Just Back: Viking Hlin, Danube, Nuremburg to Budapest

Our Danube cruise was on the new Viking Hlin, which was making only its third sailing since its maiden voyage earlier in the month. Our embarkation point was Nuremburg, and our destination was Budapest. We did not include the optional extension in Prague prior to sailing. And although we did stay two extra nights in Budapest at the end of the cruise, we booked the accommodations ourselves. We also booked travel ourselves.

This was our second river cruise, so our expectations were maybe a little bit higher and a little more specific than first-time cruisers. However, we were generally very pleased with this trip and its excursions. There were only a few negatives, which I will leave until the end because they were far outweighed by the positives.

The Hlin had a terrific chef (Rainer) who seemed to love his work. When we congratulated him on his meals, he immediately deflected the praise and said "We have a great team here!", acknowledging the people who work in his group. That is the type of personality and attitude I like to see in any context.

Most of the staff we encountered were very pleasant and professional. One confided that he had worked for a number of other lines, both river and ocean, and he felt that Viking was the best.

The excursions were well organized, and our Program Director (Stein) and Concierge (Radi) were knowledgeable and helpful. The tour guides were generally very well-informed and professional. We signed up for more optional excursions than we had originally planned: the BMW factory tour is a must-see, and you should sign up early due to a limited number of slots. The classical music excursion in Vienna was enjoyable, and the Magyar Hungarian horse-riding demonstration was very different and surprisingly entertaining.

I should note that we were traveling with two other couples, and we feel very strongly about the following: if you are traveling with others, make a pact up front that you will NOT eat all of your meals together. Make an effort to meet others on your boat and sit at other tables at many or most meals. River cruises are small compared to ocean cruises, and if your whole group stakes out an entire table at every meal, you will miss a tremendous opportunity to meet other people. Another option is to sit at one of the long tables near the bow -- that way you are still at one table, but there are plenty of other spots for others to join you. On the other hand, it can be helpful to keep your gang together on the excursions so that you can take turns taking photos of each other.

Comparison to Avalon: I often seen questions here similar to "which is better: Avalon or Viking?" Having sailed with Avalon on their Rhine River cruise three years ago (see my review of that trip at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1465203), I was looking forward to trying Viking and seeing how they stacked up against each other. So after trying a similar cruise on both of them, I can now categorically state: they're pretty much the same. You'll probably be happy with either of them. Because Viking is bigger, I believe that they are in a better position to handle low or high river levels and have sister ships staged on either side of a river blockage to continue a cruise. On the other hand, I think Avalon rooms now are a bit bigger, and they may have a "We try harder" attitude of a #2 competitor. They seemed a bit more organized when it came to greeting passengers returning from excursions, always greeting us with "welcome back" drinks and collecting shore cards efficiently. The food on Viking seemed a little better, though that is probably more a function of each ship's chef rather than the cruise line. However, there was one thing I missed from our Avalon cruise: Avalon tends (or at least tended in 2011) to market to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and UK as well as to the U.S. I love my fellow Americans dearly, but it was fun sharing an Avalon boat with English-speakers from all over the world. The Viking clientele seems to be 90% American. Not a big deal, but an interesting quirk.

Now for some of the negatives:

1. The Viking booklet gives you a direct telephone number to your ship in case your plane is late or you have some other problem. The number for the Hlin did not work in Nuremburg, where several passengers had flight delays and lost luggage due to Lufthansa. ( I could write a two page scathing review about Lufthansa incompetence.) We ended up calling the Viking 800 number in the U.S. to get squared away.

2. The sun deck was closed for the first few days of our trip, due to the low bridges on the river. However, this is beyond Viking's control, and all river cruise lines are subject to this limitation on this part of the Danube.

3. The in-room television service had some drawbacks: the GPS was not real-time (Avalon's was); the bow cam often seemed to randomly point in directions rather than straight ahead, rendering it useless; all service was turned off starting the evening of our last night aboard; and trip photos never seemed to be updated after our first stop in Regensburg. Kind of disappointing, but then again, on a river cruise you really shouldn't be spending much time watching TV.

