River Crui$ing

The narrative below is the last post in the live blog I tried unsuccessfully to do during our April Danube Waltz cruise from Passau to Budapest with Viking. Thought I would share these thoughts...if you want to read the whole blog, it is available at www dot CruisinWithClay dot wordpress dot com. Obviously lots of folks on this board will disagree with some of my opinions but that is what this website is all about right? ...hopefully no one will feel the need to go pop corn! :rolleyes::D

So, how was it? That has been what I’ve been asked since returning home. It was great but as I was afraid when we booked the trip, I don’t think it was worth what it cost.

Our seven day cruise cost about twice as much as our 19 day canal cruise. The day we spent cruising the Wine valley was great but I think it would have been just as great aboard a smaller day trip sort of boat and being able to stop in more towns would have been a big plus. So while I had a really great time, I don’t think we have become river cruise addicts. Viking has a great product for which they charge a premium but they could make some improvements.

Primary among these is a better description of the schedule and staying on it. This is especially true for those of us for whom the planning is almost as much fun as the trip.

Other suggestions would be to have some sort of snack available 24 hrs at the coffee bar. They had pastries from 6am til noon and then cookies in the afternoon but after 6pm the orchid they put on the cookie shelf while pretty wasn’t very filling.

I enjoyed all my meals and have no complaints about food or the included wine and beer. Frankly I don’t know how they sell the all inclusive liquor package since cocktails were around a very reasonable $7 each. We typically had one cocktail during the evening orientation session and then drank wine at dinner. They were not stingy at all and typically asked if I wanted a refill as I was about to get up and leave….”well yes, thank you”.

The crew was great-friendly, helpful and interesting to talk to. Had no qualms with the 12 euro per person per day suggested gratuity which we added to our onboard account. However, the Program Director while fine didn’t go out of his way and we did not tip him the suggested 2 euro per person per day. We halfed that…which I felt a little guilty about when I learned that apparently Viking doesn’t pay him at all. But I got over it - I think Viking should pay this important position but I’m not running their business

The accommodations were similar to a cruise ship. Perhaps a little smaller but probably furnished a little more upscale also. The bathroom could be a hair bigger for us non-petit flowers, but luckily there is a handicap public toilet at each deck so I tended to use those fairly regularly. The shower was fine- great water pressure, large enough though I don’t understand why Viking spent the money on the electro frosting. Does anyone really want to watch their spouse shower that much?

The included excursions ranged from ok to great, usually depending on the guide (and whether the bus was full or not).

We discussed that for a traveler who doesn’t want to do any research, prefers to go with the flow and wants to just pack their bag and have no worries, the Viking experience is perfect. Buy your cruise, their air, transfers and extensions and all you have to do is get to your home airport, they do the rest. For those of us who enjoy the research and planning, we are probably paying more than we have to for a similar land based experience. In that sense it is very different from an ocean cruise where I so often find it hard to believe how little we have paid to receive so much.

All that said, we are both glad we got to experience new places, meet new friends (though not as many as on past cruises) and have a great time with old…ahem long term ones.

Interesting post, we are ocean cruise lovers who are finally trying a River cruise in June. We are doing the Rhine on Scenic. It costs so much more on a daily basis than ocean cruising that it is hard not to set your expectations unreasonably high.

Interesting comments. We just completed our fifth ocean cruise and are becoming more interested in cruising. Last two were with two friends and their company is good.

We are thinking of a River Cruise in 2017 and have just begun planning.

A few years back my wife and I did a driving vacation on the Romantic Road through Bavaria and feel it was one of the best vacations we have had. We stayed two nights in each location.

My thought is that we could do well driving or taking trains between major cities and take a local ferry in Wachau Valley. Our friends do not like the idea of hotel hopping and feel unpacking once is the only way to go. I tend to agree but feel there is a real premium for that convenience.

Hi Clay,

Really enjoyed reading your blog!

My partner and I really never had the desire to do a cruise, but then Viking commercials started to appear, and, well, we fell in love with the idea of a European river cruise. Once I saw the clean and contemporary interiors of the Viking Longships, I knew that it was for us :) We took our first cruise (of any kind) last year on the Danube with Viking, and enjoyed very much the entire experience!

