We booked passage for a “Romantic Cruise of the Danube” aboard the Viking Freya from November 7 – 14, 2015. In the event, however, there was little cruising or romance to be had. Rather than a cruise our vacation turned out to be mainly a bus excursion during which we stayed aboard ships. Water levels forced us to disembark and travel to other ships by land transportation twice during the week. We did not receive from Viking what we paid well for and we are very dissatisfied by the way the company communicated, or rather failed to communicate, with us. Clearly conditions for cruising on the river had been deteriorating for months and yet they did nothing to alert us in advance to the probable and serious disruptions, let alone offer us the option of canceling or postponing.

We appreciate that Viking has no control over the weather or river conditions. It does, however, have control over the information it provides and it communicated badly with its passengers. Caveat emptor? Perhaps we were naïve in expecting more from the Viking Line.

The distance from Nuremburg to Budapest is about 755 km. That is a

Don't understand the negative reviews on here, we had a great time with our viking cruise this summer! We took the Rhine Getaway tour from Basel to Amsterdam and loved it. Great food, very accomodating staff, lots of vegetarian options for those with alternative diets. If you're hesitating since you've never taken a cruise before (like us) I actually liked checking out their videos like (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QGaVvEWoc) or this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhX_f2IVKfU). Anyway, highly recommend this getaway, we'll cherish our memories for a long time to come!

Our experience with Viking was terrible! We had previously taken a river cruise with Viking, and although there were problems with that trip we still decided to try them one more time. The second time was worse, far worse!

It began when Viking was two weeks late (beyond their on declared time line) in sending us our air reservations. I had to call to prompt them to send the reservations. The overseas flights that they arranged for us had terrible seat assignments and when I tried to change these seats with American Airlines I found that Viking had completely botched the reservations. The information for the couple that we were traveling with was switched with ours. After several hours on the phone with American they informed me that I would have to get Viking to straighten it out. Viking was resistant, claiming that it was American’s problem. After hours more on the phone with Viking I finally got them to cancel the air reservations and get us new reservations. The seat assignments were even worse but at least the personal info was correct so I could go out and pay up to

This was apparently the last outing of the season and it showed. The crew was tired and testy. The food poor and lacking in fresh fruit and vegetables - several meals had no vegetables or fruit at all. Meals were served at differing times each day and the daily newsletter did not always have the correct time listed so we missed a number of meals - especially breakfast and lunch. The heating was often non-existent and at other times smothering. Some of the outings were great, others were very poor, but the crew never bothered to let us know when we could leave the ship and kept a chain across the gangplank until the outings occurred. After missing the opportunity to see Melk because we made the mistake of reading and believing the daily flyer and obeying the chain, only to have a crew member harshly scold us for wanting to actually do what their flyer recommended - stroll through Melk. - we began to simply remove the chain as soon as we docked. It turned out that others were equally as frustrated and they also began to leave as soon

My grandparents booked this cruise in April of this year. My grandfather passed away this last week, unexpectedly. My grandmother called to see what could be done with the tickets, within 2 minutes of talking to someone, they had her in tears saying that it is not their fault that he died and showing a death certificate would unnecessary because it meant nothing to them. My brother took the phone and ask to speak to management on her behalf. When he got a response saying that their is no management, then got hung up on. We then called again to hopefully to talk to someone else. We then came to realize that the lady we were talking to was management, that told us there was no management. We are still waiting for a reply. We mentioned to get an attorney involved and they said it was unnecessary and would not give information to contact theirs.

It's too bad that Viking isn't better prepared to deliver what you purchase when the weather doesn't cooperate. As a river cruise line, they should have back up plans for when ships break down, rivers flood and lock are inoperable. And let's throw in a couple of destination docks that were unavailable necessitating docking in industrial sites. This was a very expensive trip for my husband and I and was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. We were changed to a different ship (with only one day's prior notice; some passengers received no notice at all). We did not receive the suite we paid for, but a standard stateroom. When we finally changed to the Var, the ship we were booked on, it broke down after one day. We then missed a town, received a shortened tour in two locations due to being bussed from the boat and eventually spent the last two nights in a hotel. When trying to resolve compensation with Viking, they ignore phone calls and emails. Unless you have a crystal ball and can guarantee that the weather will be good, plan on NOT

This was our third cruise with Viking and our last. When we arrived in Budapest we found out that the boat was moved out of Budapest due to high water. That should have been our first clue to cancel this fiasco of a cruise. We were held in a hotel for 6 hours and then bused over an hour to the boat. that was the first of many bus rides since the river was too high for the boat to move.

I have cruised with Viking before and had no problems. What an eye opener when we had problems. We were offered a paltry voucher to use on our next cruise. I tried to talk with Viking customer services but they were more interested in telling how much overtime they had to work due to the high water situation. I wanted to voice my frustration at this compensation but received stonewalling and "I'm sorry but there is nothing I can do". I paid a premium to sail with Viking but they are acting like the Dollar Store of Cruise Lines. I have waited more than 2 weeks for a