4. Internet service is abysmal. Again, this is not unique to Viking. River boats link to the Internet through a low-bandwidth satellite connection, and it just doesn't handle the sort of apps that we are accustomed to: forget Skype or FaceTime, and don't plan to upload lots of mutli-megabyte photos to your grandkids or to your Facebook account. At best you can check/send your e-mail, and maybe send a few reduced-sized photo files. To make sure that you have best possible connection, try to take your laptop/iPad/smart-phone to a location near the wheelhouse, either on the sun deck or near the lounge near the front of the bar. Once you have four or five bars of wireless connection, you'll have the best chance of making the most of the limited satellite uplink.

5. The "bump". -- Sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 PM on July 24, we were cruising down the Main-Danube canal when the Hlin experienced a sudden bump. It wasn't enough to make me lose my balance, but it was jolting and surprising. If you have ever been in a boat when it hits a dock a little faster or harder than planned, then you know the feeling. My wife looked out our sliding door on port side (we were near the stern) and noted a fast-moving commercial barge moving in the opposite direction, very near to us. I stepped into the hall, and noted a crewman moving up our hall toward the stern with a concerned expression and an urgent pace. The next time we looked out the window, we noted that we were dead in the water. No announcement was made, and later, one fellow passenger said that a crew member told him that we had hit the wake of the fast-moving barge. We started moving again, and nothing else was said. A couple of days later, we were side-by-side another cruise line's ship in a lock, and I was having a conversation with one of their passengers. He said, "I heard you had an accident". Startled, I replied "We felt a bump a couple of night's ago, but we didn't hear about any accident." He replied, "We did." Later that day (or maybe the next), our Program Director announced that our Captain had "left the boat to begin his vacation" and that a new Captain was now on-board. This was presented very casually, implying that this was all as-planned. It struck us as very odd that the Captain of a new ship would depart unannounced for a vacation in the middle of a cruise, and we started to suspect that we were being given a bunch of horse manure. I tried searching the Internet for some kind of news explaining these events, and at the end of the cruise, when I had a solid Internet connection in our hotel in Budapest, I finally found some info. Google the following terms and you will find the same information:

hlin Berching apollon

I understand that cruise lines need to be careful about the information that they pass on to their customers, both to minimize concern and to control liability exposure. However, I do not like dishonesty. I hope Viking will re-examine their policies regarding what information they share with their guests. Things like this will always come out sooner or later -- better to get ahead of it and control the news candidly.

Again, though, I emphasize that the negatives above were all far-outweighed by the positive aspects of the trip. I would not hesitate to recommend Viking in general or the Hlin specifically to anybody considering a European river cruise.

If there's anything above that I can expand on, post a question and I'll try to respond.

Thanks so much for your review! We are scheduled to be on the Hlin on August 27. We read about the "broken lock" which is now repaired, and apparently did not seem to affect your cruise, or the current high water levels.

Thanks for the great review. Glad that Viking is everything you had looked forward to!

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Yes, we were very fortunate. The cruises earlier in July had low water issues. The cruises just after ours encountered the broken lock, and are now facing high water issues. Such is the reality of river cruising, particularly on the Danube, where the river bottom is high, the bridges are low, and the locks are many. As somebody else said on another thread, "You just gotta go with the flow."

We were also very fortunate regarding the weather. I can't count the number of times that the weather forecast predicted rain and/or thunderstorms, and we ended up with good (or at least dry) weather.

Nice review.

 

I should note that we were traveling with two other couples, and we feel very strongly about the following: if you are traveling with others, make a pact up front that you will NOT eat all of your meals together. Make an effort to meet others on your boat and sit at other tables at many or most meals. River cruises are small compared to ocean cruises, and if your whole group stakes out an entire table at every meal, you will miss a tremendous opportunity to meet other people. Another option is to sit at one of the long tables near the bow -- that way you are still at one table, but there are plenty of other spots for others to join you. On the other hand, it can be helpful to keep your gang together on the excursions so that you can take turns taking photos of each other.

Can't agree more. I remember reading about six couples going on a river cruise and hoping there would be tables for 12. My opinion was, man, you're going to be missing out on so much. But, different strokes . . .

However, there was one thing I missed from our Avalon cruise: Avalon tends (or at least tended in 2011) to market to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and UK as well as to the U.S. I love my fellow Americans dearly, but it was fun sharing an Avalon boat with English-speakers from all over the world. The Viking clientele seems to be 90% American. Not a big deal, but an interesting quirk.

