pontac

Welcome to the site, we don't bite so ask any questions you like. The way to find other cruisers is to post in Roll Calls, but be aware that there are few people on the boat (max capacity 190 guests thus at most 95 couples but there's likely to be some singles). So the chances of one of those guests reading this site AND having your interests are not good but nothing ventured......... Here's the roll call for this cruise

I returned from Amsterdam on Friday. Only passport control was e-gates after security and it took moments. I remember they accepted US passports with chips but I cannot recall the other acceptable countries.

This is the flyer for Viking vouchers that are placed in cabins in case the T&Cs at the foot are not clear, here they are If you can negotiate their use on a trip that' already booked, then good luck but it says it's only applicable to new bookings. (I understand cruise directors have a financial interest in selling these vouchers so I'd be wary of promises that don't match the T&Cs)

None were on the included or optional tours. I suggest you do your own research for universities and libraries in towns where you spend all day, I should imagine you'll find some in Lyon and probably Avignon. Then email them to ask if they'll take visitors and if so can recommend a local travel company. If in those cities you can probably walk to them - use Google Maps - so you may be bale to do it on your own. Arrival times at ports on river cruises can not be precise; so much depends on the day on time spent negotiating locks, other river traffic, water levels and so on. As you'll have read on my trip report, we arrived later than planned at Vienne and the included excursion was not possible. So you don't want to tie yourself down to pick-up and drop-off times in advance unless the boat over-nights at a place and remains there the following day. You don't mention what direction you'll be travelling; if you're going Lyon to Avignon direction times will be different from those I had. Also the report I gave was for a 2023 cruise: timings, ports of call and excursions may be different in 2024. I recall included visits to really impressive libraries at Coimbra University (Portugal) one the Lisbon - Porto Douro cruise, and Melk Abbey (Austria) on the Grand European Tour. You can visit Heidelberg University (Germany) on Rhine cruises that have excursions to Heidelberg. Enjoy the cruise, and the wine.....

Scenic have metal bottle in their cabins which you can fill with water. I don't know if they become yours to take when the cruise is over or whether you're supposed to leave them. Viking give out commercial sealed disposable plastic water bottles for excursions. There's sealed glass bottles in the room filled with drinking water which are replaced. There is a fridge in cabins in which you can keep drinks cool, and an ice-machine in corridors. Also an ice bucket in the cabins. We've never taken water on excursions.

Just returned from our cruise. We were intending spending our OBC on wines excluded from the package We especially wanted the classed growth Chateau d'Armailhacq but were told they didn't have any left, so we bought two £100 cruise vouchers with our OBC, giving us £400 off a future cruise.

Viking were encouraging us to buy vouchers as at 4 April 2024. No mention of them being phased out.

I got back from Amsterdam yesterday after a Viking cruise to many of the same places you are going to. Weather - very cold vary strong winds an lots of rain, but clearing in the afternoon. Thursday afternoon in Amsterdam was pleasant - sunny and not cold. Are you actually mooring at Arnhem? Viking sent an update before our cruise substituting Nijmegen for Arnhem. They are quite close and the excursions to Arnhem went ahead, The mooring area at Arnhem is being developed.