What made this a better value for us was that we decided to do the main level stateroom (aquarium class, if you will), and took advantage of Viking's ridiculously cheap air fare specials. While not the cheapest trip by any means, it became a true option when you factored in the air fare deal and the fact that the trip was mostly all-inclusive. Also? We'll never pay the premium to upgrade the room since we really only slept there. For the "low end," these rooms are very nicely equipped and we never felt like we were missing anything.

We liked our Viking experience so much that we leave in 18 days for cruise #2 :D

We've only had one river cruise so far, and it was a special one, Egypt, and quite luxurious. And expensive, but not unexpectedly so.

We had another luxury river cruise booked for this fall but we cancelled out, mainly because it was too darned expensive (we knew this going in, but our dollar went way down, and our friends cancelled on us.)

Our ocean cruises have all been on luxury or premium lines, so we're used to paying top-dollar, but we were able to book a Med. cruise, with pre- and post-stays for a fraction of our cancelled Tauck cruise. On Azamara, a premium line.

And next winter, we have an 18-day Regent cruise booked to South America, all-inclusive, for about the same as the 14-day Tauck river trip was going to be, including one-way business air.

So for us, the value proposition remains uncertain.

Hi Clay,

 

Really enjoyed reading your blog!

 

My partner and I really never had the desire to do a cruise, but then Viking commercials started to appear, and, well, we fell in love with the idea of a European river cruise. Once I saw the clean and contemporary interiors of the Viking Longships, I knew that it was for us :) We took our first cruise (of any kind) last year on the Danube with Viking, and enjoyed very much the entire experience!

 

What made this a better value for us was that we decided to do the main level stateroom (aquarium class, if you will), and took advantage of Viking's ridiculously cheap air fare specials. While not the cheapest trip by any means, it became a true option when you factored in the air fare deal and the fact that the trip was mostly all-inclusive. Also? We'll never pay the premium to upgrade the room since we really only slept there. For the "low end," these rooms are very nicely equipped and we never felt like we were missing anything.

 

We liked our Viking experience so much that we leave in 18 days for cruise #2 :D

I know I am in the minority and glad y'all had a great cruise and I am sure you will have another. I am in agreement about aquarium class...that is what we initially booked (and paid for) but due to shuffling of ships, we ended up with an upgrade to the balcony....and I wasn't going to turn it down! :rolleyes::D

Clay and Wendy make some good points, and I think that a lot boils down to Wendy’s idea of a “value proposition.” That’s going to be different for each of us. When I try to define the components of my value proposition for river cruises, several things come to mind.

1) Small ships. We enjoy the intimacy of a ship with less than 200 passengers and getting to meet a lot of our fellow travelers. We usually start out eating with different people and by the end of a cruise, we’ve found people who are nice fit and we tend to eat most of our meals with them. Also, you interact closely with the ship’s crew. When the captain schleps your bags, you know that the crew is going to help however they can.

2) Seasoned travelers. Most of the river cruisers we’ve met are very well travelled and interesting—although many are on their first river cruise.

3) Interesting places to visit. We love seeing large and small towns of Europe. We’ve done the Caribbean where every port seemed to be the same, and Europe is a nice change. Good local guides and on-board talks also help make the travel experience better for us.

4) Low key entertainment/nightlife. We’re not fans of big stage shows, casinos, water slides, etc. We do enjoy sitting in a lounge with new friends and a drink listening to a keyboard player and watching the river go by.

5) Mixture of guided tours with free time to explore. We usually do the included tours, and have free time to explore afterwards. We also strike out on our own at times or leave a tour part way through. In most cases we can walk back to the ship on our own, or if the ship has moved, we just make sure we know where the rendezvous point is and when we need to be there.

6) Freedom to BYOB. Unless things have changed since I last did a big cruise, most lines do everything but a cavity search to make sure that you’re not bringing wine or liquor aboard so that they can sell you overpriced drinks. We’ve never had an issue with this on a river cruise.

7) No hassle embarkation/disembarkation. For the river cruises we’ve taken, getting on and off has been a snap. We’ve done cruises with air and transfers booked by the cruise line, and we’ve booked our own and gotten to the ship using local transit. We’ve never had any hassle, the lines we’ve used (Viking and Vantage) have been extra helpful in accommodating us whenever we were ready to come or go. On a Viking cruise last year we were getting ready to leave the ship at 9:00 in Amsterdam for a late flight, and a couple showed up in the lounge having just arrived from the US. In less than 15 minutes their cabin was ready and they we allowed to go ahead and get settled and rest before going out on the town.