 

Agreed. We LOVE travelling with others, especially from Australia and New Zealand. Such a fun bunch. Living life to the fullest! We had been on a Cosmos land tour (owned by Globus) and met a bunch of folks from Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain. What a great time. So we were delighted walking onto the Avalon Impression and seeing there were 11 Americans, 22 Brits, some New Zealanders and a ton of Aussies! Great company!

Now for some of the negatives:

 

2. The sun deck was closed for the first few days of our trip, due to the low bridges on the river. However, this is beyond Viking's control, and all river cruise lines are subject to this limitation on this part of the Danube.

 

The "sun deck" was closed for low bridges on the Avalon Impression also. However, it's a split level deck so you could still sit up top, forward, even for low bridges! Do you have that opportunity on Viking?

We haven't been on Viking so can't compare. We just know we had a great time and recommend that river cruising - even with the risks - be on every cruiser's life to-do-list.

The "sun deck" was closed for low bridges on the Avalon Impression also. However, it's a split level deck so you could still sit up top, forward, even for low bridges! Do you have that opportunity on Viking?

Thank you for sharing your perspective. We are sailing this same itinerary in December (Reverse order), and as it’s our first European river cruise I’m trying to find out as much as possible. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions?

The optional excursions you mentioned, I don’t see any listed on the web site except one to a monastery that brews ale or beer. I expect there are extra costs for these tours, but how do you book? Once on board? How did you find out about them?

Dress code for dinner. Everything says leave your formal wear at home (Yea!), but what is acceptable for dinner for men? Would my DH be okay wearing a shirt with a collar without a tie and nice pants? Or should he wear a tie and sport coat?

Tipping. Will Viking add gratuities to your bill like the big cruise lines do, or do they tell you the suggested amounts and you hand out envelopes the last day? How does that work for the wait staff? With open seating I would expect you get a different waiter each time, and it might be difficult to figure out who to give the envelope to, or do the waiters pool their tips?

Thank you.

We were on the Viking Idi in June, fantastic.

Three weeks before your cruise you will get a booklet with the optional excursions mentioned, you can then book or on the first day on-board.

Almost nobody wore jackets, but people still dressed smart casual,collar shirts for men very seldom dresses for ladies, more nice pants suits.

For the tip you can pay in envelopes or go to the desk on the last evening and have them charged on a credit card.

We were on the Viking Idi in June, fantastic.

Three weeks before your cruise you will get a booklet with the optional excursions mentioned, you can then book or on the first day on-board.

Almost nobody wore jackets, but people still dressed smart casual,collar shirts for men very seldom dresses for ladies, more nice pants suits.

For the tip you can pay in envelopes or go to the desk on the last evening and have them charged on a credit card.

Thank you! I don't want to commit any faux pas.

Thanks for the review, interesting to see reports from folks who have been on different lines. Definitely agree that having a nice mix of countries make everything more interesting. This was especially true as we were sailing during the world cup. Aussie's love some soccer, and don't block the TV by the bar when the game is on!

Your 'collision' could have been terrible, seeing as it was a gas tanker you hit.

We had a similar experience with information disclosure. We were on a Viking cruise in June. Late at night there was a hard thump, but no big deal, we probably just hit the side of a lock. My sleep filled mind made no connection with one of the over head lights in the cabin turning on and off earlier.

Turns out, we lost power, and the emergency generators didn't kick in. The lights turning on where the battery backups. The bump was the boat hitting the bank hard enough to dimple a 2'-3' area of the bow, and smash a section of the glass in the lounge railing. We were told that morning that the captain's quick actions avoided another ship when the power cut out, and he steered us into the river bank. We would be told more details that night.

That night we were told that the engine quit, and the emergency generator didn't kick on, but everything had been checked out and it was all OK. In fact, it was such a small bump into the river banks that the captain wasn't even aware of any problems until he woke up for breakfast.

Huh?, I thought you said it was his quick thinking that avoided a ship to ship collision?

