The breakfast choices were not as expansive as other river cruises and coffee was poor. Lunch choices as well were limited. Dinner choices were limited and some menus were good but small portions with protein. Deserts were average in taste. If you don’t upgrade to silver spirits your wine will be poor. The ship service was good with the exception of dinner. The staff was slim for this ...
This was a wonderful small-boat cruise on the Duoro river. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We were expecting some walking tours of the ports where we docked each day, but were almost always met by Viking buses that took us to other interesting sites in Portugal. It was a combination riverboat and bus tour. The buses were nice, but it seemed we spent a lot of time on them.
One of the highlights was ...
This was our fourth Viking River Cruise, ( plus one ocean vcruise), and our first that included a tour before the boat. The hotel in Lisbon was elegant, one of the best we’ve stayed at. The included excursions were great, as almost all Viking included excursions are. On the third morning we bussed to Vila Nova de Gaia, across the Douro from Porto, with a stop in the university town of Coimbra. ...
Cabin had sewer gas coming out of the shower drain. Made a terrible odor. Ship personnel knew about the situation but continued to book this and several others with the same issue. Apparently the sewer pipes gather under these cabins for the entire ship and the gases and odor rise up through the shower drains is several cabins on several decks. Ship was completely booked so no where to move ...
Friends had recommended the Douro cruise and we had enjoyed our 2 previous Viking cruises so we embarked on this holiday. We flew from London to Lisbon for a couple of lovely days and then took the coach to Porto for another couple of days. The outing to Guimares was wonderful. The cruise itself started the next day. The river is not long so 2.5 days to the Spanish border and 2.5 days back. The ...
Having already river cruised before with viking and knowing this itinerary was exactly what we wanted we had no hesitation in booking this holiday.
We opted to do the pre cruise extension in Madrid and this proved to be another good choice as we got to know our small group of 16 other travelers well and they turned out to be our core group of friends for the rest of the trip.
On transferring ...
I choose this cruise for a Christmas Holiday. It was disappointing because the schedule was changed do to the maintenance on the locks. This could not have been avoided. However, it make for a disappointing Christmas cruise. Instead of visiting the Bakery on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas was a big let down. For Christmas day we just cruised back and forth. There was not any big celebration ...
Excellent cultural education.
Excellent guides who knew their history and culture of the regions
Cuisine was fabulous and often of the region we were visiting
Crew was wonderful.
All directions as to what to do and expect were detailed
Ship was great
2 hotels were lovely first class.
Airline travel totally arranged
Stateroom was cleaned twice daily.
There is absolutely ...
We watch some TV networks where Viking advertise all the time and we have always talked about a River Cruise. 2 years earlier on a Viking Ocean Cruise (Best cruises in the world) we met a couple that had done 7 River Cruises - they met us on this one.
This was Viking Hemming Rivers of Gold and we spent 2 nights in Lisbon in a great hotel and then embarked The Hemming in Porto Portugal 2 days ...
This was a huge celebration trip. Declared cancer free, 30th wedding anniversary, husband's 65th birthday, husband's retirement. We had a blast. Service, food, tours, amenities all up to our expectations and more. Our suite was wonderful with the balcony and plenty of space. Very clean and our room steward was excellent - as were all the crew!
This is not a cruise for people with limited ...