These are some of the things constitute a river cruising value proposition for me. Feel free to add you own positives or negatives. As always, “Your mileage may vary.”

FuelScience

I am in agreement about aquarium class...that is what we initially booked (and paid for) but due to shuffling of ships, we ended up with an upgrade to the balcony....and I wasn't going to turn it down!

Very nice! And of course I wouldn't turn that down either! Maybe we'll get lucky one day :D

Jeff

All good points...I will add my thoughts to some of yours if that is ok.

Clay and Wendy make some good points, and I think that a lot boils down to Wendy’s idea of a “value proposition.” That’s going to be different for each of us. When I try to define the components of my value proposition for river cruises, several things come to mind.

 

1) Small ships. We enjoy the intimacy of a ship with less than 200 passengers and getting to meet a lot of our fellow travelers. We usually start out eating with different people and by the end of a cruise, we’ve found people who are nice fit and we tend to eat most of our meals with them. While I agree, on this cruise we had one group of 68 guests and another of 10 or 12, so the available folks to dine with was instantly reduced by 50%. Additionally, not everyone is completely comfortable with an older gay married couple ("Are ya'll brothers? "Ah no, we are married"......"oh"...) and the available group of potential table mates becomes even less. We were very glad we were traveling with friends.Also, you interact closely with the ship’s crew. When the captain schleps your bags, you know that the crew is going to help however they can. Agreed!!!

 

2) Seasoned travelers. Most of the river cruisers we’ve met are very well travelled and interesting—although many are on their first river cruise.Agreed...though we did have "selfie stick college girl" and her middle aged Mom who while perhaps meeting the definition of "interesting" weren't necessarily the best candidates for chums! :D

 

3) Interesting places to visit. We love seeing large and small towns of Europe. We’ve done the Caribbean where every port seemed to be the same, and Europe is a nice change. Good local guides and on-board talks also help make the travel experience better for us. Agreed, thought I kept thinking, that town we just passed by sure does look interesting!

 

4) Low key entertainment/nightlife. We’re not fans of big stage shows, casinos, water slides, etc. Yep and once we discovered the "lounge cam" we could enjoy it from the comfort of our bed!:DWe do enjoy sitting in a lounge with new friends and a drink listening to a keyboard player and watching the river go by.

 

5) Mixture of guided tours with free time to explore. We usually do the included tours, and have free time to explore afterwards. We also strike out on our own at times or leave a tour part way through. In most cases we can walk back to the ship on our own, or if the ship has moved, we just make sure we know where the rendezvous point is and when we need to be there.

 

6) Freedom to BYOB. Unless things have changed since I last did a big cruise, most lines do everything but a cavity search to make sure that you’re not bringing wine or liquor aboard so that they can sell you overpriced drinks. We’ve never had an issue with this on a river cruise. Yep, and in fact, we ended up leaving some booze we brought aboard for our room steward

 

7) No hassle embarkation/disembarkation. For the river cruises we’ve taken, getting on and off has been a snap. We’ve done cruises with air and transfers booked by the cruise line, and we’ve booked our own and gotten to the ship using local transit. We’ve never had any hassle, the lines we’ve used (Viking and Vantage) have been extra helpful in accommodating us whenever we were ready to come or go. On a Viking cruise last year we were getting ready to leave the ship at 9:00 in Amsterdam for a late flight, and a couple showed up in the lounge having just arrived from the US. In less than 15 minutes their cabin was ready and they we allowed to go ahead and get settled and rest before going out on the town.Yep, we enjoyed our last day aboard....we stayed until lunch and watch the newbies arriving. Made for a relaxing start to our post cruise 3 days in Budapest

 

These are some of the things constitute a river cruising value proposition for me. Feel free to add you own positives or negatives. As always, “Your mileage may vary.”

 

FuelScience

("Are ya'll brothers? "Ah no, we are married"......"oh"...)

Ugh! Get that all of the time, but oddly not on our cruise last year :)

Jeff

Clay,

Nice additions. My favorite river cruise experience came on our first cruise. I was posting to cruisecritic during the trip, and mentioned the fact that we didn't have very many hangars in closet. Later someone replied to the thread and asked me to say hello to the cruise director (they'd done the same cruise earlier the same year). I told the CD that these folks had said hello in response to my thread.

The CD acknowledged the greeting, but didn't say anything else. That evening we heard a knock at the door, and our cabin steward was standing there with a handful of hangars. The CD went to the trouble to find the thread, read it, and take action.