There are multiple factors in why wine has higher abv (alcohol by volume) than before, without going into technical details here are the main reasons, but first: Alcohol is produced by the fermentation by yeast of sugar. The more sugar in the grape, the higher the potential alcohol. If fermentation is stopped before all the sugar is converted then the wine is sweet. A totally dry wine is made by converting all the sugar into alcohol. Without sugar to feed on, the yeast dies. The riper the grape, the more sugar it contains. So, today’s wines are more alcoholic because the grapes are picked riper and because the yeast used produces more alcohol from the same sugar than before. In the old days – say up to 50 years ago – grape farmers tested a sample of grapes to measure sugar levels, and then it was an easy calculation to determine what alcohol level their wine would have. As soon as they reached the minimum level they picked the grapes and made wine as to leave them longer was risky (mildew etc). But the grapes were not ripe and wines made from unripe grapes were tannic. Customers had to age them in the hope the tannins would fade faster than the fruit flavours. (To encourage using riper grapes Bordeaux gave ‘Bordeaux Superior’ appellation to wines which had a half-percent abv higher then the minimum 12% which was needed for basic ‘Bordeaux’ appellation. Today’s wines are higher because of what happens in the vineyard and winery. In the vineyard grapes are not picked until they are physiologically rape – their stalks and pips are brown. Techniques including removing leaves to let the sun shine on grapes are used. In the winery they use commercial dried yeasts. In the old days wines were fermented by natural yeasts found on grapes and in the air. These were less efficient at converting sugar to alcohol. Modern commercial yeasts produce more alcohol – this was a demand from wineries in northern climates which struggled in the old days at reaching acceptable abv levels. Lastly, climate change: higher temperatures make for riper grapes but climate change is not the main reason, without the other changes it would just mean harvest happened sooner. Not uncommon for California Zinfandel. Ridge 2021 Benito Dusi Zinfandel has 15.3% ABV* Yeast dies when there is no sugar left for it to feed on OR when the alcohol level gets too high for it. Natural yeasts died at lower alcohol levels, modern commercial yeasts can survive at higher levels. Ridge, my favourite Zinfandel producer, says on its labels when it has added water to lower abv levels. Adding water is illegal in the old world but it's not unknown for winery 'accidents' with water hoses when cleaning. * EU wine law forbids abv to be expressed as anything other than ending in decimal point zero or decimal point five, so @Host Jazzbeau wine would probably be sold in the EU as 15.0% abv

That's my recollection also Not always. Sometimes there's no alternative way to access part of the excursion, so the gentle walkers don't go there.

I think what it means is that Viking have privileged access to the place to the place being visited. All guests on the boat can go on the excursion - it's not restricted to a few privileged guests.

Viking is fine for solo travellers. There have been solos on all 13 Viking river cruises we've taken, and yes there's no problem joining others at mealtimes, the opposite in fact. We've met and chatted with some fascinating people - and some bores, but its free seating which means you don't sit with them again. As for light lunches, I've put photos of menus on the my trip reports* and you can see what's offered. You don't have to have a starter, main & sweet you can have just one, or two starters, or whatever. Breakfast is a buffet, just help yourself to what you want- fruit, yoghurt, bread rolls, sliced bread, loaves to slice, cold meats, nuts etc, or eggs cooked anyway by an egg chef, bacon etc *See Trip Report - Lyon & Provence - Viking Denning 15 - 21 August 2023 - River Cruising - Cruise Critic Community and Trip Report - Rhine and Mosel Discovery - Viking Hild 25 April - 1 May 2023 - River Cruising - Cruise Critic Community

A Keukenhof guide told me that they plant several bulbs under each other each with a different blooming time so they can guarantee a show all through the short time they are open. Also was told that they have undersoil heating. But we didn't go to Keukenhof - it was raining so heavily Mrs P decided she didn't want to wander around in pouring rain and the cold, so we stayed on boat*. In afternoon the rain had stopped, the sun came out and it was very pleasant so we walked to The Tulip Museum in Amsterdam. *This is the Mrs P who decided on this cruise in order to visit the Keukenhof Gardens.

I must tell you that 14% abv is not at all unusual, and 14.5% abv is common also. I can tell you the reasons why if you're interested. PS: Yorkshire pudding with lamb??

Viking have a crew member at the ship's exit handing out bottles of water to people going on excursions. That's on all cruises, even the one I got back from today where it was cold and most of the time it rained in the morning when excursions departed. I think you'll have enough to pack without adding a water flask but should you do so you can refill it from the bottled water in your cabin or the fountains next to coffee machines. But the bottles handed out when you leave the boat should suffice and you can ask for more than one should you feel the need.

I'm off first thing tomorrow, 28 March, to Amsterdam for Viking's Tulips and Windmills cruise. I'm not taking my laptop and I will be 'digital detoxing'* so I won't be around for the rest of this week or all of next. But, as Arnie said, I'll be back! *Apart from reading books on my Kindle, and I'm not suggesting this friendly forum is toxic.