Thank you for the review. We did this itinerary on the Viking Freya at the end of April and fortunately there were no problems with river levels. We took the BMW factory tour, which was the only optional excursion we booked. We found the Wifi adequate but we were only using it for email and Google, we didn't Skype.

I agree with you that it is interesting to have a wide spread of nationalities on board. Different river cruise lines do seem to attract/market to different nationalities. On our cruise, there were more of us from the UK than on your cruise, but the majority were Americans and there were only a couple of people from Australia and Canada. I've heard that Scenic Cruises have a lot of Australian passengers.

Interesting to read your comparison with Avalon. We were impressed with Viking and will certainly cruise with them again but are willing to try other lines as well. Avalon sound well worth considering.

Rosethorn40: Lolotte gave you good info. I'll just add an extra comment or two.

Dress code for dinner. Everything says leave your formal wear at home (Yea!), but what is acceptable for dinner for men? Would my DH be okay wearing a shirt with a collar without a tie and nice pants? Or should he wear a tie and sport coat?

I took a sports jacket and tie "just in case". I never once wore the tie. I wore the sports jacket once, when we attended an optional classical music excursion in Vienna. I was one of the few guys to do so. I never wore it to dinner, and saw only one or two others who ever did. I tended to change from shorts to khakis for dinner, and wore either decent short sleeve shirts, polo shirts, or (rarely) a long-sleeve button-down shirt. I was probably toward the high end of the scale. Many guys wore shorts to dinner; a lesser number wore t-shirts.

Tipping. Will Viking add gratuities to your bill like the big cruise lines do, or do they tell you the suggested amounts and you hand out envelopes the last day? How does that work for the wait staff? With open seating I would expect you get a different waiter each time, and it might be difficult to figure out who to give the envelope to, or do the waiters pool their tips?

Hope this is helpful.

We were on the Viking Idi in June, fantastic.

Three weeks before your cruise you will get a booklet with the optional excursions mentioned, you can then book or on the first day on-board.

Almost nobody wore jackets, but people still dressed smart casual,collar shirts for men very seldom dresses for ladies, more nice pants suits.

For the tip you can pay in envelopes or go to the desk on the last evening and have them charged on a credit card.

We are doing this itinerary on August 27 and we have received our cruise documents. Unfortunately not all the excursions are listed, such as the BMW factory tour mentioned by the OP. I wrote to Viking and they replied that this is an optional excursion in Regensburg and we can sign up for it on board.

We leave today, we were supposed to be on the Hlin, but they changed our ship to the Njord. We were told it was because of the Locks, I also read about the accident on Vessel Tracker.

We are also using Lufthansa. We leave at 5:45 tonight. How was the food on the plane? I have read different reviews.

Glad you had a good time.

How was the food on the plane? I have read different reviews.

The food on the Boston-Frankfurt flight was fine. Frankfurt-Nuremburg is such a short hop that they don't serve a meal, just a forgettable snack.

Thanks for the report!

I should also give kudos to our Concierge Radi -- at the beginning of the trip, she collected the paperwork from all of the Lufthansa passengers that had lost luggage (even the ones who did not book travel through Viking) and got on the phone and ensured that everybody's luggage had arrived and was sitting outside our cabin doors when we awoke the next morning.

Thanks for the report..

We leave today, we were supposed to be on the Hlin, but they changed our ship to the Njord. We were told it was because of the Locks, I also read about the accident on Vessel Tracker.

 

We are also using Lufthansa. We leave at 5:45 tonight. How was the food on the plane? I have read different reviews.

 

Glad you had a good time.

Have a great time! We are also supposed to be on the Hlin (August 27) so I wonder if they are going to switch us too. If you have time to post while on the trip I would appreciate knowing if the boats are able to complete the trip (because of the water levels). I know the lock was repaired.

We are doing this itinerary on August 27 and we have received our cruise documents. Unfortunately not all the excursions are listed, such as the BMW factory tour mentioned by the OP. I wrote to Viking and they replied that this is an optional excursion in Regensburg and we can sign up for it on board.

The BMW tour wasn't in the cruise documents when we sailed either. The Cruise Director mentioned it in his talk the evening before and you signed up after the meeting either with the concierge or reception. Numbers are strictly limited, I don't recall how many, but it was my impression that the excursion wasn't full, probably because there was another excursion the same day that had more general appeal.