FuelScience

Clay, I enjoyed the parts of your blog that I've read so far. Interesting to see the cities we just visited from someone else's perspective - some very much the same, some very different! Some day we must visit Český Krumlov. I keep hearing great things about it.

I agree with much of what you say in your first post. We do lots of independent travel where we plan every detail and have complete control of the itinerary, and we enjoy that immensely. When we travel like that, we accomplish so much more than we could with a river cruise. But, sometimes we just want to be a little more lazy, and have a few more details taken care of. So, that's the perfect time for a river cruise. We still mix in independent DIY stuff with the ship's tours so it works well - for us - when we want that experience.

And...you could eat dinner with Chris and me any time!

<I agree with much of what you say in your first post. We do lots of independent travel where we plan every detail and have complete control of the itinerary, and we enjoy that immensely. When we travel like that, we accomplish so much more than we could with a river cruise. But, sometimes we just want to be a little more lazy, and have a few more details taken care of. So, that's the perfect time for a river cruise. We still mix in independent DIY stuff with the ship's tours so it works well - for us - when we want that experience.>

Ditto everything stated above.

The narrative below is the last post in the live blog I tried unsuccessfully to do during our April Danube Waltz cruise from Passau to Budapest with Viking. Thought I would share these thoughts...if you want to read the whole blog, it is available at www dot CruisinWithClay dot wordpress dot com. Obviously lots of folks on this board will disagree with some of my opinions but that is what this website is all about right? ...hopefully no one will feel the need to go pop corn! :rolleyes::D

 

So, how was it? That has been what I’ve been asked since returning home. It was great but as I was afraid when we booked the trip, I don’t think it was worth what it cost.

 

Our seven day cruise cost about twice as much as our 19 day canal cruise. The day we spent cruising the Wine valley was great but I think it would have been just as great aboard a smaller day trip sort of boat and being able to stop in more towns would have been a big plus. So while I had a really great time, I don’t think we have become river cruise addicts. Viking has a great product for which they charge a premium but they could make some improvements.

 

Primary among these is a better description of the schedule and staying on it. This is especially true for those of us for whom the planning is almost as much fun as the trip.

 

Other suggestions would be to have some sort of snack available 24 hrs at the coffee bar. They had pastries from 6am til noon and then cookies in the afternoon but after 6pm the orchid they put on the cookie shelf while pretty wasn’t very filling.

 

I enjoyed all my meals and have no complaints about food or the included wine and beer. Frankly I don’t know how they sell the all inclusive liquor package since cocktails were around a very reasonable $7 each. We typically had one cocktail during the evening orientation session and then drank wine at dinner. They were not stingy at all and typically asked if I wanted a refill as I was about to get up and leave….”well yes, thank you”.

 

The crew was great-friendly, helpful and interesting to talk to. Had no qualms with the 12 euro per person per day suggested gratuity which we added to our onboard account. However, the Program Director while fine didn’t go out of his way and we did not tip him the suggested 2 euro per person per day. We halfed that…which I felt a little guilty about when I learned that apparently Viking doesn’t pay him at all. But I got over it - I think Viking should pay this important position but I’m not running their business

 

The accommodations were similar to a cruise ship. Perhaps a little smaller but probably furnished a little more upscale also. The bathroom could be a hair bigger for us non-petit flowers, but luckily there is a handicap public toilet at each deck so I tended to use those fairly regularly. The shower was fine- great water pressure, large enough though I don’t understand why Viking spent the money on the electro frosting. Does anyone really want to watch their spouse shower that much?

 

The included excursions ranged from ok to great, usually depending on the guide (and whether the bus was full or not).

 

We discussed that for a traveler who doesn’t want to do any research, prefers to go with the flow and wants to just pack their bag and have no worries, the Viking experience is perfect. Buy your cruise, their air, transfers and extensions and all you have to do is get to your home airport, they do the rest. For those of us who enjoy the research and planning, we are probably paying more than we have to for a similar land based experience. In that sense it is very different from an ocean cruise where I so often find it hard to believe how little we have paid to receive so much.

 

All that said, we are both glad we got to experience new places, meet new friends (though not as many as on past cruises) and have a great time with old…ahem long term ones.

Good afternoon Clay.

I enjoyed reading this summary which was, had I been in your shoes, exactly as I would have said it.

