We chose the cruise for the same reasons as Judhess. Because of the low water, our trip was a big disappointment. After the first night spent on the Viking Idun in Budapest, we made our first transition to another Viking Ship (this time the Magni). And, still, after a few days we made a change to another ship and then the last night to a hotel in Amsterdam.

We spent many hours being transported by busses to go on excursions we had signed up for and some that the staff selected for us. A big disappointment was arriving in Cologne for a tour of the Cathedral only to find that our arrival was timed during a time when the cathedral was closed to tours. We had a tour that was dismal, ate lunch at a restaurant and then on the 20 minutes after lunch on our way to the bus, we slipped into the Cathedral for about 8 minutes. Terrible planning. We also missed the windmills. Originally we were offered at voucher for our next trip of 25% of what we paid for our GrandEuropean trip. Upon arriving home, that voucher was canceled and we did receive a voucher for our next Viking Cruise with the value of half the expense of our cruise. Likely they read the surveys, which if like ours were quite negative.

It is too bad that Viking was not honest up front, had refunded our money and we could have chosen a cruise of our choice with out all of the monkey business. We know of other cruise lines that have done that when they could not provide the services they originally offered. Read more