I have been on two river cruises in Europe with two different companies and can't help but compare. While we enjoyed our cruise with Viking, I felt Uniworld was a better experience.

First, as others have noted, docking in Le Pecq instead of Paris is very inconvenient. Their smaller ships can dock in Paris, so why not ditch the longship and dock in Paris? The shuttle Viking provides to/from Paris were often at inconvenient times, and not frequent enough. On the last day, we went into Paris on the shuttle at 9 am, and returned via taxi at about 3, and it cost us 50 euros and took 50 minutes. If you went back during rush hour, it would cost a lot more since in Paris the meter runs when you're stuck in traffic.

They don't provide enough information in advance of the cruise about the shuttle and the fact that there is a briefing at 6:15 pm followed by dinner at 7 pm on the first day. I had to write to the ship's concierge to find out how late we could get to the ship from Paris, where we were spending the day, and to find out that the Viking shuttles would leave Paris at 5 and 9 pm on boarding day. Too late in our opinion, so we arranged for a van to take the four of us and our bags to the ship, which cost us 90 euros. Read more