I chose this cruise because of my desire to visit the Christmas Markets along the Danube. My friend and I booked about two years out, in the middle of COVID to have something to look forward to as we got through those long months. I had heard wonderful things about Viking but our experience was not as wonderful as I had hoped, beginning with the airfare that we included in our reservation. Usually, we like to get in at least a day in advance, to adjust to the time change and enjoy our departure port. When we asked to do that, we were told that we could only change our flight on the day it had already been booked. Later, another agent told us that was incorrect information. Nonetheless, our flight arrived a bit late and got us to the ship just as the first excursion was getting ready to leave. We had not eaten, were tired and stayed behind, missing the first Christmas Market. (Upon returning home, we did contact Viking about numerous challenges with our air and they gave us a credit toward our next cruise.)

The excursions that we paid for did not go well and were not worth the money we paid. Three examples - the first night, we were booked on a Budapest by Night excursion that left at 9 pm. Shortly after getting on the bus, we were told that the group was going to hurry because all of the lights were going out at 10 pm because of an energy shortage, which they did promptly at 10 pm, leaving us with an hour of nothing to see. The description had said we would have a glass of bubbly in a place that would give us a 360 degree view of the city. Instead, we went to a ground floor venue. We were back to the ship by 10:30, disappointed. The second example was an excursion to Salzburg, which was a daylong experience that was highly anticipated. Our ship got into port about two hours late (trouble getting through locks), which significantly shortened our stay. There were other problems that day and I think that a partial credit should have been offered. Finally, we had a dinner in Prague scheduled for the last night that we were there, as part of a post-package. When we found out that our pick-up time was 3 am and that this excursion would last until 11:30 pm, we decided to cancel, and had to do that with no reimbursement. All in all, our paid excursions were a waste of our money.

Since this was our first Viking cruise, we listened to other experienced Viking passengers who said that this trip was "off". Our cruise director was ill, and told us that; we arrived late to port several times, and perhaps most of all, we didn't feel that we had sufficient time at the Christmas Markets, which was the purpose of our travel. Fortunately for us, we had booked a post-stay in Nuremberg and Prague, and the Nuremberg Market was the best by far! It was amazing and the best part of our trip! Prague was beautiful and while the markets were not great, the city was amazing and the tours offered were excellent. Read more