Sparky333

We enjoyed Le Meridien other than a phone call in the middle of the night asking if we'd ordered room service. Silly how middle of the night calls are so scary for no real reason! Have fun in Budapest - it's lovely.

p.s. did they serve turkey on the ship on Thanksgiving?

peterdkiwi - if you see this -

Why do you think this: "this cruise was better done Basel to Amsterdam rather than other way around."

I'm considering this itinerary but had been envisioning going Amsterdam to Basel.

Can you give me any hints to what makes the other direction better? Thanks.

It's hard for me to imagine that trip with such cold temps and snow but it looks very pretty from your picture!

Hi CityGirl --

We didn't visit a spa so I don't have any info on that. I think there are a few recent posts about the baths in Budapest -- Gellert and Szechenyl that might help you.

Cafe Kor was very reasonable maybe avg entree around $15. It is small inside so try to get a reservation - we were able to get one for the same day but it was for a very early seating. Here's a sample of the menu:

Main courses Prices In Hungarian Forints

Turkey breast a la parisian with fresh spinach pancake 2350.-

Rost turkey breast with roquefort cheese sauce and fragrant rice 2370.-

Spagetti with turkey breast strips and fresh crispy vegetables 2290.-

Rost chicken breast with fresh salad and potatoes 2320.-

Roast chicken breast with apricots in hot caramel sauce spread

with sezame seed and rice 2210.-

Pressed chicken breast filet with mayonnaise potatoe salad 2080.-

Spit-roast chicken strips with yogurt-dressing salad 2390.-

Chicken thigh filet fried in breadcrumbs with parsley potatoes

and peach compote 1990.-

Savoury spit-roast mix with pressed potatoes 2520.-

Duck breast steak with tangerine sauce and fragrant rice 2790.-

Duck breast strips with honey, apple and green salad pasta 2760.-

Roast gooseliver with apples and cranberries potatoes 4190.-

Veal tenderloin "Vienesse" with parsley potatoes and lettuce 3560.-

Beef tenderloin "Goulash" with red wine and croquettes 3380.-

Beef tenderloin slices with potatoes with roquefort cheese 3590.-

Filet steak with green pepper sauce and potatoes 3990.-

Beef tenderloin a la "Rossini" /Gooseliver, mushroom/

croquettes and demi glace 4290.-

Garlicky roast pike-perch file with mixed salad and potatoes 3380.-

Roast salmon with lemon balm sauce, croquettes 3280.-

Desserts

"Gulácsi" pancake /stuffed with pulm jam, comes with poppy seed, sugar, whipped cream/ 850.-

"Somlói" spongecake 720.-

"Gundel" pancakes / stuffed with nuts, raisines comes with chocolate sauce and sugar powder/ 920.-

"Mákos Guba" /poppy seed croissant in custard/ 550.-

Chestnut puree with home-made sour cherries in rum 670.-

Icecream cup with forest fruit sauce made with liqueur 980.-

Mixed cheese plate with apples and nuts 1890.-

Brrr! Bundle up. I bet snow is pretty to see while you're sailing the Danube.

When I was looking through my notes from our trip I came across a 500,000,000,000 dinar bill I bought in Belgrade. There is a woman who sells the old currency from when they had terrible inflation and new bills were coming out every other day with more zeroes - she is on the corner across from the entrance of the fortress we visited. I think I paid $1 or so...a fun souvenir to say I'm a billionaire.

Enjoy your tour of Belgrade. The pedestrian shopping area was very impressive with lots of outdoor cafes and crowded with people.

Happy Cruiser 6143-

Regarding not receiving that mesh bag...I've read other posts about people not getting all of the Aqua Class amenities they should so I'm going to have the printed list and ask for what we don't get. But I'm wondering - if you ask and there is still a problem would you take it further or just keep trying to get the cabin attendant to fix the problem?

It says there are a limited # of lockers - anyone have any idea if they get used up quickly? I guess we'll be prepared to have to keep stuff with us at all times if that happens but that makes it hard to go in the water together, etc.

Also it says beach towels are included but I wonder if they ever run out - if we need to bring towels from the ship just in case? It would be nice to not have to do that.

roberts2005 - I don't remember our drive on that day being so long - I also don't think our ship moved while we were out so I guess that going in opposite directions there are differences like that. We did really enjoy the painted church at Arbanasi, so simple outside and beautifully painted inside.

Your excursion tomorrow must be to the Belogradchik (sp?) fortress. That was very interesting. Hopefully your weather will be nice to let you walk around it - it was raining on us and it made things very slippery for climbing.

