Viking Emerald Cruise Reviews for Family to Asia River

This is an EXTREMELY long report; I don’ seem to be able to anything halfway. Please read it knowing that we are NOT tour people. We don’t like regimentation and we surely do not want to get up at 5am every day of our “vacation”. I have years of experience planning and managing events, and I am quite persnickety. We’ve done many cruise-tours with Grand Circle and Avalon. They have been great, ...

Viking has a great reputation and we expected a great cruise on a luxurious ship. it began with a compulsory stay in a business type hotel in Beijing nowhere near anything important. We wished to stay in another hotel but were told that, if we did not turn up and stay in the selected hotel, we would be considered as no shows. in fact, the pre-cruise experience dealing with the US office was ...

This is the worst of Viking experience I can imagine, since we sailed with Viking Ocean before and think that their China Yangtze River cruise should also honor that tradition. On the contrary, this is the worst cruise/tour we have had in the past 25 years. 1. Viking had chartered a low-graded local Chinese river cruise ship (called Century Emerald) and only hang up Viking signage during ...

Very disappointed in the Century (Viking) Emerald. The ship is leased from a Chinese firm, but there are six Viking employees onboard. The welcome aboard and first day were good, but things quickly turned sour. During the dinner the second night, it seemed like the wait staff went on strike. An hour after being served the first course, we watched the wait staff clear some tables around us. At ...

While the land portion of Viking's Jewels' of China Tour was phenomenal (Hotels were first-class; tour guide was the BEST we've ever experienced; planned activities were well-organized and carried out to perfection), the experience aboard the Emerald was disappointing. The ship is dated (musty smell, warped carpeting). SEVERAL people of our floor contacted food poisoning, including me and my ...

After booking our trip to china with Viking, we were really looking forward to the 5 day trip down the Yangztee. We travelled during September and found the ship very damp, even down to our bedding. This was not helped by the air conditioning being on with no option to change it to heat. The smell of sewerage in the cabin and round the ship, we found unbearable. Onboard, we could not fault ...