This 9-night Tulip and Windmill cruise is fine for what it does include (nice tours) but very poor for how Viking handled the whole experience on the Idun - during and after the cruise. BTW - We loved our first trip with Viking so the changes in attitude were a real shock. Check for photos on Flickr.com from the Idun trip in the public areas in the Viking River Cruise group or search Viking or Idun. We will post more photos this week including cabins and food. Ports can be searched by name.

The good - the program director [Mieke Bakker] and her staff were terrific - the best part of the cruise! They were well organized, well informed and very helpful. We loved them all. Our local tour guides were also really good and well chosen. Our time off the ship was the best part of our trip - before, during and after the river cruise. We took several of the optional tours (Delft, Arnhem battlefield tour, extended time in Bruges) and thought they were good value. We loved the floating vegetable market on the No Holland tour. Bruges wasted too much time (45 min each way) walking to and from the big buses but Bruges itself was great. Viking needed to include a canal ride or mini bus tour (yes, they have local tour buses in town) to see the highlights that were skipped. Hoorn (great but we were there early in the day and everything was closed) was very scenic and Antwerp was wonderful on the tour and for free time. We loved seeing the windmills, too.

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