Table Of Content
- What's Included on Viking River Cruise Ships
- American Queen Voyages (formerly American Queen Steamboat Company and Victory Cruise Lines)
- The 5 Best Viking River Cruises in Europe
- NEW! Rhine & Main Explorer
- About Viking River Cruises
- Night European SojournDetails
- Which Viking River Cruise Ships Sail on the Douro in Portugal?
Each day, you'll receive an enamel pin reflecting the day's adventure such as Mickey dressed as Mozart or Donald cooking goulash. The Tauck Suites are large, at over 300 square feet and have a large bed as well as a fold-out sofa. Most cabins have floor-to-ceiling windows to save space in the cabin, and the most affordable is Category 1, which is about 150 square feet and has small windows and a little bathroom with a shower. Tauck recently renovated many of their ships, most of which carry just 84 or 98 guests, while a few larger boats accommodate a max of 130 guests. As the name implies, the American Queen Steamboat Company uses old-school-style riverboats for their journey.
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What's Included on Viking River Cruise Ships
You will receive your final travel documents and Viking luggage tags within three weeks of your trip. Included is a packet of information specific to your ship (including phone numbers on the ship plus embarkation location information) and an itinerary. To conserve resources, you could easily fill a reusable water bottle from home with water in the rooms. There are also bright red full-size Viking umbrellas to take along on excursions if it’s raining. I learned that I probably should have packed a small collapsable umbrella to stuff in my backpack; that way, I won’t be carrying the big Viking umbrella around after the rain has stopped while we’re still sightseeing.
American Queen Voyages (formerly American Queen Steamboat Company and Victory Cruise Lines)
The Panorama Dining Room serves daily four-course à la carte dinners along with complimentary wine, beer, and soft drinks, or guests can choose the more casual Panorama Bistro or Sky Grill. Viking River Cruises are semi-inclusive, with at least one shore excursion per day, Wi-Fi, bottled water and all onboard meals (in all venues) included in the price of your cruise. Also included is beer, wine and soda at lunch and dinner; these beverages cost extra any other time of the day. What really makes Viking Longships stand out, however, are the suites onboard. Viking is one of the few river cruise lines that offer a true two-room suite on their river ships.
The 5 Best Viking River Cruises in Europe
Other little touches in Viking cabins that show a line thinking about functionality as much as decor include the large and clear lettering on the Freyja toiletries that you'll find in every Viking cabin bathroom. Viking is one of the only cruise brands in the world that offers a balcony with every cabin on every ocean ship it operates — even the least expensive, smallest cabins. That's something that even the most upscale of Viking's ocean cruise rivals including Oceania Cruises, Azamara, Seabourn, Silversea Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises can't say. The nine nearly identical ocean ships — Viking Saturn, Viking Neptune, Viking Mars, Viking Venus, Viking Jupiter, Viking Orion, Viking Sky, Viking Sea and Viking Star — began rolling out in 2015. Six more nearly identical vessels are scheduled to debut between 2024 and 2028, and Viking has options with a shipyard to order four more of the ships for delivery in 2029 and 2030. Viking currently operates 11 ocean ships, nine of which are nearly identical.
Don't Miss the Opportunity to Try Local Food and Drink on Your Viking Rhine River Cruise
That allows for unusual variations on the typical Baltic Sea or Norwegian fjords cruise. Ten-night "Greek Odyssey" voyages to the Greek Islands start at $3,999 per person. That works out to roughly $800 per day for a couple sharing a room. Some of the line's more exotic sailings, such as its expedition trips to Antarctica, cost even more.
NEW! Rhine & Main Explorer
While there are plenty of places to curl up with a book or play a game in the public spaces, a bevy of activities will lure you onshore. AmaWaterways has a diverse selection of excursions, from low key to active experiences. It was a fascinating trip down the Danube River in Europe with Disney Cruises, focused on Christmas markets. Best-known of the river lines, Viking River provides solid cruises with a great variety of itinerary and cabin choices.
These sleek ships generally host less than 200 passengers and go where giant cruise liners cannot, such as the Danube, Rhine, Rhône, Mekong, Mississippi, and Nile Rivers. You will need to pay extra for tips, laundry and additional shore excursion offerings. On vessels with hair or spa services, or any retail offerings, you'll need to pay extra for these as well. The recommended tipping (for each guest) on excursions is 2 Euros for local guides and 1 Euro for bus drivers. This includes the Viking Daily which provides information for each new day and the evening updates by the program director in the Lounge before dinner. There are also daily announcements with information on docking and reminders about impending excursion departures.