PS; You don't say when you are doing this cruise, the cruise destinations and excursions can change, also can be different in the opposite direction. I also did the cruise in 2015 from Lyon>Avignon and most excursions were different then. However the wording on the Viking website blurb for the CdN tasting is the same for 2025 but of course we don't know if the winery visited will be the same. If you want do do it yourself, the town of Chateauneuf du Pape is about 18 kilometres from Avignon, so about 25-30 mins by car. You could arrange drop-off & pick-up from the car park there. Walk up hill and you come to Rue Joseph Ducos; there are several winery outlets there. And continue uphill to the top to find the ruined Chateauneuf du Pape itself; short walk. Any questions, I am pleased to answer but I'm off tomorrow on a Viking cruise and won't be back here till I return

Yes, I took this tour last year, albeit in opposite direction - please read my detailed review, link below. See Day 3 for details of the CdP excursion. As per my ending -'Not recommended'. On the other hand, the included excursion to Beaujolais was excellent, everything the expensive optional CdP excursion was not.

Update: I've never been to Peebles, so I hope @Nippy Sweetie will forgive me but I booked Unforgettable Douro 28JUN24 - 08JUL24 with a balcony cabin with Scenic today. Our host on this board @Host Jazzbeau has recommended this cruise as being the only one that takes a bit longer than the others 7 day zip up and down the Douro. Mrs P won't fly TAP after being bumped last time, so we are flying BA/Iberia Business Class via Madrid. This avoids early starts and has the benefit to us of using LHR instead of LGW. The lousy (I don't know if I'm allowed to say 'crap') Scenic website doesn't have ship floorplans, so when offered the choice of two cabins I couldn't see where they were, but I've since dug out the brochure and see I've got the rearmost middle deck. Just glad to get any,

We'd still have to cross to mainland Europe with Eurostar if we were going by train all the way. That'd involve 3 trains London>Paris>Madrid>Porto - 21+ hours If we fly to a nearby city then train then that's worse than taking a connecting flight.

If, as you presumably did, you booked with UK Viking then you'll have got the drinks package. That means you could have any drink from the drinks menu that is not asterisked. The wines served to everyone with lunches and dinners are good, but even better is to peruse the wine list to select a bottle of your choice. And have a glass of Champagne for an aperitif. We were intending using our OBC to buy asterisked bottles.

Mrs. P likes (the idea) of train travel. In fact that was what swung her agreeing to the Bordeaux trip with Scenic. But I found out that Eurostar arrives in the north of Paris but the train to Bordeaux leaves from the south of the city. So I called Scenic and found they didn't provide transfers. When pushed they suggested using the Metro but I didn't reckon two old codgers would enjoy manoeuvring cases down to the Metro, up at the other end, then dragging them to the station, finding the platform and hauling them onto then off the train... Anyway the cruise in 2020 was nixed by Covid and again in 2021. For 2022 I unilaterally switched to air as there's non-stops London to Bordeaux and all we needed was to get our cases to check-in. However Scenic booked us indirect flights involving an outward change at Paris and inward change at Amsterdam and flew us out a day early. (see Review of Beautiful Bordeaux 11 day cruise on Scenic Diamond from 17 August to 27 August 2022 with comparisons to Viking - River Cruising - Cruise Critic Community for the story.) Since Brexit Eurostar travel hasn't been so easy and Eurostar have recently reduced the numbers of passengers per train because of long delays at passport control.

I'm in the country bordering your south, and we don't use TA's. For the 16 river cruises we've taken I have booked direct with the cruise line. But the work involved in this one trip makes me envy those who've found a good TA who knows their business.

I can understand why people use TAs.

Maybe you'd pop-over here and have a word with Mrs P 😉 I meant to quote the bit from my earlier post about the river and excursions not having importance to us.... Then I discovered that just getting to the cruise is of top importance to Mrs P. As an aside, the none of the Cruise line's websites give all the info.....