My husband and I are veteran ocean cruisers ages 52 and 49 and were unsure we would like a river cruise--and now we are absolutely sold on river cruising!! We sailed on the maiden voyage of Viking Hlin July 2nd out of Amsterdam for the Grand European Tour in a aquarium level room 120. We were initially a little nervous due to earlier reported low waters on the Danube--however, by the time we got to the Danube around July 11--there had been enough rain and we had no problems. There were only some minor issues that were out of Viking control that resulted in our cruise being off-track for pulling up at each location-so that we had to be bussed to a few of the excursions (around 1-1.5 hours). I know some of the people complained and were not happy--but I tend to think that I'm on vacation, in a beautiful location and Viking did everything they could to ensure we made every excursion --so why be so upset???

One thing that has really sold us on river cruising is that you almost always have beautiful scenery around you and not just the deep blue sea. It is also very peaceful sailing down the river. We passed through 68 locks and that was so interesting and unusual to us.

The staff was amazing! We had Dewi Klop as our program director and Zsolt as our concierge and both were great!! The rest of the staff always had smiles and greetings and were always willing to offer help. Read more