When I left the ship in a panic, worried about my husband, I took only a change of clothes for him and our toothbrushes. I forgot any clothes for myself, and I had no money. It took a couple of days for me to find a hotel room, an ATM for money, and a coat and umbrella to keep me from the rain. I also had a terrible sore throat and cold, so I was miserable in more ways than one.

Meanwhile, on the third day, Verona called me to say I could pick up my belongings when the ship made its return trip to Vienna. She knew all along that the ship was coming back, but she let me worry over how I was going to get to Budapest to get our things. My blood pressure was 228/110 and I had to make two trips to the emergency room for IVs to try to lower it. I’ve never been so alone and so worried in my life.

I didn’t have time to get the insurance papers, so I couldn’t call them for assistance, until I picked up all our things the 5th day of our stay in Vienna. I didn’t have the leisure of thinking of and picking out the various items I might have needed for ten days, when my husband is getting in an ambulance going to a hospital, which I wasn’t familiar with. I had to get on the ambulance in a hurry to accompany my husband. However, Verona had time to rudely warn me of all the things I needed to take care of.

My husband was in the hospital for 10 days, when we were finally discharged to return home, but unfortunately I have only the memory of being an old woman completely helpless in Vienna without even a hint of concern or assistance and unable to speak the language. Would you have wanted your mother to have been put in this situation? No one takes a cruise thinking there would be an emergency, but Verona surely could have recommended a hotel in Vienna or had someone accompany us to translate. She is a very poor individual to represent Viking Cruise lines, and the fact she is there is a reflection of poor hiring patterns by Viking. We were notified by Viking that we could have a $250 coupon for another trip.

This past year, my husband and I were aboard the Viking Skirnir for the Grand European Tour beginning September 26 and ending October 10. This was our “Swan Song,” because due to our age, we knew we couldn’t take another trip like this. I must say that the food and service on the ship was excellent. We enjoyed every mile of the trip until we had occasion to deal with Verona, the Concierge.

When we arrived in Vienna, my husband became suddenly and extremely ill with what we later learned was pneumonia. The doctor that Verona called came to our stateroom, observed my husband on the floor and said, “I’m a doctor. I don’t pick people up.” He didn’t touch him or talk to him, which I thought was very arrogant. Then he charged me 100 Euros, leaving me with three Euros. I asked him to call an ambulance, which he did, because my husband was feverish and unable to rise from the floor. He is nearing 90, so of course, I was extremely worried about him, and I was sick, too. Verona did nothing to advise us in any way. As we were leaving, she told me I would have to find my own way back to the US. I asked her how I should do that, and she said to call my travel agent. Viking was my travel agent! She also said I would have to find a way to get to Budapest to pack up our things and get them back to Vienna. She told me that a taxi would be too expensive, and I should take a train, but didn’t tell me where I could find a train station. She made no suggestion where I might find a hotel in Vienna, or anyone I could call to get some advice as to how I might manage alone in Vienna. She also reminded me that there were expenses we had incurred on the ship that needed to be paid for. She didn’t call my emergency number to notify my daughter what had happened to us. Why do we give emergency contacts to Viking? Our children were terrified.

When I left the ship in a panic, worried about my husband, I took only a change of clothes for him and our toothbrushes. I forgot any clothes for myself, and I had no money. It took a couple of days for me to find a hotel room, an ATM for money, and a coat and umbrella to keep me from the rain. I also had a terrible sore throat and cold, so I was miserable in more ways than one.

Meanwhile, on the third day, Verona called me to say I could pick up my belongings when the ship made its return trip to Vienna. She knew all along that the ship was coming back, but she let me worry over how I was going to get to Budapest to get our things. My blood pressure was 228/110 and I had to make two trips to the emergency room for IVs to try to lower it. I’ve never been so alone and so worried in my life.

