Viking Pride Grand European Tour review

[BLTSAT]

Let me see if I can answer all your questions.

 

The Beer garden walk is at 2pm after your shore excursion and lunch with the Program director. It mainly was a beer garden across the Bridge in Regensburg that she took you to and dropped you off it sounded like. One of our friends had gone and thought it was going to be more than one beer garden but one was it. He wasn't impressed.

 

On the deck, the only shaded area is a canopy behind the Wheelhouse where the Captain is and the lounger has a little canopy hooked to the back of the chair that you can bring forward for shade and they have 3 or 4 big umbrellas opened where the loungers are. We never had any problems having to reserve chairs. We sat mostly in the very front to see everything go by. Most of the people sat there with the table and chairs and a lot sat in the lounge area because it's windows all around. When you can't go up on deck, most people sat around the promenade deck or in the lounge. There's a bench that wraps outside, around the lounge area on the Promenade deck, which is the deck the reception area and everything else is on. There was plenty of areas to sit. There wasn't much time to sit up on deck anyway. You were either eating, sleeping or out touring.

 

Yes cabins aren't ready till 3pm. Since we did the 3 day pre-cruise in Budapest, Viking didn't take us to the boat till 3pm so we didn't get to see if there was food to eat. But I think if your plane gets in before the cabin is ready, they'd have something for you. Same with the walking tour they offer you. I noticed you are going from Amsterdam to Budapest so things might be different than I've told you. I don't know what they're including on the walking tour in Amsterdam. If you know what they offer, tell me and I'll let you know if it's worth going or go on your own.

 

They don't have snacks at 10:30pm. The last thing you get to eat at night is dinner. Most of the sampling foods and drinks are in the mornings or afternoons. Yes they have coffee, tea bags, water and some kind of cakes at tea time.

 

Sorry but I have to go till next week. I'll finished answering your question then.

Sandy

[ddean52]

no, sandy, we are doing the budapest to amsterdam + a 3 night stay in amsterdam! have a great weekend

[ddean52]

sandy, next week, if you can just put together a list of the ports that you can walk to town from it would be great.

Best Wishes,

Dean

ps:D then i will stop pestering you!:eek: :D

[pacmom]

DDean,

 

When we stayed in Amsterdam post trip, we stayed at the Renaissance about a 5 min walk to the central station and all the trams. There was also a tram stop around the corner from the hotel. We booked it ourselves. Never ate breakfast. There was a small bakery nearby--would bring it back to the room and use the wonderful electric kettle for hot drinks. It is a Marriott property, large immaculate rooms and large bathroom. Pat

[Nippy Sweetie]

Just back yesterday from Viking Grand European tour. We are European and were extremely surprised to find ourselves on a boatload of Americans! Once we got over the culture shock we did enjoy the company of most of them and met some interesting people from all over the US.

Positives: nice cabin, nice boat really. Furnishings a bit tired in the Lounge though. Excellent Cabin girl Erika.

Negatives: Very regimented. We received our "orders" each evening from Verona the German cruise Director & felt we were treated like Nursery School kids. Other cruises we have been have relied on a handout provided to each cabin. Why not this one? We did not wear our badges at all but noticed that others did wear them at all times!

Not enough staff especially in the Dining Room where we all had to go at 7pm (then wait for up to 40 minutes for our orders to be taken.) Very limited menu. One person we met said that the food reminded him of "cheap wedding reception food"! I found it OK but hated having to eat at 7. Far too early & couldnt even enjoy a predinner drink due to the loud issuing of our daily orders (in not very good English) in the Viking lounge. I know my German is not great but its not my job & we met loads of guides etc who had excellent English. Verona`s poor command of English was especially obvious during her commentary as we travelled along the Rhine gorge- a highlight, but reduced to farce by her obvious reading of material that she clearly didnt understand but hey ho it was a laugh.

I realise that comparing river and ocean cruises is not comparing like with like but to summarise we felt that ocean cruises provide much better value for the same money and in future will not go back to river cruising.

