I had taken two Viking river cruises and was excited to take a Mediterranean cruise with them and visit a couple ports not on many itineraries. Unfortunately, Tunis was cancelled for safety reasons (I can’t fault Viking for that). We did get to visit Algiers, which was very interesting and beautiful, and also no ‘corrupted’ by a history of being a regular cruise stop (I.e. they have yet to capitalize on the shopping opportunities cruise passengers bring). As far as the cruise itself goes, my husband and I were thrilled that rather than a casino and ‘hot legs’ contests and bingo, we had a retired Army Col. taking to us about the WWII campaign in North Africa and a resident historian talking about Ancient Rome. The food was amazing. On Viking, wine(or beer) is included at meal time and there is a free, informative excursion in each port. The ship is smaller and (I believe) alll the rooms are outside cabins (we had a great balcony). There is a great buffet with crab legs, and no long crazy line. Even the spa was awesome and not as overpriced as I thought it would be! The port talks actually talked about the county/city and not just ‘where to shop’.