The 7-Day Romantic Danube Viking River Cruise was not so romantic and definitely not stress-free. DO NOT BOOK this Cruise itinerary between August and December as low river water levels hinder ships from sailing and reaching scheduled ports of call.

Less than a week prior to our trip departure we received a notice from Viking advising us of the potential of low river levels and that there might be a risk of having to be bused to a port of call. We decided to make the best of the trip as we were super excited about cruising with Viking and our pre-cruise visit to Prague. After all, a company like Viking that touts luxury, is super pricey and is all about “exploring the world in comfort” wouldn’t disappoint, right? Well – this thought process proved to be naively unrealistic…

Prague was fantastic as is the Viking staff. However, the cruise, unfortunately, was a complete disappointment to such an extent that the staff on our last night on the ship acknowledged the less than ideal experience. They advised that Viking Customer Service would be in touch to extend compensation. Over 75% of our sailing itinerary was not met and the “scenic cruising” experience promised never happened. We were relocated on to 3 different longships over the 7 day cruise and on the penultimate day the 5-hour bus ride from Vienna to Budapest, with a rest stop at a very dirty gas station, left us further deflated and with no real time to explore Budapest and with a 3am airport transfer. By the way – Regensburg, 1 of the 2 scheduled ports we did make it to was closed as everything is closed on Sundays in Germany. Read more