 

Its only our opinion though, others loved it, some hated it. We did enjoy the experience & had a relaxing and different holiday.

[ddschur]

Just back yesterday from Viking Grand European tour. We are European and were extremely surprised to find ourselves on a boatload of Americans! Once we got over the culture shock we did enjoy the company of most of them and met some interesting people from all over the US.

Positives: nice cabin, nice boat really. Furnishings a bit tired in the Lounge though. Excellent Cabin girl Erika.

Negatives: Very regimented. We received our "orders" each evening from Verona the German cruise Director & felt we were treated like Nursery School kids. Other cruises we have been have relied on a handout provided to each cabin. Why not this one? We did not wear our badges at all but noticed that others did wear them at all times!

Not enough staff especially in the Dining Room where we all had to go at 7pm (then wait for up to 40 minutes for our orders to be taken.) Very limited menu. One person we met said that the food reminded him of "cheap wedding reception food"! I found it OK but hated having to eat at 7. Far too early & couldnt even enjoy a predinner drink due to the loud issuing of our daily orders (in not very good English) in the Viking lounge. I know my German is not great but its not my job & we met loads of guides etc who had excellent English. Verona`s poor command of English was especially obvious during her commentary as we travelled along the Rhine gorge- a highlight, but reduced to farce by her obvious reading of material that she clearly didnt understand but hey ho it was a laugh.

I realise that comparing river and ocean cruises is not comparing like with like but to summarise we felt that ocean cruises provide much better value for the same money and in future will not go back to river cruising.

 

Its only our opinion though, others loved it, some hated it. We did enjoy the experience & had a relaxing and different holiday.

 

 

Wow...sounds like you didn't care for...was it Viking or the river cruise experience?

[ddean52]

Yes, whas it viking? your experience runs counter to almost all posts that ive seen.

[Nippy Sweetie]

Hi yes the cruise was on Viking Pride. I`m the first to post on the subject. A number of us agreed to comment once we got home. The Americans were mostly extending their stay & I`m back first as we had a shorter journey.

I`m sure that 80% of people on the cruise loved it unconditionally. We enjoyed it but not every aspect of it & rather than just post the nice comments wanted to add the fuller picture (as we saw it) Still a great holiday & I`m sure you`ll enjoy it.

[BLTSAT]

Sorry you didnt have a good time. We enjoyed it. You can read my reviews We were on the Viking Pride too. It almost sounds like we were on two different boats but you're naming the same director as us.

 

Now we had excellent service in the dinning room. We had Andrew and Seta in the dinning room. As soon as we sat down, they took our beverage orders and after they delivered it they asked for our meal orders.

 

Everyone on our cruise that we had talked to and chummed around with though Verona was very knowlegeable. Every time we asked her something or for help she came back with answers. Yes, her English is a little funny with her accent. But we made out fine with her. Surprise you didn't say anything about Randy's singing in the lounge. Now Verona's English is so much better than his. :)

 

We got a paper called the Viking News on our bed every night on what was going on the next day. Don't know why you didn't get one?

 

Oh well, everyone has their opinions on cruises. Sorry, you didn't like yours. We did and will go again someday.

 

Dean I'll get your port inform on tomorrow. Have to go.

Sandy

[ddean52]

thanks sandy, sorry to be a pest.

[unfathomable]

We were on the same trip as Nippy Sweetie. I have to agree with all he said. We were very disappointed and thought the service and value for money were particularly poor. I have written a full review for the reviews section and am waiting for it to be approved. When (if?) it is, I'll post a link to it here.

[BLTSAT]

I went through each town trying to remember if we were able to walk or not from the boat. Sorry if I'm wrong on some of them.

 

Budapest - We were docked on the Pest side so yes and they even had a free ferry going to the Buda side which was nice. Now this all depends where you are docked too. It varies from what I've been told.

 

Bratislava-walk to town

 

Vienna-you can walk but it's a nice long walk depending where you are walking to. Easy to take the subway to the Center of the city.

