New to River cruising advice needed.

[woodley]

We have done over 30 ocean cruises but never a river cruise.  For 2020 we have booked a river cruise on Viking.  I have the following questions:

1.  When are the shore excursions posted on the web site for us to view?

2.  I see you can book a drink package on viking, we like to have a few pre dinner cocktails and a nice wine with our meals.   I know wine is included with lunch and dinner but can you choose your wine or is it house wine and with the drinks package can you upgrade your wine at meals?   Do you think the drink package is worth getting or not?

3.  Is there a muster drill?

4.  Are the excursions that are included good or is it better to pick the ones for additional price?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who reads and responds

[Peregrina651]

1. Not predictable and they do not notify us when they are posted. In any case, it is still too early for 2020 tours.

2. Beverage package does include upgrade to premium wine at meals (otherwise you are served the house wine at meals or may purchase by the glass or bottle). Viking has no corkage fee and encourages us to sample the local the local vintage. More info about the package is available on the Viking River website in the FAQs, where you will be able to download a description of the package (it is not all inclusive, so you will need to know what is not included). Before you buy the package, do the math.

3. I believe that there is a muster drill but I haven't done a river cruise in a while and can't actually remember.

4. "Good" is subjective. Tell us which itinerary you are doing and perhaps those who have done it can comment about their experiences.

Edited February 25, 2019 by Peregrina651

[Coral]

Yes there is a Muster Drill.

[gnome12]

30 minutes ago, Coral said:

Yes there is a Muster Drill.

I remember being told at a muster drill on Uniworld that the river was shallow enough that you would just climb to the sundeck and wait there. (I missed the one on my first river cruise because I arrived late after a major hassle getting to the ship at all at the end of the Icelandic volcano issues in 2010.)

[Coral]

3 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

I remember being told at a muster drill on Uniworld that the river was shallow enough that you would just climb to the sundeck and wait there. (I missed the one on my first river cruise because I arrived late after a major hassle getting to the ship at all at the end of the Icelandic volcano issues in 2010.)

With the drought this year - there were parts of the Danube that were very shallow. We still did Muster drill though. It takes 15 minutes max and is painless.

[lackcreativity]

Even this far out, you can view the potential shore excursions on the Viking website. Go to your cruise page on the website, and on the itinerary tab scroll down to the Day by Day where they will list the ports. Click on each port and scroll down again to find the possible excursions. One will be marked Included, and the others are optional. If you click on an excursion, you will find a fairly detailed description of it.

 

Be aware that the choices for each individual cruise may not match that list, and even the Included excursion may change. At least it will give you an idea. We have only booked included excursions on our one river cruise, and we enjoyed them. On our ocean cruises we have done a mix of included and optional, and were only disappointed in one included tour. Read the descriptions and you will have a good idea about what your choices will be.

[pontac]

2 hours ago, woodley said:

I see you can book a drink package on viking, we like to have a few pre dinner cocktails and a nice wine with our meals.   I know wine is included with lunch and dinner but can you choose your wine or is it house wine and with the drinks package can you upgrade your wine at meals?   Do you think the drink package is worth getting or not?

 

Be aware that if you want the drinks package then both people in your cabin have to take the drinks package.

 

I'd suggest waiting till you get on board and asking about the drinks package when you're booked in. You can then see the drinks list for your boat and see what wines are excluded, and the cost of cocktails.

 

I'm a wino, and did think about the drinks package so I could get better wines at meal times but I thought the selection of wines included in the drinks package were not special enough. They include a branded California wine; I doubt you want to fly thousands of miles to drink a wine you can get cheaply at home.

 

Many of the cruises pass through Europe's wine regions, you may have the opportunity to visit a winery, and each town you stop at will have a wine shop, so if you're interested in wine, buying a good bottle locally to have at dinner - we found - to be a better option.

 

And, with the exception of one cruise, the house wines (red/white/rose) have been good and unlimited

 

However, we don't sit at the bar and have cocktails or spirits. We might have had a glass of Champagne before dinner but Champagne is not included in the drinks package.

 

Talking of Champagne, the sparkling wine served at the reception, despite what they call it, is not Champagne, it is a sweet German Sekt.

[3rdCoastFan]

2 hours ago, woodley said:

We have done over 30 ocean cruises but never a river cruise.  For 2020 we have booked a river cruise on Viking.  I have the following questions:

1.  When are the shore excursions posted on the web site for us to view?

2.  I see you can book a drink package on viking, we like to have a few pre dinner cocktails and a nice wine with our meals.   I know wine is included with lunch and dinner but can you choose your wine or is it house wine and with the drinks package can you upgrade your wine at meals?   Do you think the drink package is worth getting or not?