I didn’t have time to get the insurance papers, so I couldn’t call them for assistance, until I picked up all our things the 5th day of our stay in Vienna. I didn’t have the leisure of thinking of and picking out the various items I might have needed for ten days, when my husband is getting in an ambulance going to a hospital, which I wasn’t familiar with. I had to get on the ambulance in a hurry to accompany my husband. However, Verona had time to rudely warn me of all the things I needed to take care of.

My husband was in the hospital for 10 days, when we were finally discharged to return home, but unfortunately I have only the memory of being an old woman completely helpless in Vienna without even a hint of concern or assistance and unable to speak the language. Would you have wanted your mother to have been put in this situation? No one takes a cruise thinking there would be an emergency, but Verona surely could have recommended a hotel in Vienna or had someone accompany us to translate. She is a very poor individual to represent Viking Cruise lines, and the fact she is there is a reflection of poor hiring patterns by Viking.

My husband was in the hospital for 10 days, when we were finally discharged to return home, but unfortunately I have only the memory of being an old woman completely helpless in Vienna without even a hint of concern or assistance and unable to speak the language. Would Verona have wanted her mother to have been put in this situation? My letter to Viking about this was sent a month ago, but it has has gone unanswered.

The “cruise” was kept from being a complete debacle owing only to the competence and friendliness of the Viking staff and crew on the three Viking ships we were on during our trip. They were uniformly courteous, competent, pleasant, and helpful. The ships were nice and well maintained, the food was good, and the staterooms smallish but well designed and laid out. We wish that we were able to focus this review on those aspects of the river trip. Regrettably, Viking’s mishandling, in our view, of its obligations to its customers denies us that option.

We wrote to Viking expressing our dissatisfaction with its treatment of us then followed up with a phone call. Viking refused to offer us any compensation beyond a 25% discount coupon on a future cruise with them, basically an enticement to us to spend more money with them rather than any real compensation for the inconvenience we experienced at their hands. Their standard contract basically says that they can change any aspect of a cruise they want without incurring further obligation to their customers. Legally, they probably are covered. Morally, in our view, they are not.

If you are planning to take a Viking river cruise in Europe, we recommend that you do due diligence concerning river conditions beforehand and not rely on Viking to keep you informed. We do not expect to be utilizing the company’s services again in the future. If we want a bus tour of Europe, I’m sure that we can find one that is much less expensive.

P.S. - An aside but probably one of interest to those considering this cruise. A strong sewage odor emanates from the water at Regensburg and along other stretches of the canal from Nuremburg and also along parts of the Danube. Something that is not mentioned in the cruise brochures.

After all this, the ocean cruise was fairly nice except that the shore excursions were poorly chosen. We paid $100-200 for several excursions that took us to small, quaint villages that were largely closed up for the winter – no shops or restaurants to visit! All you could do was walk the empty streets.

Needless to say, we have traveled with Viking for the last time!

The area was beautiful, especially in all of the snow, and on the plus side we both lost several pounds on this trip. The New Year's Eve party was karaoke and not pleasant and other events promised did not really occur.

I would highly recommend that if you choose Viking, do not let them make flight arrangements. They routed us to Newark with a connecting flight out of JFK. We had similar problems on the return trip. The upshot of the airline debacle was the loss of a day on the return and having to spend an extra $500 and much anxiety to get home. Definitely not worth the supposed 'savings and convenience' of having Viking make the arrangements.

Viking's solution to our complaints was to give us a voucher for $250 each for travel on their cruise line - to be used within one year. They did not seem to understand that the last thing we wanted to do was waste any additional vacation time on another bad cruise any time soon.

We were told misinformation, told things were going to get better, and given no option to being stranded on a floating hotel. Then as the water lapped over the banks of the Danube we were told we will be taken to Munich (a 12 hour bus ride). We can home exhausted from the bussing, and frustrated at the customer service of a cruise line that I thought was reputable. Vacationers beware of Viking. If anything goes wrong they will not be there to fix it.