 

Melk-We were bused in but we walked back. It was a nice walk.

 

Passau-walk to town

 

Regensburg-walk to town

 

Nuremberg-Bused both ways. There were stores there if I remember right but we were there on Sunday and they were all closed. Plus we had gotten back from our all day tour and it was hot and didn't go back into town.

 

Bamberg-walk to town

 

Wurzburg & Rothenburg-You take a bus all day.

 

Wertheim-walk to town

 

Mainz & Rudesheim-I think this is where Mainz we were far away from town. Rusesheim -walk because we were there all night.

 

Cologne-walk to town

 

Amsterdam-walk to town depends on where you are docked here to.

 

So I hope I have this all right. It's hard to remember when you have so many places. Plus it confuses me when we take a bus in but can walk back. Usually it's when there's a big hill to get to the first thing on our tour that we had a bus. Some of the places you didn't have much free time to do much of anything, except grab a few souvenirs or a beer or ice cream.

 

Dean, you're not a pest. If I had someone write up a report before we left, I would have asked a bunch of questions too. If you're a planner like us, it helps to figure out your day and time on what to do.

 

I know I've forgotten something to report about. I hope it's nothing major though.

 

If there's anything else, anyone can think of, just ask and I'll try to answer it to the best of my memory.

 

Everyone has their own opinions on things. I always take it with a grain of salt. Just like the food, everyone has their own taste. My husband likes spicy things and I don't. So there, he would love it and I wouldn't. Really it goes for anything. So if I or anyone complaints about something, you won't know until you try it yourself. We found that out on some of the other cruises we've read about before going on it. Now, if you get MANY complaints on the same thing, then I might think there is something wrong here. Sure I heard of some people complaining about the food and other things on our trip. But that was their opinion and we didn't feel the same way. So just go and try to go with an open mind and make the most of it. Randy, Verona and other people on our trip, who had problems trying to talk English, didn't ruin our trip. It was funny to us but they were trying their best. I just pictured myself trying to do the reverse side, trying to speak German or whatever from English. We tried to say some words and stopped because we couldn't say the words. It's hard when you have an accent too. Our personal guide in Budapest, who is a sweetheart, explained how they talk. The Hungarians say every letter in a word. Just like when he would say vegetables. He would pronounce it ve ge tables. They don't have spelling bees there because of them pronouncing every letter, there's no challenge.

 

Oh well I'm running off the mouth. :) So I hope everyone who goes on a river cruise has a good time!

 

Sandy

[ddean52]

sandy have a great weekend and im sure ill think up a few more questions for your impresive "data bank"

[Nippy Sweetie]

Hi, just thought it was worth mentioning the importance of using the hand sanitiser. There was only one at the entrance to the ship. However there was no sanitiser at the Dining Room entrance (usually is on ocean cruises). These are to prevent the spread of Norovirus. Fair enough. Viking Pride is a clean ship & no complaints there. However, there was a virulent & nasty cold raging throughout the ship and its spread must have been accelerated by the handling of the buffet tongs etc in the Dining Room. We all shared them all three times a day when eating in the Dining Room.I`m pretty sure that if we had all had to sanitise our hands on entrance to Dining Room a lot of people would have been prevented from catching this miserable cold!

I bought some antibacterial gel from a Pharmacy in Passau & the Pharmacist commended this saying that so many infections get passed around on the river boats that its well worth using.

[ddean52]

need your help ;) ! When did you rec, your museum tickets for amsterdam museums (they are part of a post viking cruise)?

how was the amsterdam hilton?

what kind of breakfast was served each morning at the hotel?

did you use tram #26? easy to use?

