the on board service was very good.

Outside the ship the experience was not so good. The real troubling part was that when we brought this to their attention they had a way of not responding in a positive manner. It started with the airline reservation. We purchased flights through Viking. Without any contact I received an itinerary from them. We live half way from Milwaukee and O'Hare airports so we chose Milwaukee. We do everything we can to avoid the Chicago Airports. The itinerary we received was from Milwaukee to Chicago to London. If I had known that I could have requested Chicago. We called to change the itinerary only to be told that it would cost us $100 per person to change. We agreed to the additional charge and got flights from Milwaukee to Toronto to London. On the way back they had done the same thing but we chose not to pay another $200 to change that one. As it turned out the flights on Air Canada were fine but on the way back we got what we were trying to avoid, a connection at Chicago O'Hare. The first flight was delayed and we had this rush to get though passport control, baggage and customs and still make the second leg of the flight. We barely made it but we did make it. The plane took off and half way through the flight the pilot announced that the plane was having problems with the landing gear and they were going to have to return to Chicago. We were terrified thinking about landing on a broken landing gear. We expected to see emergency trucks and foam on the runway, etc. but it came right down as a normal landing. Once at the gate a mechanic came aboard and the Captain announced that the plane was grounded and that we were to disembark the plane. After much confusion in the airport we noticed two agents at the next counter with a line in front of them. It seems that they were issuing bus tickets to Milwaukee, however we could not get our luggage as they were going to send it to Milwaukee this next morning. We had to practically run to catch this bus. Then we sat on the bus for more than a half an hour while the driver tried to get things sorted out. We finally got underway to find that this bus made two stops before it got to Milwaukee. It was past 1:00 a.m. when the bus arrived in Milwaukee. It was after 2:00 a.m. when we finally got home, exhausted.

The next problem is that I noticed on my paperwork that I had paid $7,800 per person for this cruise and the lowest, advertised price was $6990 (for a DV6). There were no $6990 rooms available so we were given a DV4 type room. We were told when booking a subsequent cruise that the difference between a DV6 room and a DV4 room is $300. They both have a balcony and are the same size but the DV4 has an inroom refrigerator with soft drinks and snacks and an in-room coffee maker. When I called to ask about this I got this confusion explanation that the prices always change and even though I had the brochure showing the base price they insisted that this was my fault that I did not notice it sooner. All I wanted to know is what was the base price when I booked the cruise and why was my price so much higher than I thought it should be. I was told that they did not know. The agent offered me a $250 per person credit on a future Viking cruise. I turned it down as I do not expect to go on another Viking cruise. Read more