On the day of embarkation you are handed a sheet to choose the optional (paid) excursions you want to take during the cruise. A couple of them will be the optional excursions listed on the brochures and documents you receive before the trip. There will also be a few others available that were not previously publicized. Some excursions may be available if you cruise in one direction, but not in the reverse. There is no way to find out what the extras are until you are there. You need to decide which ones you want to take and return the sign-up sheet the next day.

Also, the day prior to disembarkation, the passengers that are taking a Viking post-cruise extension receive a sign-up sheet for optional excursions available during the extension. There will be some extras in addition to whichever optional excursion was previously advertised. You need to sign up for those also before disembarking.

My understanding is that the same thing happens to pre-cruise extension guests. The day you arrive you are given info on optional excursions that were not previously advertised.

We did not take either of the pre or post cruise extensions on our cruise, so I cannot tell you what they are. We did our own stays at both ends. Judging by the prices we saw at Viking, you would do well to do a little research on private excursions at either port before and after your cruise.

Our Danube cruise was on the new Viking Hlin, which was making only its third sailing since its maiden voyage earlier in the month. Our embarkation point was Nuremburg, and our destination was Budapest. We did not include the optional extension in Prague prior to sailing. And although we did stay two extra nights in Budapest at the end of the cruise, we booked the accommodations ourselves. We also booked travel ourselves.

 

This was our second river cruise, so our expectations were maybe a little bit higher and a little more specific than first-time cruisers. However, we were generally very pleased with this trip and its excursions. There were only a few negatives, which I will leave until the end because they were far outweighed by the positives.

 

The Hlin had a terrific chef (Rainer) who seemed to love his work. When we congratulated him on his meals, he immediately deflected the praise and said "We have a great team here!", acknowledging the people who work in his group. That is the type of personality and attitude I like to see in any context.

 

Most of the staff we encountered were very pleasant and professional. One confided that he had worked for a number of other lines, both river and ocean, and he felt that Viking was the best.

 

The excursions were well organized, and our Program Director (Stein) and Concierge (Radi) were knowledgeable and helpful. The tour guides were generally very well-informed and professional. We signed up for more optional excursions than we had originally planned: the BMW factory tour is a must-see, and you should sign up early due to a limited number of slots. The classical music excursion in Vienna was enjoyable, and the Magyar Hungarian horse-riding demonstration was very different and surprisingly entertaining.

 

I should note that we were traveling with two other couples, and we feel very strongly about the following: if you are traveling with others, make a pact up front that you will NOT eat all of your meals together. Make an effort to meet others on your boat and sit at other tables at many or most meals. River cruises are small compared to ocean cruises, and if your whole group stakes out an entire table at every meal, you will miss a tremendous opportunity to meet other people. Another option is to sit at one of the long tables near the bow -- that way you are still at one table, but there are plenty of other spots for others to join you. On the other hand, it can be helpful to keep your gang together on the excursions so that you can take turns taking photos of each other.

 

Comparison to Avalon: I often seen questions here similar to "which is better: Avalon or Viking?" Having sailed with Avalon on their Rhine River cruise three years ago (see my review of that trip at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1465203), I was looking forward to trying Viking and seeing how they stacked up against each other. So after trying a similar cruise on both of them, I can now categorically state: they're pretty much the same. You'll probably be happy with either of them. Because Viking is bigger, I believe that they are in a better position to handle low or high river levels and have sister ships staged on either side of a river blockage to continue a cruise. On the other hand, I think Avalon rooms now are a bit bigger, and they may have a "We try harder" attitude of a #2 competitor. They seemed a bit more organized when it came to greeting passengers returning from excursions, always greeting us with "welcome back" drinks and collecting shore cards efficiently. The food on Viking seemed a little better, though that is probably more a function of each ship's chef rather than the cruise line. However, there was one thing I missed from our Avalon cruise: Avalon tends (or at least tended in 2011) to market to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and UK as well as to the U.S. I love my fellow Americans dearly, but it was fun sharing an Avalon boat with English-speakers from all over the world. The Viking clientele seems to be 90% American. Not a big deal, but an interesting quirk.

