Viking Port Times

[Sweetest Sin]

I just booked my first river cruise on Viking. I am a planner, but I don't see any port times listed. How do I know how much time I have at each stop?

[FuelScience]

Most lines don't list port times due to uncertainty associated with getting through locks and other variables. What river are you sailing, and what direction are you traveling? If it's a common route like Amsterdam-Basel, there's a good chance that someone might have scanned the daily schedule sheets from the cruise, and you could at least see what the times were on a previous cruise. They shouldn't change that much. 

[mskaufman]

We had the same concern last year (Danube) and were told that there were too many uncertainties to publish port times down to the hour.

[Fletch1]

Well done on booking with Viking. We have two cruises with them........Amsterdam to Basel and Budapest to Amsterdam and loved them. They are a very good cruise line and we could not fault them. I hope you enjoy sailing with them. 

 

Generally, they tell you the night before the proposed times in port. Just before dinner, everyone gathers in the lounge and the Cruise Director goes through everything you need to know for the next day.  However, doing their included shore excursion does not leave too much spare time in most ports, so you haven't got too much to plan for!

[3rdCoastFan]

These are from 2016 but should still give you an idea of what to expect: 

There may be more recent posts but these things change so often anyway that I don't think they would add much. As already noted above, river traffic isn't too predictable so port times will likely fluctuate up until the boat is getting tied up. 

[Sweetest Sin]

Thanks for the responses. We will be on the Danube - Passau to Budapest. Seems like I will need to be more flexible and just have some ideas of things I'd like to see if there is time. How are the included tours generally? Sailing on large ocean cruises I've always avoided the ship sponsored tours due to the amount of people. 

[mskaufman]

The included tours were generally walking tours.  I never found group size a problem.  While you don't have the exact port times you have an approximation (e.g., morning is free or evening is free) for planning purposes.

[Clay Clayton]

1 hour ago, Sweetest Sin said:

Thanks for the responses. We will be on the Danube - Passau to Budapest. Seems like I will need to be more flexible and just have some ideas of things I'd like to see if there is time. How are the included tours generally? Sailing on large ocean cruises I've always avoided the ship sponsored tours due to the amount of people. 

 

Flexibility is mandatory.  

 

Since at least half the fun of a cruise for me personally is the planning,  the inability to find out port times was a real bummer for me prior to our Viking cruise.  It was worse once on board as three times on our eight night Danube Waltz trip (sounds like the same one you did), we didn't port during the time of day the brochure said.  For example in one village, the brochure said we would arrive after lunch, the afternoon was set aside for the included tour and after dinner aboard (or ashore) we would have free time to explore the historic part of town.  I therefore identified the "best" dessert in this town, plotted an interesting walking route there and back and thought we were all set to skip dessert onboard and spend an hour or two in town.  

 

Nope.  We arrived there early morning, had our walking tour and sailed away during lunch. I enjoyed our River Cruise greatly but your plan to have a list of things about each of your stops ready if you need them is the way to go.

 

As the PP stated, with the exceptions of Vienna and Budapest, all of our the included tours were walking and we found them enjoyable. I believe the tour in Bratislava was a combo, bus to reach the hilltop castle and then a portion down was walking. We enjoyed the tours and I am not one who likes being on a bus or with a large crowd.  Viking typically didn't fill the buses so those of us who aren't petite didn't make ourselves or other guests uncomfortable.

 

Have a great cruise!

[cruiselvr04]

We just booked with Viking for June. I’m actually looking forward to not planning each stop as I usually do it all.  I will look up the places they say we will have free time and go with the flow.  People have told us that all the excursions they’ve done with have been quality. 

 

[Fletch1]

12 hours ago, Sweetest Sin said:

Thanks for the responses. We will be on the Danube - Passau to Budapest. Seems like I will need to be more flexible and just have some ideas of things I'd like to see if there is time. How are the included tours generally? Sailing on large ocean cruises I've always avoided the ship sponsored tours due to the amount of people. 

 

We found all the tours we did to be of top quality. Most guides were locals who have lived there all their lives, or most thereof and they were passionate about their city. As previously stated, most tour are walking tours, which we really enjoy. 

 

The headset they give you for the tours is also of high quality. Clear, crisp reception and long range....sometimes up to 100 metres away. We were on one tour where someone wandered off and got lost, and the guide talked them back to where we were. 

[Shiraz49]

Admittedly we were cruising during low water level (3 ships were utilised), frustrating not having more precise arrival/sailing times and some locations they just sail a few km  from main port to tie up overnight at some out of the way location. Had planned to visit friends we hadn't seen for 50 years .... all fell through due to lack of accurate info.

The offered tours were good, the staff were good (we had heaps as we kept changing ships), the food was good, entertainment was ordinary and not fair to the entertainers as the "shows" were always in the lounge where everyone congregates after dinner. While it was meant to be a relaxing week after 5 weeks touring Europe and living out of suitcases but ended up being more of the same ..... still we managed to get the Christmas Markets off our bucket list.  You'll enjoy it.   (Oh, we were the only Aussie on board, a couple of UK couples otherwise all American).

 

[wheezedr]

On 1/15/2019 at 6:49 AM, Sweetest Sin said:

Thanks for the responses. We will be on the Danube - Passau to Budapest. Seems like I will need to be more flexible and just have some ideas of things I'd like to see if there is time. How are the included tours generally? Sailing on large ocean cruises I've always avoided the ship sponsored tours due to the amount of people. 

You need to turn off the ocean cruise concept when you take a river cruise.  They are the proverbial apples and oranges.  Not only will times not be exact but in certain ports you may be dropped off to tour while your ship continues on.  You will meet up with it further along the river.  You will not be planning and organizing private tours, except perhaps if you overnight somewhere.  We overnighted in Vienna so I was able to plan my own tours on the first evening and the second day.  Even so we had to catch a bus that Viking arranged for us because Viking was forced to leave Vienna early to get situated in Budapest.  The river was literally closed to traffic for part of each day in Budapest for an air show.  Spend time on the boards and talk with others about river cruising.  It is a fun experience but it is NOT ocean cruising

[Coral]

Oddly - our Crystal river cruise did list times in port (and times of tours) when I booked it and for the most part - it was pretty accurate. Out of 10 days, 2 were slightly off due to not being able to make it to the port and adjustments were made that were quite reasonable to make it to those cities. We had several who did book private tours and they proceeded as scheduled.

 

I am gun shy of companies that don't list their times as my cruise with AMA Waterways - we only had a few hours in some of the ports and had I known that, I would not have chosen that itinerary. They even had days off as they said "route in reverse but same amount of days in port" which it wasn't. I have looked at other lines and itineraries recently and the lack of listing the times in port makes me not want to book with them.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Coral