July 10th Rhine Getaway (Viking) on the Eir

Just returned from this cruise. It was fantastic! We added the Lucerne extension and did the Golden round trip to Mt Pilatus. Every day of this cruise was wonderful and the ship and crew were just outstanding! A great deal of thought and planning has been put into this by Viking. Please note: Viking listened to all the negative feedback they were getting about the Black Forest trip and added a free option to Freiburg...what a lovely and liveable city Freiburg turned out to be...one of my favorite places on the trip.

Just returned from this cruise. It was fantastic! We added the Lucerne extension and did the Golden round trip to Mt Pilatus. Every day of this cruise was wonderful and the ship and crew were just outstanding! A great deal of thought and planning has been put into this by Viking. Please note: Viking listened to all the negative feedback they were getting about the Black Forest trip and added a free option to Freiburg...what a lovely and liveable city Freiburg turned out to be...one of my favorite places on the trip.

Thanks, seadaisy! It's nice to know there will be another option to choose from! Glad you had a wonderful trip!

Seasdaisy - just curious how much time you actually got in the town (once you got there)? Thanks in advance!

I assume you are asking about Freiburg. We left the ship at the same time as the Black Forest group and returned at the same time. We left at 8:45 and returned at 12:30. The trip to Freiburg was much shorter than the Black Forest so we were in Freiburg from about 9:00 until shortly after noon. Our guide for this trip was from Freiburg and did a great job of walking us through the old town and center of town and giving us a real feel for the history of the place. It was charming.

Great to hear your positive report. We leave 2 weeks from today and are doing the Lucerne extension as well. Was the Mt. Pilatus trip fairly easy to follow all the way through? How much time did the trip take? We're thinking of skipping the town walk on our 1st day and doing this instead.

FM

The Lucerne town walk was really nice and took us to all we had on our list to see - very rewarding. I think it would be a shame to miss it, if you have the ability to do the walking involved. The Pilatus trip (purchase tickets at the booth on the lake) does not involve a lot of walking until the end. There is a boat trip on the lake to a small town, then the rackrailway up to the top (what an experience). We had lunch at the Pilatus-Kulm hotel at the top, then descended via gondola and cable car. The most walking happens then when you have to find the bus stop back to town. The total time was probably 5-6 hours.

I assume you are asking about Freiburg. We left the ship at the same time as the Black Forest group and returned at the same time. We left at 8:45 and returned at 12:30. The trip to Freiburg was much shorter than the Black Forest so we were in Freiburg from about 9:00 until shortly after noon. Our guide for this trip was from Freiburg and did a great job of walking us through the old town and center of town and giving us a real feel for the history of the place. It was charming.

Thanks, seadaisy! Sounds like a nice amount of time in Freiburg, and a nice option for us to look into! Thanks again!

Just returned from this cruise. It was fantastic! We added the Lucerne extension and did the Golden round trip to Mt Pilatus. Every day of this cruise was wonderful and the ship and crew were just outstanding! A great deal of thought and planning has been put into this by Viking. Please note: Viking listened to all the negative feedback they were getting about the Black Forest trip and added a free option to Freiburg...what a lovely and liveable city Freiburg turned out to be...one of my favorite places on the trip.

So glad to hear this! We will be doing the Rhine Getaway with the Lucerne extension next year. I'm wondering how Viking gets you from Basel to Lucerne - is it a bus? Was it a long ride? Did you stay at the Hotel Flora - that's where Viking has us. Was it nice>

I can't wait to do Mt Pilatus - it's why we're doing the Lucerne extension!