 

Now for some of the negatives:

 

1. The Viking booklet gives you a direct telephone number to your ship in case your plane is late or you have some other problem. The number for the Hlin did not work in Nuremburg, where several passengers had flight delays and lost luggage due to Lufthansa. ( I could write a two page scathing review about Lufthansa incompetence.) We ended up calling the Viking 800 number in the U.S. to get squared away.

 

2. The sun deck was closed for the first few days of our trip, due to the low bridges on the river. However, this is beyond Viking's control, and all river cruise lines are subject to this limitation on this part of the Danube.

 

3. The in-room television service had some drawbacks: the GPS was not real-time (Avalon's was); the bow cam often seemed to randomly point in directions rather than straight ahead, rendering it useless; all service was turned off starting the evening of our last night aboard; and trip photos never seemed to be updated after our first stop in Regensburg. Kind of disappointing, but then again, on a river cruise you really shouldn't be spending much time watching TV.

 

4. Internet service is abysmal. Again, this is not unique to Viking. River boats link to the Internet through a low-bandwidth satellite connection, and it just doesn't handle the sort of apps that we are accustomed to: forget Skype or FaceTime, and don't plan to upload lots of mutli-megabyte photos to your grandkids or to your Facebook account. At best you can check/send your e-mail, and maybe send a few reduced-sized photo files. To make sure that you have best possible connection, try to take your laptop/iPad/smart-phone to a location near the wheelhouse, either on the sun deck or near the lounge near the front of the bar. Once you have four or five bars of wireless connection, you'll have the best chance of making the most of the limited satellite uplink.

 

5. The "bump". -- Sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 PM on July 24, we were cruising down the Main-Danube canal when the Hlin experienced a sudden bump. It wasn't enough to make me lose my balance, but it was jolting and surprising. If you have ever been in a boat when it hits a dock a little faster or harder than planned, then you know the feeling. My wife looked out our sliding door on port side (we were near the stern) and noted a fast-moving commercial barge moving in the opposite direction, very near to us. I stepped into the hall, and noted a crewman moving up our hall toward the stern with a concerned expression and an urgent pace. The next time we looked out the window, we noted that we were dead in the water. No announcement was made, and later, one fellow passenger said that a crew member told him that we had hit the wake of the fast-moving barge. We started moving again, and nothing else was said. A couple of days later, we were side-by-side another cruise line's ship in a lock, and I was having a conversation with one of their passengers. He said, "I heard you had an accident". Startled, I replied "We felt a bump a couple of night's ago, but we didn't hear about any accident." He replied, "We did." Later that day (or maybe the next), our Program Director announced that our Captain had "left the boat to begin his vacation" and that a new Captain was now on-board. This was presented very casually, implying that this was all as-planned. It struck us as very odd that the Captain of a new ship would depart unannounced for a vacation in the middle of a cruise, and we started to suspect that we were being given a bunch of horse manure. I tried searching the Internet for some kind of news explaining these events, and at the end of the cruise, when I had a solid Internet connection in our hotel in Budapest, I finally found some info. Google the following terms and you will find the same information:

 

hlin Berching apollon

 

I understand that cruise lines need to be careful about the information that they pass on to their customers, both to minimize concern and to control liability exposure. However, I do not like dishonesty. I hope Viking will re-examine their policies regarding what information they share with their guests. Things like this will always come out sooner or later -- better to get ahead of it and control the news candidly.

 

Again, though, I emphasize that the negatives above were all far-outweighed by the positive aspects of the trip. I would not hesitate to recommend Viking in general or the Hlin specifically to anybody considering a European river cruise.

 

If there's anything above that I can expand on, post a question and I'll try to respond.

:)---Thank You for the review. Lots of Good Info.

This was a very helpful review. We have crused extensively but this will be ou

r 1st river cruse...Nurenburg to Budepest on Viking. You answer most of my questions. However we are considering our cabin choice and wanted to know if there is a more desirable side of the ship - port or starboard? Additionally, how often are you cruising during the day? Can you post an actual daily itinerary? There catelog is not very specific on arrival & departure to ports.

Hi gacruiser, glad you found the original post helpful.