My wife and I take a river cruise regularly: normally once a year but for the past two years we have added an extra one to expand from Europe and into the Far East...

https://solentrichardscruiseblog.com/2016/03/10/princess-panhwar-on-the-road-to-mandalay/

We like the Viking product very much but have always kept our options open and later this year are trying Scenic. I'm given to believe their product is a league ahead of Viking which will be interesting to see.

Price doesn't bother me as I firmly believe one gets what one pays for. By their smaller nature, and high level of stops, river cruise lines don't have the luxury of a large cash generating captive audience. casinos, photographers and speciality restaurants aren't exactly to the fore.

But what they do do they do well: at least most do and they certainly get their passengers to some famous and interesting places.

Long may they continue.

PS. Liked your blog too. I left a comment.

Thanks to all for the kind comments regarding the blog...just paying it forward!

But I just realized one of the most puzzling things about Viking that I forgot to mention. The incongruity of using an electronic device in the dining room to take your menu order but in order to buy a drink, the waiter or bartended having to fill out a carbon order slip which the guest then had to sign really floored us....and don't get me started on how crazy I felt like the whole pick up your card as you leave the ship and return it so we know you are back on board rather than having a key card swiper is!:eek::mad::confused:

Clay,

You make some interesting points in your post. I've done one river cruise and have another one booked for next year. Agree with you that river cruising is pricey, which is one of the reasons why it attracts an older crowd. When I was younger and paying off student loans, saving for a down payment on a house, buying a car, etc., I couldn't have afforded it. Have you ever priced American river cruises? Yikes! :eek:

I'd sailed on several ocean cruises and taken one trip to Europe (bus tour that involved schlepping suitcase on and off bus and a different hotel most nights) prior to my first river cruise. Compared to the land tour of Europe, the river cruise won hands down as far as ease and convenience, but you're correct, it came with a price. Since I'd never been to any of the cities and towns on my river cruise itinerary, I was happy to leave the tour planning to Uniworld, since anything we saw or did was new to me. I work full time and frankly didn't have the time to research and plan everything on my own.

Going forward I plan on doing a mixture of ocean and river cruising, with more ocean cruises because of the price. I'm going to Alaska next week, and have a Caribbean cruise booked for December. May do a spring coastal to tide me over until my river cruise in Sept. of 2017.

Roz

A few comments on FuelScience's great list:

Clay and Wendy make some good points, and I think that a lot boils down to Wendy’s idea of a “value proposition.” That’s going to be different for each of us. When I try to define the components of my value proposition for river cruises, several things come to mind.

 

1) Small ships. We enjoy the intimacy of a ship with less than 200 passengers and getting to meet a lot of our fellow travelers. ...

Although you can't beat the size of a river boat, we like small ocean ships best too--our favourite ship is the Paul Gauguin in Tahiti that holds less than 350 people. To us, this is a good size--small enough to be totally intimate but big enough to have amenities and a varied group of passengers. Although I don't like at all the OP's example of getting stuck with a gay couple, it is true that it's nice to have a choice of seating. We only go on cruises that have open seating, btw.

 

2) Seasoned travelers. Most of the river cruisers we’ve met are very well travelled and interesting—although many are on their first river cruise.

The luxury ocean lines are like that too, believe me.

 

3) Interesting places to visit. We love seeing large and small towns of Europe. ...

 

5) Mixture of guided tours with free time to explore. We usually do the included tours, and have free time to explore afterwards....

This I agree with, although we get tired of organized excursions after a while. We'd have just as much fun driving up and down the Rhine or Danube and staying in small hotels I think Europe is certainly no place to do ocean cruises, although we're doing a short one this fall, out of Rome, but bracketing it with stays in Rome and Florence. We like to see places in-depth if we can, not just for a day.

6) Freedom to BYOB.

None of the cruise lines I have been on restricts alcohol being brought on board at all. Only Oceania charges for liquor onboard--Regent doesn't even have a corkage fee in the dining room. This is the way I like it, although at present I'm hardly drinking at all.

 

7) No hassle embarkation/disembarkation. For the river cruises we’ve taken, getting on and off has been a snap.

This sounds like a small but real advantage, for sure.

...

I'm trying to wrap my head around the part where Clay stated that his 7 day river cruise cost double than a 19 day canal tour. Did I read that correctly?