In our free time that afternoon we walked to the Baba Vida fortress in Vidin which was cool to see. Not a whole, whole lot to see but I thought worthwhile (you do need to get some local currency for the entrance fee if you go). And it was nice to walk through the town of Vidin a little bit and see some of the buildings and parks.

Hydrokitty -- no sorry, didn't have a chance to do the underground hospital in Budapest. It sounds interesting though - something for our next visit!

Thank you for your review, HDS. Sounds like it was an excellent trip.

We toured Myanmar by land last year after debating back & forth between that and doing by river cruise. It was very interesting to hear how the cruise actually was and it seems like it would also have been a great option for us.

My mother is interested in Myanmar so it sounds like the cruise version might be perfect for her.

Hydrokitty - the Parliament in Budapest is open to the public now - when we were there last month the renovation work was going on outside. That made it a little bit of a challenge to walk to it - to make sure we got to the right entrance. We made sure to give ourselves enough time to walk there from our hotel. Not sure if it's on a HOHO loop, we didn't do that.

We ordered our tickets for the Parliament tour online before leaving home.

Thanks for all of the info/pix. The aqua class bag looks very nice - it definitely will serve it's purpose which is just to carry a beach towel and book. Not too worried about looking like a tourist as I'm pretty sure anyone can figure that out ;)

Can anyone give me an idea of what the tote bag is like in the aqua class cabins - what size, for example?

And, sorry if this is stupid, but is it to use while there or a gift to take home? I would hate to use a borrowed bag to take to the beach and get it sandy or possibly get sunscreen on it, etc. Just wondering whether to bring my own or not.

Thanks!

I guess you're on the ship by now - hope the tour in Bucharest went well.

The only thing we didn't enjoy on our Bucharest tour was when we went to the Village museum (which I was very interested in) we had to wait for the whole Viking group to use the restroom before the guides would start. So everyone lined up like sheep and it took a looooong time. We ended up only having the chance to see a couple of the structures. If doing it again I'd have gotten the time to meet the group back at the bus and just gone around on my own for the hour or whatever they give you there.

Anyway, happy cruising :)

I think that's what we had - 4 busses (A,B,C,D - don't remember an E!).

Have you enjoyed everything so far? We thought the Radisson in Bucharest was very nice, hope you had a good stay there.

Enjoy your cruise!

Also the Viking umbrellas are the full-sized ones. So if there's just a chance of rain I think you're better off with little ones of your own you can tuck away in your bag or even carry vs. fooling with the big, red Viking version.

Those tiny fold-up ones don't weigh too much.

franski - wow, that's awful - so sorry for that woman. We had one lady trip and fall at our restaurant on the Bucharest tour also (altho' honestly I could be getting confused with a different restaurant on the trip). There were little flower beds out in front with chains around them and she didn't see the chain and tripped. Thankfully there were no broken bones in her case.

Watch your step, Robert :)

"I will let you know about size of groups."

I would like to know that. Even if yours are big like ours were it was not a miserable experience or anything, just a little unwieldy.

The Viking rep that called me said that should not have been the case and maybe they needed to hire more guides for that itinerary...she was going to check with the overseas office. Anyway, you'll have a great time no matter how many are in a group I'm sure :)

Have a wonderful trip!

Something that I was just thinking about re: Bucharest ---

We sailed in the opposite direction so the day we got off the ship to be bussed to Bucharest we had everything with us. We did a city tour that morning/afternoon including the amazing People's Palace where we were required to give our passports at the entrance which they kept until we exited (felt a little weird but no one had problems with getting them back). But I was wondering if you're starting in Bucharest do they make sure to tell you to have your passport with you when you go on the city tour. Normally I would have mine locked in the hotel safe and not carry it around. I guess some people always carry theirs but I don't.

Anyway, just mentioning it so you can be prepared with your passport the day you do the Bucharest tour - although I'm sure Viking makes certain everyone knows that beforehand.

CasaM and jazzbeau - I bring my travel sized tempurpedic foam pillow also - thought I was the only crazy person doing that :p On a recent trip the weight was an issue so I found a travel version of a down pillow which is perfect. Nice to have pillow options!

roberts2005 -- my husband did ask for an extra pillow which our room attendant provided. I later saw there was another one on a shelf at the top of the closet. Not foam but not sure if feather or some poly version.

You're very welcome.