THANK YOU!<S>

[hockeymadhockey]

I found Amsterdam wonderful. Yes we passed the coffee shops but did not go to the red light district (no one would go with me). It was dirty but the canals were great. The row houses and house boats were lovely. We stayed at the Ambassade for 3 nights before our cruise on the Viking Sky. The hotel is converted from 10 row houses and it was incredible. Highly recommend it and it is in walking distance of many things. We got the hop on/hop off canal pass and this made getting around a breeze. We did not see the Anne Frank museum because it was packed. I was told to go at 7pm next time and to get tickets ahead of time to avoid all lines. We did go to the Reiksmuseum and that was lovely. We ate at a great restaurant on Leise street called the Luxembourg and got the snack platter (huge) and watched the world walk bye. It was great and I highly recommend it.

 

Before our cruise in August of last year we got to watch the Gay Pride parade from the boat. Very interesting. The "parade" is on the canals. The young men in the thong boat had all the older ladies on the boat in a fit of giggles. It made waiting to get into our rooms on the ship so much more fun.

 

Enjoy it all!

[hockeymadhockey]

Sorry, read the post about the cold virus. If it helps I swear by this, we all did it and none of us got sick. We carried our little bottles of hand sanitizer in our purses and used frequently BUT not just on the hands. Pat your mouth (closed) gently and your ears. I read about this from a pediatrician and he said the two most common areas for the cold virus is the mouth and ears. ALSO, we brought small bottles of listerine (about 3 travel sizes) and gargled morning and night. Read about that somewhere also. Don't forget to do this in the planes or anywhere the air is not fresh.

[unfathomable]

We were on the same trip as Nippy Sweetie. I have to agree with all he said. We were very disappointed and thought the service and value for money were particularly poor. I have written a full review for the reviews section and am waiting for it to be approved. When (if?) it is, I'll post a link to it here.

It's here: http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=44874

[BLTSAT]

We got our tickets for the museums from a Viking representative, who also gave us our info for our flights. She's only there that one time and wasn't very informative. We were disappointed in that part. She was there basicly to just give you your tickets and air transfer info. I'm trying to remember what time she got to the hotel. We got there about 9:30-10am. We went to our room and had time to unpacked before she showed up. She was probably there like within an hour after we arrived. On your last night on the ship, you'll also get a paper that gives you instructions for your flights out on your last day in Amsterdam.

 

The Hilton was great in Amsterdam. Everyone is real helpful. When you go into the hotel, there's a hallway on your right. There is a booth there that has people working that are very helpful. They have maps of Amsterdam that has all the routes for the differrent transportation and where things are located. It has the tramline ans stop, underground, canal bus lines and stops, canal cruises, ferry, stop/go and taxis. You can't get lost by using this map. Also the people are very helpful at the hotel and in Amsterdam. Get one. We used it constantly. Very informative. I didn't remember a #26 so I looked at our map. There's no #26. We used #2, 5, 16, 24 and others. It depends on where you're going on the tram. You will have to change trams to get to certain things. Look at your map before you go somewhere so you know what to look for and what tram numbers you will need. Just ask them anything at that booth and they will help you. They were great!!

 

The breakfast was buffet style. Very good spread. They had bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, pastries, cereal, eggs benedict, yogurt, breads, cheeses, deli meats, juices, fruit, pancakes, french toast and other things. You won't go out being hungry anymore.

 

After we got our museum tickets, we went to our room and got our things and went to the Anne Frank museum first. There was a line but we got in within a half hour. The line moved fast. I was surprised. Like I said before in one of my other write ups, there is some narrow and steep steps. So be careful. It's well worth the trip. It gave me goosebumps being where they were hiding, not being able to make any noise all that time.

 

Sorry people got sick on that other cruise. We were one of the lucky cruises I guess. I know there were a few people that complained of having a sore throat but that was it.

 

We only had to cross through another boat once in all our ports. We always were docked right up to the shore. And no one had to go through ours. I guess our cruise was lucky on a lot of things compare to the other report. You just never know. Thnings can happen on any cruise. No two cruises will be the same like a lot of things in our lives. Right?

 

So I hope I answered your questions plus some other things, Dean.

 

Got to go to work.

 

Sandy