pontac

Excellent posts, lovely photos. They answer many questions visitors here ask, including whether all the passengers are ancient. 🙂 One typo you may want to correct is in the second sentence of the first paragraph of the itinerary post - saw us vising six different ports

I beg to differ. Earlier in that description it says Meet your guide and drive into the city for a half-day motor coach and walking tour, Given that the excursion lasts a max 3.5 hours which includes free time (denoted by 'Shopping' at the top), the excursion shows you the sights of Vienna from the coach, plus a walking tour with free time to do your own thing. I took this tour, and thought it did an admirable job of exactly that. As we didn't want to shop, we had a pastry and coffee in a café. From the information given by the guide about the metro, we made our own way back to the centre later. There's a metro station close to the river morning. There's not enough time in 3.5 hours to enter and tour Hofburg Palace, St. Stephan's cathedral, the Vienna State Opera concert hall and have time for shopping and a walking tour. If you already know the city or prefer to visit certain places by all means skip this excursion. We didn't and enjoyed it. mhb1757 had the bad luck to have a poor guide and get stuck in traffic. Luck of the draw, but our guide was good, explained a lot and gave a history, all of which was new to us.

The OP is cruising with Viking. Viking has American sockets in cabins. My electric toothbrush is charged via a USB plug. There are USB sockets in the cabins. If you're not cruising with Viking, please say with whom you are cruising with, and what plug/power need you brush has.

See second post in this thread

I book direct with Viking and get promotional emails and letter from them. Also when booking direct with them I have been offered money off and the Silver Drinks package that hasn't been advertised

Viking supplies hair dryers in every cabin; as others have said European hotel rooms also have hair dryers. See Viking FAQs on the website under My Ship Is my stateroom furnished with amenities that I do not need to pack? All stateroom bathrooms are equipped with premium bath toiletries. A hair dryer is also provided, and laundry and pressing services are available. Also in FAQs is link to a prohibited on board list which includes Any electrical device that produces heat You may want to bring face cloths (not sure what they are called in the USA). Though supplied in your cabin, many Euro hotels don't have them.

Thanks Tim, but I'll need the airline booking reference to check in, and the hotel chit(?) to book into the hotel, plus details of when the car is due on outbound and where to meet driver on arrival back in UK. I 'spose with the disruption at Heathrow they need to leave it to later to confirm when and which flight we're actually booked on.

Have you browsed the River Cruise Ports sub-forum of this forum?

I can't see I have the option to subscribe to newsletters, this is what I see if I click on Newsletters in my Profile

No.

Tours can differ depending on the cruise you are on. The included tours tend to give you an orientation, and are walking tours or bus & walking tours. How difficult the walking is depends and is rated on the Viking website. Sometimes they go into buildings The Viking website give a clear indication of how difficult the walking element is, and the tours are fully described there. We went on included tours in Budapest and Vienna when we took Romantic Danube I think the Budapest included tour - which is coach & walking covers a lot of ground that you couldn't do in the time - on both sides of the river - plus you get an explanation from the guide. On that tour you enter Matthias Church. As one now has to book the included tours on MVJ I recommend you do so, you can later decide not to go on them. The excursions should be described the evening preceding by the Programme Manager in the lounge before dinner As the included tours take only half the day you can do your own thing the other half.

We're due to depart on 16 August, five weeks from now. Not heard anything from them about travel to/from airport or booking ref for flights/hotel. So will report on this. But another thread said Scenic were no longer using their long term partner in transfers; I cannot recall whether that was because they'd gone out of business or other.

Not by the English 😁 But apologies as my humous comment obviously offended. The EU did want the UK to convert to the 2/3 pin European plug; it's one of their few demands that didn't happen. I remember when the square 13 amp system came in; my parents had to convert their house from 15 amp round sockets and plugs* to the square system The 15amp round sockets were just the right diameter for crawling babies and toddlers to push their fingers in. They can't do it with the smaller square holes, plus the two live holes are closed until the earth socket is pushed open, which is why the earth pin is longer than the other two. *still in use in South Africa

OK, Apologies, I understand now

🙂 you're getting confused because you think England is in Europe.

Err - haven't you answered your own question? If there's a charge if you don't have the package, it implies there is no charge if you do have the package.