After getting so much help on this forum I'd love to be able to help someone else in turn :)

Wanted to add - we ate dinner the first night at Cafe Kor which we really liked. The Viking rep in the lobby of the hotel made our reservation for us. (anyone going there remember they don't take credit cards)

Hi Kathy,

I think there can be differences in what the Budapest tour will include. Other people on CC had talked about the Central Market being one of the stops and we didn't get to do that on ours. I was disappointed by that. So don't depend on yours being the same as ours but here's what we did:

Drove from the hotel up Andrassy Ave. to Heroes' Square. St. Stephen's spire was pointed out as we drove near it. Also the Opera House was only pointed out as we drove by. At Heroes' Square we got out and the guide explained what the different buildings were and discussed some of the statues that are there. Drove from there through the park behind the Square -- very nice, would've liked to see it in warmer weather with the pools filled and more people out and about.

Drove down one of the streets parallel to Andrassy and saw the Jewish quarter and large synagogue. We didn't stop or get out.

Drove over the river to Buda and parked. Walked to Castle Hill and watched the changing of the guard (gosh, already forget, maybe it's the President's palace where the guards are) and walked a bit further to Matthias Church. We did go inside and learned a bit about the church - it's very pretty inside.

I wish I'd gotten pictures outside of the church where people were dressed in costume and holding huge birds - eagle, falcon? don't know. But for a small fee you can hold one -- they looked very heavy, the tourists doing that could barely keep their arm out straight long enough for a picture to be taken.

From there a few steps to Fishermens' Bastion where we were released for a bit to walk around on our own - maybe 40 minutes. Met back at the bus and drove straight back to the hotel. The traffic on the way back from Buda to Pest was very heavy and we inched along. Maybe if not for that there would've been something else, e.g. the Central Market.

The tour took 4 hrs.

We did cram a good bit in during the free time we had, I thought. My husband was wearing a pedometer and the days we were in Budapest it read 8 miles one day and 9 another.

I know you didn't ask and I'm sorry if this is a bore but here are some of the things we did outside of the Viking tour:

St. Stephen's Cathedral was fabulous. We went back a second time after I read in a guidebook about Stephen's mummified right hand being there in a chapel (I know, I'm morbid but I really wanted to see it! :o Unfortunately the chapel his hand is kept in was closed for a special service).

We had gotten tickets online before we left to do the Parliament tour and that was worthwhile. If you do that and the construction on the outside is still going on make sure you leave yourself enough time to figure out where the entrance is.

We did the tour of the Opera House on our own - you just need to be there a bit ahead of the scheduled time to get those tickets, not in advance online.

We also did the Terror House musuem - it was good but very emotionally draining and took quite a while to get through using the audio guide (maybe close to 3 hours). Probably if I had it to do again I'd not get the audio guide and just read the printed info in each room.

We did the Legenda boat tour at night which was really good - the lit up buildings are beautiful. Some people said they saw pretty much the same thing at their sail-away but to me it was worth doing it during an evening while we were there. It sails for I think an hour and you get a glass of wine or beer or whatever -- they also have dinner cruise options. I don't think I'd do that - there was a bit of smell of diesel I thought on our boat, it didn't seem like a good dining environment but maybe the other boat with the dining didn't have that problem.

Anyway, those are some of the things we did and enjoyed. Have fun planning and let me know if you have any questions :)

Thanks Becki - have a great trip! I think doing it in that direction is probably better as people have said -- ending on a high note in Budapest. That is just a wonderful city.

DeeDC - unless there's been a recent change in policy you should get transfers free if you book air with Viking regardless of whether you do a pre-cruise with them. That's been the case for us twice - I would hope it's still the policy. I guess if everything else is equal cost-wise with your flights the value of the transfer should be factored in when you decide.

Cities of Light sounds like a good itinerary, too! So many good choices :)

Thanks Bill'sBride and alexandra cruiser. Glad to pass on any info I can - I studied posts here before our trip and learned a lot.

We did the Viking extension which went up into Transylvania but the last day you spend in Bucharest on your own. There was an optional excursion to Constanta but not enough people signed up to run it. However the Viking rep there was going to set up a private tour for a few people who were considering it. Our program director on the ship talked about it being so out of season and empty and not a good time to go to Constanta. Her honesty was very kind so people didn't waste time/money on a day that would not have been the best.

Anyway before we left home I had booked a private guide for that day to take us around and see some things outside of Bucharest (used the company TravelMaker which I found on tripadvisor).

I think other people did plan to use the HOHO bus for that day - I heard the Viking rep talking to them about different things they could do from the bus and where to catch it.

If you think of any other questions let me know. I'm off to study up on Rhine options...I think that will be next now that I've been bitten by the river cruise bug :)