It should be mentioned right away that Viking clearly caters to a very small demographic of elderly clientele. My wife and I and the other couple that we travel with are healthy, active 60 year-olds and we felt that at least 90 percent of the other passengers were much older than us. We've taken previous Viking River cruises and, overall, really enjoyed them. Unfortunately, the things that we did not like about cruising with Viking were amplified on the ocean cruise and the things that we did like about river cruising were minimized.

All of the food, entertainment and activities were geared to an elderly (70-80) target audience. The food was monotonous and bland. The music was non-stop elevator or classical music. The on-board shows consisted of school lectures and high-school musicals. The shore excursions leaned heavily to bus tours and low energy walks. The food service in the various venues was very inconsistent. I lost count how many times someone at our table didn't get their drink order either taken or delivered. The wait times for food was excruciating in the sit-down restaurants. Also, there were a number of time periods during the day that the only food available was room-service or cookies; how hard would it have been to keep open a snack bar or the grill by the pool for a few more hours?

The other crew and service personnel were, for the most part, excellent, especially the room stewards and the bar staff. The guest services desk person was the exception, very brusk and un-helpful. The ship was very well maintained and had a nice, if unexciting, decor. Read more