We chose Viking for the Mediterranean cruise because our previous experience travelling with Viking on a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam clearly demonstrated Viking's excellent logistics with airport transfers, smooth operations of shore visits always with excellent guides, pleasant accommodations, wonderful and varied meals and friendly, helpful and efficient staff.

We took the Barcelona extension before the cruise where having Viking staff was crucial given the protests taking place at the time, Viking met us at the airport and the chauffeur skillfully got around the extensive protests and got us to the hotel where VIking staff met us and were useful in advising us on our exploration of Barcelona, a wonderful walkable city.

We enjoyed the cruise especially all the ports of call. We took a mix of included and optional tours, difficult choices, where we would have liked an extra day to do a second tour, for example we enjoyed Pisa but would have loved an extra day to visit Florence. Very interesting tour of Avignon, Pisa, Rome, Naples (especially Pompeii), Corfu, Dubrovnik, Split and Venice. We also took the Venice extension which gave us time to explore many fascinating areas and walked extensively. Read more