Jump to content

piginmud

Members
  • Posts

    353
  • Joined

About Me

  • Location
    Barnegat, NJ
  • Interests
    Travel, horses
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    NCL, Viking
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Europe

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

piginmud's Achievements

Cool Cruiser

Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. We got off Viking Einar today. The captain had to stop sailing to Basel & turn around. We disembarked in Breisach & they bussed us to Basel. Luckily it was the last night if our trip. Our Program Director got on the loud speaker to every room at 11pm last night to inform us of the change of plans because we needed to disembark an hour earlier than expected. All the new passengers were in the Hyperion Hotel waiting to get bussed to Breisach.
  2. We don't leave until November 5th... hopefully things will be better by then!!! debbie
  3. Notamermaid, you are a wealth of information. Thank you so much for this detailed explanation! Sincerely, debbie
  4. Hello, I tried to search this thread but couldn't find what I was looking for. At what level (meters) is too low for a ship to sale through the Rhine? We are on Viking's Einar next month and I'm trying to monitor the water levels. At what point are water levels too low too sail? I have seen graphs, but honestly it doesn't mean anything to me if I don't know what "too low" levels are? Thanks for any help you can give! debbie
  5. Awesome advice, thank you for all that information!!
  6. Hi, we'll be doing this for the first time on Day 1 of an overnight in Maui (from the POA). Do you suggest turning around once we get to Hana and head back to the ship or drive all the way around the island to enjoy more sightseeing? Thanks!!!
  7. No worries - I think someone else posted as well that maybe you were thinking of a different itinerary. I'm a newbie to Viking (this being my first cruise with them), so I didn't know if it was ever different. Oh BTW, it won't be my last cruise with them 😉
  8. Well eating outside was an option outside the Aquavit but... during our particular week on the cruise it was VERY cold! On 2 days we even had snow! (March 30-April 6). Several people (including ourselves) ate in the Aquavit for lunch and sometimes dinner. Hardly no one was outside on the sun deck except for when we did the scenic Budapest night cruise (which was gorgeous!) and when we sailed through the Wachau Valley.
  9. I personally am not worried about the whole covid thing, so if you are really worried about it, you might want to delay your cruise. We did daily covid tests on the ship and we did notice several suitcases being taken off the ship at various ports because people obviously tested positive and had to be taken off the ship. There is not a lot of people masking. On our cruise it was mandatory to mask the first couple days, and then Viking made it a rule that as of April 1st, masks were not mandatory. But after a few people on the cruise tested positive, they were highly recommending everyone to wear the masks. Everyone was masked on our flight, but as I read now, it's not mandatory on a number of the bigger airlines. I felt safe, but your mileage may vary 🙂 Even though everyone who boarded the ship was supposed to be fully vaccinated *and* boosted, there were still people who caught it on the trip 😞 The hard part is that when you do test positive, they take you off the ship to a local hotel and you can't even quarantine in your cabin. It was also our 3rd try on this trip and we took it and loved it. But I could see how if you tested positive and had to be taken off the ship that this would be a terrible experience. I guess it's for you to decide if it's worth it. Maybe they will eventually stop the daily covid testing and then at least that aspect of the trip won't be so worrisome 😞
  10. We did the highlights tour and it was very good - although a lot of walking! My sister and I took a cab from the hotel (Intercontinental) on the first day we arrived to the Great Market Hall. Then we walked back on Vaci Utca (street) to the hotel. It was about a 25 minute walk (if you didn't stop at all the shops). The city is very easy to navigate, everyone speaks english, and you can get to a lot of the attractions on your own. St. Stephen's Basilica was a highlight for us (we bought the tickets ourselves at the ticket office - it was like $4-5 person for the church and the tower at the top). Then we walked to Dohany Street Synagogue (I bought the tickets online). We never made it to the ruin bars, but I've heard they are really fun. Andrassy Avenue is basically a street filled with high end shops like Michael Kors, Gucci, etc. So if you are into that go, otherwise avoid it. Go to Hero's Square if you can, it looked neat. We saw it from the bus on the included tour, but it's not the same. Some people went to Buda Castle District on their own, but that's also part of the included tour. Budapest is a very reasonably priced city and you can get a nice meal for about $20/person!
  11. It was the standard itinerary on our cruise. Even when we originally booked it for March 2020, Passau was the final destination. We did the 7 day Danube Waltz and it was always on the itinerary?
  12. You can put the gratuities on your onboard account. It comes off your credit card in euros, but of course the banks do the conversion. We did daily covid tests on the ship! Since we did the Budapest pre-cruise extension, we just had to do our own covid tests 72 hours prior to boarding our flight - that might be different for you are doing it on your own and if you didn't book your pre-cruise vacation with Viking, I'm not sure. My sister and I both did our pre-covid testing at a CVS pharmacy in NJ and we had our results back in 1 day. No, sorry I don't know anyone who did that Klimt tour and I don't think it was even offered on our cruise? Also, the Saltzberg tour wasn't offered on our cruise either. Maybe because you are doing a different one, a 14 day tour vs our 7 day cruise? Any more questions, please feel free to ask away!
  13. Yes it was definitely walkable to certain areas. We were about 5 minutes to the Great Market Hall. And Vaci Utca (a nice pedestrian street with shops) My sister and I walked from the Dohany Street Synagogue (we did the 2 night pre-cruise extension & walked from our hotel to various places - St. Stephen's Church & the synagogue) to the dock which was a 25 minute walk. I definitely would recommend a few days in Budapest before the cruise! Budapest was so nice and there were so many things to see. If you do the pre-cruise extension with Viking, there's tours you can book with them, but it's very easy to navigate the city on your own. Everyone speaks english very well. Feel free to ask away if you need more information.
  14. The ship was docked about a 5 minute walk to the Great Market Hall. I forget the exact Dock # but it was very close to the Elizabeth Bridge. Hope that helps. Yes, we were able to get off the bus at Buda Castle but honestly there was no tour or walking the grounds of the castle itself. We toured the Matthias church and then had some free time (not very much) of the area. Our tour guide suggested we not pay to walk through Fisherman's Bastion because you got just as good of a view from the grounds as you did walking through the gate area. I don't believe there were any other buildings to view or walk through. There were shops but we literally only had about 30-45 minutes and it wasn't enough time.
  15. I'm sure there was inspections of the test results, but we weren't involved. We just had to do the daily covid testing and then if there were any positive people, they were taken off the ship. The only check for vaccination records and negative covid tests (done by us) were done when we boarded the ship.
×
×
  • Create New...