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Night European SojournDetails
If you are unhappy with the service you receive, you can adjust this amount before disembarking at the Explorers' Desk. (You can also increase the tip amount if so desired.) Also, a 15% gratuity is added to bills at bars and for drinks at restaurants. There's also live music at night in the Explorers' Lounge, a two-deck-high observation lounge and bar area at the very top of the ship. The Explorers' Lounge also is home to Mamsen's, the food counter serving tastes of Norway mentioned above. In keeping with Viking's focus on cultural immersion, lecturers often have expertise related to the places you'll be visiting on your sailing. The line also draws a wide range of interesting and accomplished people from all walks of life to serve as guest lecturers, including well-known academics, diplomats and even astronauts.
Which Viking River Cruise Ships Sail on the Douro in Portugal?
Viking has long argued that few of its customers use fitness centers and the space that would be devoted to one is better used for other things. However, if you're fitness-obsessed, Viking river ships may not be the best choice for your river trip. In addition, in early 2022, the line began its first cruises to Antarctica with its first expedition ship, Viking Octantis. That summer, the same vessel launched the line's first voyages in the Great Lakes — a destination that only a handful of cruise operators visit. Viking's two expedition ships, Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris, are smaller than the above vessels, as is typical for expedition ships, and carry 378 passengers at maximum occupancy. Manageable itineraries of only eight days are available, though the line does offer longer options.
However, unlike nearly every other cruise brand, what you won't find are families with young kids. As noted above, Viking doesn't allow passengers under the age of 18 on its ships — a key differentiator for the brand as compared to other cruise lines. As noted above, almost all of Viking's river ships are of the same basic design and are known as the Longships — a reference to the historic vessels used by Vikings in the Middle Ages. What Viking ships don't offer is a lot of onboard amusements aimed at families and younger travelers.
On the line's river ships, you'll also find onboard lectures, usually related to the destinations the ships are visiting, as well as destination-related demonstrations and tastings. (On a Seine River voyage, you might have a tasting of local French cheeses or French wines, for instance). Viking's European river cruise fleet includes four slightly smaller longships built to navigate France's iconic Seine River. Those ships are your ticket to one of the best river cruises in all of Europe -- and not just because Paris is your starting point. When it comes to Rhine River cruise tips the single most important item is a comfortable pair of shoes as you will be walking -- a lot. Leave behind any formalwear as river cruises are much more casual than ocean cruises and there is no formal dress code.
Fourteen-night Antarctica trips start at $13,995 per person — about $2,000 per day for a couple. Just behind the main pool area on each of the ocean ships is a lovely, glass-topped lounge with comfortable seating called the Wintergarden that is home to afternoon tea. A den of serenity, it's one of our favorite places on these vessels. The centerpiece of the top deck of each of Viking's ocean ships is the main pool area, which is home to a pool, hot tub and rows of lounge chairs, as well as comfortable seating areas. All of Viking's oceangoing ships, which are much bigger than its river ships, have at least four and usually more outlets serving food of some sort.
Each of the line's ocean ships has a theater at its front that is home to production shows, movie showings (with fresh popcorn available) and enrichment lecturers. The main restaurants on these ships are notable for their walls of glass that can slide open to create al fresco dining, something that is unusual in the cruise world. If you're looking for a big open room on an ocean cruise (and are willing to pay for it), Viking offers you plenty of options.
Though part of the United Kingdom, these archipelagos have ties to Norwegian and Viking history. Among the line's voyages, there's everything from eight-day cruises in the Mediterranean to 138-day around-the-world voyages. It's not a line that offers megaships topped with every sort of amusement known to humans. The line asks passengers to keep things "elegant casual" when heading to any of the ship's dining venues, performances or special events. To Viking, that means a dress, skirt or slacks with a sweater or blouse for women, and trousers and a collared shirt for men. All of the line's vessels have standard North American-style, 110-volt outlets in rooms as well as European-style, 220-volt outlets and USB ports in cabins.
Most Viking Longships are 443 feet long, the perfect length to fit into the locks on many of Europe's rivers. Viking has also built slightly shorter versions of the Longships measuring 262 feet, 361 feet or 410 feet in length specifically to sail on rivers where lock sizes or other navigational factors require a smaller vessel. The 410-foot-long versions of the vessels, for instance, were specifically built to be able to sail into the heart of Paris on the Seine River.
Many of the activities on board Viking's ocean ships revolve around "cultural enrichment," to use a phrase often used by Viking executives. On any given day, you might find an expert on one of the destinations you're visiting lecturing in the theater, or a classical musician performing in the central atrium, known as The Living Room. The ships also offer some traditional entertainment, including production shows with singers and dancers.
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