Overall, I had a very nice experience on the Viking Gullveig for the Romantic Danube cruise in November 2017. There were some really wonderful parts of the cruise and some areas that need improvement.

At the outset, the booking process was pretty straight forward. We worked directly with Viking to book our room. The representative was very knowledgeable and responsive to questions. Arranging our flights, however, was much more complicated. We chose to do a stopover in Nuremburg before flying on to London and then home to the U.S. It took many, many phone calls, too many e-mails to count, and countless hours on the phone with Viking's air representatives to arrange the flights. The problem was that Viking had limited contract seats available during the time of our travel (and, apparently, at all times). This made the flight booking process frustrating. In addition, we later learned (and only because I constantly watched my reservations on Delta's website) that our connections changed, leaving an inadequate connection time (30 minutes). No one from Viking called to inform us. I had to spend hours on the phone directly with Delta completely re-booking the itinerary.

We booked an Explorer Suite room, which was supposed to include complimentary private transfers to the ship. However, since we arrived the afternoon before the cruise departed, we were told after booking that the private transfers would not apply. Upon our arrival at the airport, we were surprised to see Viking representatives at the airport picking up other guests. This was disappointing. Read more