mg721

i will be the guinea pig for the group.

 

We booked our trip with the risk free cancellation benefit.

 

And 5 minutes ago we invoked it, due to the posts on this site, and on vikings site, talking about high water, water not being navigable, etc. and that our trip would be modified to accommodate.

 

Ill let you know how it plays out.

We had cancelled a couple weeks ago, but still went to portugal; just got a car and drove around the country. Took a day cruise on the douro which was nice.

viking refunded our money about a week after we cancelled. Full refund, every penny we paid.

We were very happy with viking, and would book again when the river isnt overflowing.

We are trying to set up a one day river cruise on the douro river, portugal. Will be staying overnight in Pinhao area, so the agent wants us to leave from there. But the only nice full day cruises i could find left from Regua. the agent hasnt shown us anything yet...

Any thoughts on either town? or anyone know of a nice day long cruise that leaves from Pinhao area? We have never been to portugal before, and having a tough time finding good information.

thanks

mark

Keep your flights, book yourself a luxury apartment or villa in Portugal, hire a car and explore! That's what we would have done given an option.

Thats what we are doing more or less. We booked the flights through viking, so they wouldnt let us keep them; cancellation was all or nothing, so there went the cheap flights and the upgrade money i already spent.

We did manage to get new flights yesterday, but since it is less than a week away they were very expensive. We are in the process of renting a car and finding some nice hotels along the way. we also found a company that specializes in road trips in portugal, so we will likely turn to them for help booking everything.

and i found a one day river cruise, so if the boats are running we can at least see how cruising the river feels.

One issue with Viking; they sent me a invoice that shows our money being refunded, but said it would take 30 days to receive. So i dont know if they will send a check, reimburse my credit card or what. Kinda cryptic. but at least the cancellation lines showed zeros for each, so thats good.

What cruise were you booked on?

we were on the viking riverboat osfrid departing 5/29

i will be the guinea pig for the group.

We booked our trip with the risk free cancellation benefit.

And 5 minutes ago we invoked it, due to the posts on this site, and on vikings site, talking about high water, water not being navigable, etc. and that our trip would be modified to accommodate.

Ill let you know how it plays out.

thanks for the response.

you are right, the airfare will be cancelled along with the rest of the trip, which is a pain since i already paid for the upgrades and will lose that $800 or thereabouts.

but we have a full cancellation deal with them; it was a special for a week or so several months ago, and we can cancel any time for a full refund, or so they claimed and confirmed yesterday. but as we all know, saying it and doing it are frequently not the same, so we will see. but i feel pretty good about it.

i have a travel agent working on airfare now, and i figured all i need more is a car and a room for a couple days in lisbon, which gives us plenty of time to get the rest arranged.

but our main concern is getting there and then finding out we are on a bus instead of the boat.

i dont think i could handle that, no matter how nice the bus is...

we are scheduled to leave for portugal on thursday 5/26, and start our douro river cruise with viking on the 31st.

But i just got an email from Viking saying in part "Days 1 and 2 in in Lisbon will not be affected since you are in a hotel the first two nights, but if sailing is still restricted some of the subsequent destinations are likely to be visited by motorcoach. We regret that we at this point can’t offer you any details, as this will depend on how the conditions develop closer to departure."

well, we certainly dont want to sit in a motorcoach; we actually bought a suite on the boat to make it nicer (this is our first cruise ever).

But reading all your posts (VERY helpful, thanks) we are worried about going at all. We DO have the option to cancel with little penalty (just about $600 in airline upgrade fees which were non refundable; the rest of the trip is fully refundable as long as we do it in the next few days)

any suggestions? no one knows the future, but our trip is about a week out, and maybe the river will be cleared by then? or is this going to continue for a while?

the other option we are pursuing this morning is changing to a self driving tour staying in various hotels around the area. more or less what it sounds like we would get if the boats dont move, but more under our control with the ability to stay where we want, with less driving back and forth.

any ideas from you frequent travelers or specifically people who are over there now and see the issue? there is NOTHING on the internet that i can find which shows the current status/problem with the douro river, just that it flooded back in january. So other than your reports and the cryptic email from viking, we have no info. We did call viking and they were very nice, but had no additional information whatsoever.

thanks for any comments