My wife and I took our first Viking river cruise in 2019, primarily because we kept hearing how wonderful Viking was from friends and neighbors. In fact, the trip was as good as we hoped it would be.

This time, not so much.

I don't know to what extent Covid made an impact on staffing issues at cruise lines, but the service in the dining room on our second river cruise wasn't nearly as good as it was three years earlier. Our first night at dinner, we waited 45 minutes to get a glass of wine and if we hadn't repeated the request, it never would have been poured at all. Several times at lunch, drinks of water, iced tea or soda were never refilled -- or even offered. Did this turn the trip into a nightmare? No. But these are basic things that shouldn't be hard to get right. Read more