I'm trying to wrap my head around the part where Clay stated that his 7 day river cruise cost double than a 19 day canal tour. Did I read that correctly?

yep, I had(have?) trouble wrapping my head around it too. In spring of 2014 for a spring of 2015 cruise, we paid right at $2,500 total for the Tampa to Vancouver aboard Norwegian Sun in one of its two bow facing staterooms which have HUGE balconies but for some reason are priced as a relatively low category balcony.

In May of 2015, we booked our 7 days on Viking in an aquarium class stateroom (due to a ship redeployment we got got upgraded to a balcony at no charge!:D) for $5,511.00. This cost included a $200 reduction using Viking's referral program. We received (or will shortly via a check for the last $100) $200 OBC. Additionally, we received from our big box online travel agent a $511 gift card after we returned. So the net cost was $4,800.

So while not EXACTLY double...it was awfully close.

and as an FYI, our traveling companions who booked directly with Viking, spent the same except for the OBC and gift cards so if we had of booked directly it would have been MORE than double!:eek:

yep, I had(have?) trouble wrapping my head around it too. In spring of 2014 for a spring of 2015 cruise, we paid right at $2,500 total for the Tampa to Vancouver aboard Norwegian Sun in one of its two bow facing staterooms which have HUGE balconies but for some reason are priced as a relatively low category balcony.

 

 

 

In May of 2015, we booked our 7 days on Viking in an aquarium class stateroom (due to a ship redeployment we got got upgraded to a balcony at no charge!:D) for $5,511.00. This cost included a $200 reduction using Viking's referral program. We received (or will shortly via a check for the last $100) $200 OBC. Additionally, we received from our big box online travel agent a $511 gift card after we returned. So the net cost was $4,800.

 

So while not EXACTLY double...it was awfully close.

 

 

 

and as an FYI, our traveling companions who booked directly with Viking, spent the same except for the OBC and gift cards so if we had of booked directly it would have been MORE than double!:eek:

You can't beat repo ocean cruises for deals! Good for you! My mom just got back from a 14 day TA repo. The cost of her economy airfare even using the Princess Air was the same as the cruise fare plus she has OBC, and Diamond status perks and doesn't gamble. Lol.

Clay, I love your BLOG, thank you so much. I am on the Viking Danube Waltz in October and you have posted a wealth of information. (Thanks for your reply to my questions too.) I hope I meet people like you on my cruise... Sorry about your mom, what a lovely picture.

Yes the cruise is costing me a fortune but what concerns me is the change in the dates of the cruise. I purchased my own air as well as hotel in Prague and Budapest.

Viking upgraded you but did they make any other compensation?

We found out about the "redeployment" of our original ship in late October 2015, our cruise originally was scheduled to leave April 17, 2016 when our friends (who had booked directly with Viking) got an email to give their representative a call to discuss options.

We booked through a big box membership warehouse's online travel agency, can't say who due to TOS here on CC but if you like COmpanies that care about COST you can probably figure out who we used. I called them, they hadn't been informed of the redeployment until I called, they got on the phone with Viking and came back with the following options - cancel and receive full refund, rebook on any Viking cruise within some time period (six months?) and get a two category bump. We had already booked our award air travel so we were limited in which alternative cruises we could take - there were two - one left two days earlier than originally planned and the one we choose which left one day earlier. We choose the latter as the former would have meant we wouldn't have had much of a precruise stay.

The offered upgrade would have moved us from the lowest aquarium class to the lowest french balcony category. Because neither Mike nor I are petit flowers we had made a decision to not book a french balcony because they are smaller than aquarium class. When I explained my rationale to the TA rep, she immediately stopped me, said "my husband is your size, I understand, hold on a minute let me call Viking back." Presto, we were in a balcony!:D Our friends who HAD booked a french balcony got the two category upgrade so we ended up with side by side balcony stateroom on the main deck.

Viking offered no other compensation but we didn't ask for any either since we were able to book the ship that left one day ahead of our original plan, so our only real loss was our precruise stay in Salzburg was cut a day short but that was offset by an extra day in Budapest (a beneficial trade for sure).

I think if we had of booked air and hotel through them they would have included any change fees involved in their offering....but since we didn't that wasn't really discussed.

Hopefully, you won't face the issue - we "heard" that the redeployment was caused by construction delays in some of their ships that were scheduled to be christened prior to our cruise, and since they only do that once a year I think, perhaps you are safe.

I wonder if they would have compensated someone who had booked non-refundable air. At least with reward flights you could have cancelled or changed them with a reasonable fee--I wonder if Viking would have paid that fee if you had had to change.