Trip Report - Tulips & Windmills cruise on Viking Ve 27 March – 5 April 2024

[pontac]

32 minutes ago, sharkster77 said:

I posted my cruise comments on the Tulips and Windmills Roll Call.

 

😁Seems I was reading and replying to it same time as you were posting here.

 

Glad you had better weather than we did.

[sharkster77]

We did get a taste of European football (soccer) culture that was fascinating while in Bruges----

 

That evening, Bruges was playing a Europa league game against Thessaloniki (sp) of Greece.  During lunch the main square near the Belfry was filled with hundreds young Greek men, dressed in all black, "pre-gaming" (we were told no alcohol is sold in the stadium), loudly singing their chants whenever a group of their compatriots walked by.  Lots of machismo and testosterone in the air!  I guess lots of Greek fans didn't have to work that day (lol)!

 

The next day I looked up the score---Bruges beat Thessaloniki, 1-0.

 

 

[notamermaid]

Pontac, you posted several wines of differing origin that you had with your meals. Were they part of your drinks package or the standard fare? Were you happy with them either way?

 

notamermaid

 

[pontac]

14 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Pontac, you posted several wines of differing origin that you had with your meals. Were they part of your drinks package or the standard fare? Were you happy with them either way?

For the past few years booking made in the UK have had the drinks package included at no extra cost, and so we chose from the wine list. Mrs P chose one day, I chose the next. We had a white at lunch and a red with dinner. We also had a glass of Jacquard Champagne as aperitif before dinner.

 

I was happy with all the wines we had, but had I not then we would have changed to another. That's the beauty of the drinks package. (We did have one white wine on the Rhone trip we didn't like - not that it was faulty or a bad wine - but it was not really dry so the waiter gave us new glasses and we chose another wine.)

 

The quality of wines on Viking's list was better than the hyped wines on Scenic's list, but Scenic lets every guest choose from the list whereas Viking charges per bottle or charges (most guests) for the drinks package. However most Scenic guests didn't choose from the list and accepted the red and white poured by waitrons.

 

The standard wines -i.e. the wines poured for everyone- were Heinrich Vollmer Riesling (white) and Heinrich Vollmer Cuvee H.V. (red) both from the Pfalz, Germany. We had the Riesling on the day we arrived with the embarkation lunch and I enjoyed it. It was crisp and fresh, with a bit of citrus acidity and without the petrol tones I dislike in Riesling (except in a blind tasting competition). A large proportion of guests didn't drink any wine. Some drank beer but I was surprised at the number of guests drinking fizzy soft drinks.

 

The included wines were listed on the 'always available' dinner menu I show on  my Day 1 post.

 

I can't say if the included wines ever changed as we never looked at that menu or even the sommeliers recommendations for wines to buy from the list because we had already chosen our wine before the meal.