Usually it doesn't make much difference which side you are on. You may be lashed next to another boat and not have much of a view. However, there was one place where we were very glad that we had a port-side cabin: Budapest. It seemed like all the cruise boats were moored facing upstream. Ours went past the mooring space, turned around, then docked with our bow facing west*. And since Viking has primo docking space right at the Chain Bridge, that meant that our port-side cabin had a beautiful view of the illuminated castle and other buildings on the heights of Buda.

You can see a similar view here if this link works:

http://www.bridgesofbudapest.com/content/pictures/budapest/buda_castle.jpg

We kept waiting for another boat to come alongside us and block our view, but it never happened. I don't know if we were just lucky, or if they don't "raft" the boats together there for some reason.

Still, this was just a nice-to-have. Your boat might dock in a different location or in a different direction, or might be hemmed in by another boat, so I wouldn't be too concerned if you can't get a cabin on the port side.

Regarding a detailed itinerary -- I'd have to go through my papers at home. But in general, the boat travels at night and docks near a city during the day. That is a gross over-simplification, and the biggest exception to this rule is when you go through the scenic Wauchau Valley. That occurs during the day and everybody is up on the sundeck, listening to the commentary by the cruise director and watching the beautiful castles, villages, and vineyards pass by. Does that help, or do you still want a day-by-day listing of daytime cruising periods?

-------

* Okay, technically at the Chain Bridge we were facing north, but the Danube flows in a general west-east direction, so when you're facing upstream, you're facing the direction that would take you back to Germany in the west.

Our Danube cruise was on the new Viking Hlin, which was making only its third sailing since its maiden voyage earlier in the month. Our embarkation point was Nuremburg, and our destination was Budapest. We did not include the optional extension in Prague prior to sailing. And although we did stay two extra nights in Budapest at the end of the cruise, we booked the accommodations ourselves. We also booked travel ourselves.

 

This was our second river cruise, so our expectations were maybe a little bit higher and a little more specific than first-time cruisers. However, we were generally very pleased with this trip and its excursions. There were only a few negatives, which I will leave until the end because they were far outweighed by the positives.

 

The Hlin had a terrific chef (Rainer) who seemed to love his work. When we congratulated him on his meals, he immediately deflected the praise and said "We have a great team here!", acknowledging the people who work in his group. That is the type of personality and attitude I like to see in any context.

 

Most of the staff we encountered were very pleasant and professional. One confided that he had worked for a number of other lines, both river and ocean, and he felt that Viking was the best.

 

The excursions were well organized, and our Program Director (Stein) and Concierge (Radi) were knowledgeable and helpful. The tour guides were generally very well-informed and professional. We signed up for more optional excursions than we had originally planned: the BMW factory tour is a must-see, and you should sign up early due to a limited number of slots. The classical music excursion in Vienna was enjoyable, and the Magyar Hungarian horse-riding demonstration was very different and surprisingly entertaining.

 

I should note that we were traveling with two other couples, and we feel very strongly about the following: if you are traveling with others, make a pact up front that you will NOT eat all of your meals together. Make an effort to meet others on your boat and sit at other tables at many or most meals. River cruises are small compared to ocean cruises, and if your whole group stakes out an entire table at every meal, you will miss a tremendous opportunity to meet other people. Another option is to sit at one of the long tables near the bow -- that way you are still at one table, but there are plenty of other spots for others to join you. On the other hand, it can be helpful to keep your gang together on the excursions so that you can take turns taking photos of each other.

 

Comparison to Avalon: I often seen questions here similar to "which is better: Avalon or Viking?" Having sailed with Avalon on their Rhine River cruise three years ago (see my review of that trip at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1465203), I was looking forward to trying Viking and seeing how they stacked up against each other. So after trying a similar cruise on both of them, I can now categorically state: they're pretty much the same. You'll probably be happy with either of them. Because Viking is bigger, I believe that they are in a better position to handle low or high river levels and have sister ships staged on either side of a river blockage to continue a cruise. On the other hand, I think Avalon rooms now are a bit bigger, and they may have a "We try harder" attitude of a #2 competitor. They seemed a bit more organized when it came to greeting passengers returning from excursions, always greeting us with "welcome back" drinks and collecting shore cards efficiently. The food on Viking seemed a little better, though that is probably more a function of each ship's chef rather than the cruise line. However, there was one thing I missed from our Avalon cruise: Avalon tends (or at least tended in 2011) to market to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and UK as well as to the U.S. I love my fellow Americans dearly, but it was fun sharing an Avalon boat with English-speakers from all over the world. The Viking clientele seems to be 90% American. Not a big deal, but an interesting quirk.

