Viking Pride River Cruise Review

[canderson]

Numerous folks here on the Celebrity board have been asking about our recent Viking Pride cruise on the Rhine river. A mini-review has been posted in the River Cruises thread and can be found at

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=252307

[eileen & jay]

Thank you for an informative review of a Viking River cruise. Recently discussed the possibility of one in the future. Looking forward.

[ahoymatey3]

interesting, thanks

[amyr]

Thanks Canderson. We've been looking at a River cruise for about two years now, and I've read every review I could. I especially like yours as it outlined the differences between ocean and river cruising. The itinerary we're interested runs between Budapest and Neuremburg with an extension to Prague. I think we would like Viking the best, but they didn't have a good version of that itinerary this year, Uniworld did. The Uniworld reviews aren't as good, but some people loved it, and I really like the itineraries for 2006.

 

We would also love to do one of the Russian itineraries some day, but it looks like they put the older boats on those. Some of the cabins looked kind of cruddy.

 

Amy

[canderson]

Thanks Canderson. We've been looking at a River cruise for about two years now, and I've read every review I could. I especially like yours as it outlined the differences between ocean and river cruising. The itinerary we're interested runs between Budapest and Neuremburg with an extension to Prague. I think we would like Viking the best, but they didn't have a good version of that itinerary this year, Uniworld did. The Uniworld reviews aren't as good, but some people loved it, and I really like the itineraries for 2006.

 

We would also love to do one of the Russian itineraries some day, but it looks like they put the older boats on those. Some of the cabins looked kind of cruddy.

 

Amy

Have heard about Uniworld as well, but can't speak first hand about their ships.

 

I know that the Pride, built in 2001, was in very good shape, and even then, they plan a "dry dock" to replace all of the soft furnishings before this next season. I wish Celebrity did as good a job in this area. Apart from some issues with seams that happened to fall under certain tables in the dining room carpet (a function of the fact tha the chairs had no glides of any kind), I couldn't fault a single thing on the ship in this area. Viking does seem to do a good job of upkeep in an area where many lines fall down a bit.

 

Our second itinerary will definitely be the Danube, and I'm pretty sure we'll stick with Viking.

[Dick in Falls Church]

AmyR-

 

It's not that they "put" their older boats on the Russian waters--

it's what they could get when they started. Our friends went on one a couple years back-- Moskow to St Petersburg. The boats were East German manufacture, somewhat small and not really very posh. They said my wife (had we been able to go) would have had trouble getting up and down the stairway.

They said the crew was great, food was fine, and trip itself was awesome.

 

Will they update to newer boats? Have no idea.