3.  Is there a muster drill?

4.  Are the excursions that are included good or is it better to pick the ones for additional price?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who reads and responds

1. We asked a customer service rep to send us a copy of the current excursions for a given cruise. We knew that it may not match what we would eventually be able to pick but I found the document to be more detailed than what is on the website. 

 

2. There was a recent discussion in the Rhine Getaway roll call about the beverage package. Link is below. Note that several users got different answers from Viking so I'm not entirely sure what to expect regarding exclusions. But, we enjoy cocktails and would prefer to not get charged for soft drinks outside of meals so we purchased the beverage package. 

 

 

[Clay Clayton]

If it helps your decision making about the drinks package, their cocktail pricing is very different from most Cruise lines. A Gin and tonic was only 6 euros when we rivercruised several years ago.  If you do some searching on this forum, you can find a copy of the current drinks menu. 

Edited February 25, 2019 by Clay Clayton

[dogs4fun]

We did not do a muster drill on our Danube cruise this past fall. Or ... if there was one, I obviously missed it.

[sharkster77]

The excursions, included and optional, will pop up at some point on your myvikingjourney.com page.  You register using your booking number and set up a password. 

 

I don't know how soon myvikingjourney.com is available for 2020 cruises.

[Peregrina651]

3 hours ago, sharkster77 said:

The excursions, included and optional, will pop up at some point on your myvikingjourney.com page.  You register using your booking number and set up a password. 

 

I don't know how soon myvikingjourney.com is available for 2020 cruises.

 
 If you can book it, it will appear on MVJ. The details for the tours that will be offered may not yet be loaded in, but you can still browse MVJ and learn about your ship, etc.

 

Viking uses MVJ for both Oceans and Rivers. Shorex for Oceans are loaded in about 110 days before departure and  booking opens on a schedule determined by your cabin category. For Rivers, I haven't yet figured out how they work things but once they are loaded in, you can start booking.

 

Once you have opened your MVJ account, it is yours for life. To add another cruise, just click on the menu, choose My Account. On the my account page just click on and insert your booking number. You may have as many cruises on that list as you have current booking numbers.

 

Housekeeping is automatic. Once you have boarded, that cruise disappears from your account (so be sure to print out anything on MVJ that you thinking you will want to access or have for future reference; I print to pdf and then transfer it to my mobile phone).

[sharkster77]

We aren't sailing on the Rhine until October, but the excursions have been on myvikingjourney.com for at least 3 months, I believe.  Have already signed up for the included ones, and contemplating which optionals we'll choose.

 

Will definitely do Colmar, just not sure which one, and maybe the palaces in Bruhl.

[Peregrina651]

1 hour ago, sharkster77 said:

We aren't sailing on the Rhine until October, but the excursions have been on myvikingjourney.com for at least 3 months, I believe.

 

We leave in just a few weeks on a B2B itinerary.  The shorex for one leg loaded in at the beginning of October and for the other about a month or so later. At that time, everyone who was sailing on the itinerary, whether they were leaving in March with us or not until October could start booking tours.

[Capt_BJ]

three comments from our last Danube trip

 

1. There was a muster drill, everyone was assigned a 'station' up on the sun deck and the general life jacket demonstration was given. As mentioned they said in most places of the river if we sank to the bottom the top deck would still be dry

 

2. WRT the 'house wine' .... there was a red and a white and they changed, usually to more complement or feature the local area. And a hint ... at the end of dinner they dump all the open bottles ... so it is VERY OK to get a final glass and carry it with you!  The 'included' beer was draft (Carslburg on our trip) others avail by can/bottle but not free/included.

 

3. As compared to most ocean cruises we've been on the VIKING daily charge for the drinks package is very reasonable - probably due to the inclusion of beer and wine and soft drinks at meals already. But the individual drink costs are ALSO quite reasonable and if you have a bit of OBC ... well, you're not going to be using that in the casino or duty free shops on board.

[pontac]

23 minutes ago, Capt_BJ said:

WRT the 'house wine' .... there was a red and a white and they changed, usually to more complement or feature the local area

 

It depends on what trip you are on; the Bordeaux one makes a point of having different LOCAL wines each night to match the appellation the boat is in. The Douro one also varied the wines but I think that was more because running the boat was outsourced to Douro Azul.

 

The other 5 Europe trips have kept the same wines except when they've run out. 

[mskaufman]

There was a muster drill and yes they told us that if you are on the upper deck, you would probably be above the water line and could wait for help.

 

The included tours were usually walking tours or bus tours.  If these are places you've never been the included tours provide a good overview.