 

Now for some of the negatives:

 

1. The Viking booklet gives you a direct telephone number to your ship in case your plane is late or you have some other problem. The number for the Hlin did not work in Nuremburg, where several passengers had flight delays and lost luggage due to Lufthansa. ( I could write a two page scathing review about Lufthansa incompetence.) We ended up calling the Viking 800 number in the U.S. to get squared away.

 

2. The sun deck was closed for the first few days of our trip, due to the low bridges on the river. However, this is beyond Viking's control, and all river cruise lines are subject to this limitation on this part of the Danube.

 

3. The in-room television service had some drawbacks: the GPS was not real-time (Avalon's was); the bow cam often seemed to randomly point in directions rather than straight ahead, rendering it useless; all service was turned off starting the evening of our last night aboard; and trip photos never seemed to be updated after our first stop in Regensburg. Kind of disappointing, but then again, on a river cruise you really shouldn't be spending much time watching TV.

 

4. Internet service is abysmal. Again, this is not unique to Viking. River boats link to the Internet through a low-bandwidth satellite connection, and it just doesn't handle the sort of apps that we are accustomed to: forget Skype or FaceTime, and don't plan to upload lots of mutli-megabyte photos to your grandkids or to your Facebook account. At best you can check/send your e-mail, and maybe send a few reduced-sized photo files. To make sure that you have best possible connection, try to take your laptop/iPad/smart-phone to a location near the wheelhouse, either on the sun deck or near the lounge near the front of the bar. Once you have four or five bars of wireless connection, you'll have the best chance of making the most of the limited satellite uplink.

 

5. The "bump". -- Sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 PM on July 24, we were cruising down the Main-Danube canal when the Hlin experienced a sudden bump. It wasn't enough to make me lose my balance, but it was jolting and surprising. If you have ever been in a boat when it hits a dock a little faster or harder than planned, then you know the feeling. My wife looked out our sliding door on port side (we were near the stern) and noted a fast-moving commercial barge moving in the opposite direction, very near to us. I stepped into the hall, and noted a crewman moving up our hall toward the stern with a concerned expression and an urgent pace. The next time we looked out the window, we noted that we were dead in the water. No announcement was made, and later, one fellow passenger said that a crew member told him that we had hit the wake of the fast-moving barge. We started moving again, and nothing else was said. A couple of days later, we were side-by-side another cruise line's ship in a lock, and I was having a conversation with one of their passengers. He said, "I heard you had an accident". Startled, I replied "We felt a bump a couple of night's ago, but we didn't hear about any accident." He replied, "We did." Later that day (or maybe the next), our Program Director announced that our Captain had "left the boat to begin his vacation" and that a new Captain was now on-board. This was presented very casually, implying that this was all as-planned. It struck us as very odd that the Captain of a new ship would depart unannounced for a vacation in the middle of a cruise, and we started to suspect that we were being given a bunch of horse manure. I tried searching the Internet for some kind of news explaining these events, and at the end of the cruise, when I had a solid Internet connection in our hotel in Budapest, I finally found some info. Google the following terms and you will find the same information:

 

hlin Berching apollon

 

I understand that cruise lines need to be careful about the information that they pass on to their customers, both to minimize concern and to control liability exposure. However, I do not like dishonesty. I hope Viking will re-examine their policies regarding what information they share with their guests. Things like this will always come out sooner or later -- better to get ahead of it and control the news candidly.

 

Again, though, I emphasize that the negatives above were all far-outweighed by the positive aspects of the trip. I would not hesitate to recommend Viking in general or the Hlin specifically to anybody considering a European river cruise.

 

If there's anything above that I can expand on, post a question and I'll try to respond.

Wow, this is so helpful, thank you for taking the time to post. We are on the Gullveig, same itinerary sailing Nov25. We are planning to pack 4-5 days of clothing and do laundry. We were told there is a guest laundry on the ship. Did yours have one? I don't want to end up paying the fortune they charge to do laundry.