bertstone

Asked why I waited so long to post is that we are rather new to Cruise Critic and had never used it for anything but roll calls. We have certainly voiced our disappointment among friends and acquaintances. Most people who have done river cruising have NOT encountered such a disappointing experience. Yes, we feel we overpaid for a room but that was because all that was available was a suite. We had been booked to go to Japan earlier in the year but had to cancel because of the Tsunami occurring a week before our scheduled departure so this was a substitute holiday. I didn't say our tips were $1,000 per day, but that the Cruise Director was receiving tips of about $1,000 per day.

The tours were NOT split up to groups smaller than 50 persons.

I was not expecting gourmet dining as we are used to in Oceania, but 1 shrimp in a shrimp cocktail.

Also, why have a balcony when all you can do is shake hands with someone on the neighbouring boat when rafted, which in Viking's case is in most ports.

I just think Viking is at the low end of experiences at a high price. We will consider AMA and Uniworld in teh future, but NEVER Viking.

We are quite experienced Ocean cruisers with some 50 or so under our belt and so in 2013 thought it would be interesting to try a river cruise since Viking was promoting so heavily. It sure looked good when the advertised on PBS. Hover, it was certainly not all that it was promoted to be. he did a 7 day cruise on the Rhine from Basil to Amsterdam. We booked a suite with a small balcony on the Viking Jarl, and because we booked late, paid a pretty penny for it.

It started out quite nice after we spent 2 days in Basil we boarded the ship and were greeted by name at the gangwway, No lines, no ticket required etc. However, things took a turn when we went for dinner. The ship was full so everybody lined up to get into the dining room. Not something I'm used to since we have become accustomed to anytime dining and multiple dining venues on a ship. Top that off by the 1st course being a shrimp cocktail with one puny shrimp being served. We were quite aghast.

Our room by the way was a suite with 2 rooms of the same size, a very nice bathroom and a tv in each, which we didn't need. The room sported a very small hanging closet with a drawer bank of 2 small drawers that were added as an afterthought. The standard room had much more drawer space. But enough about the rooms.

It was very nice that almost all shore excursions were included and even the extra ones were reasonable.. However, what was unreasonable was the fact that there were 200 people on board and 4 buses to take us on tour which meant 50 people per tour. Now we were not in Rome, Paris or other big cities where 50 people at a site is a drop in the bucket. These were small towns and to add insult to injury, all 4 buses went to the same destination at the same time. Even the washroom stops had 200 of us together at the same location. Ridiculous.

The 1st day we met a lovely couple from the Washington DC area and struck up a friendship. We decided to avoid the 6:30 dinner crush and stayed with a drink for about 15 minutes into the dinner hour. MISTAKE! The 4 of us couldn't get a table together. Didn't do that again.

Then after dinner (or maybe before) there were the port talks in the lounge. Quite informative. The only problem is the lounge hold about 150 people comfortable, and maybe 180 jammed in; but there were 200 of us. NOT GOOD

Next dining problem was that we wanted to hang around the dining room and chat with new acquaintances after dinner. Well, at about 9pm, they would flash the lights or turn them up brightly to let us know it was time to leave the dining room, VERY ELEGANT.

We hadn't expected the quality or quantity of food we were used to from Ocean cruising but do expect a lot better than we received.

The final insult was the tipping policy. We were tole in no uncertain terms that we were expected to tip all the staff, including the CRUISE DIRECTOR. No the cruise director was a lovely fellow bu tI would think his salary should be paid by the cruise line; not by the passengers. To my recollection, the expected tip was $5 per person per day which worked out to about $1,000 per day.

I would not normally rag on about a situation like this5 years after the fact, but it has discouraged us from looking again at river cruises, even though so many people rave about them. It may have been a Viking thing, so we may eventually try a different line. I would NEVER consider VIKING again or even look at their Ocean cruises, although I've heard some good things about it. I just felt like I had to get this off my chest. We are frequent Oceania cruisers and there is just no comparison. Maybe someday Oceania will offer river cruises!