CDNPolar

Was not thinking, but CFAR could be your best friend here as crystalspin mentioned... If you have not booked yet, but CFAR is available at the point of booking, that could be your option, but it can have its restrictions too including not full fare back. All very good advice above....

We loved both the Rhine and the Douro, but found the Douro to be one of our all time favourites that we have cruised so far. Now at about 14 Viking cruises (river and ocean) the Douro comes in at 3rd place for us with Antarctica and The Nile being in spots 1 and 2. Cannot compare these two with any other destination, so really that makes the Douro our favourite river cruise. Now for the Douro, we went in early October when the colours of the fall were covering the river banks of the vineyards. This was fantastic to say the least. Of the river cruises we have done so far, we love the river banks of the Douro the most. They were the most scenic. The Rhine can be good too for scenery, but it depends on what part of the Rhine. The Eastern Europe cruise we were on had zero scenery compared to the Douro. The Treasures of the Rhine did not compare to the Douro in scenery - in our opinion. The Viking River Ships for the Douro are smaller purpose built ships for the locks that you must pass on this river. They are half the size of a typical long ship, so the journey is much more intimate. If you look to my signature, there is a link to our YouTube channel and you will find our various river cruises on the Rhine and the Douro. These are not "commercial" videos, these are just documenting our journeys with music and scenery. This is not a monetized site, and I am not trying to drive traffic, just sharing some insights to help you to make your decision.

Yes, that single supplement is too high on many if not most cruise lines. I do understand the cruise line pricing strategy and each cabin has a value that they divide in half for the pp pricing. I would hope that one of these days new cruise ships that are built - or retrofitted - will have more single cabins. The challenge that I see is that a bathroom and reasonable closet and bed take up so much space, it would be hard to make a cabin much smaller than it already is. But some cruise lines are starting to offer more single options.

Just looking to maximize the fare where possible. The fare is really low already and even the Viking agent commented on the low fare.

Probably not, but worth the call to an insurance company and ask them right out and give them the situation. You have nothing to lose to ask.

So sorry to hear this. Sending positive energy your way. So much has to do with where you live, the insurance company etc. You must read the terms of the policy. The policy we buy in CANADA states this as a covered reason to cancel: A member of your immediate family, a member of your travel companion’s immediate family or your key-person develops a sudden and unforeseen medical condition or dies; or the person whose guest you will be during your trip is unexpectedly admitted to a hospital or dies. I am going to say that if your policy states something similar, the key is "sudden and unforeseen". Insurance companies are good at finding reasons to not pay so if you were to claim for this, then they would ask to see when the diagnosis was made and see that it was before you purchased the policy. Probably not a covered reason.

I am not writing this to push viewers to our cruise videos, but we do produce a video from every cruise that we have been on. I am only encouraging you to look at the videos in answer to your question "Is a camera really necessary"? (There is a link below in my signature to our YouTube Channel - LK Travel Journal) No, a camera is not necessary. We used to carry expensive cameras around our necks and found that when we were climbing steep stairs that did not have handrails and other types of activities that we get up to on excursions that you were constantly holding the camera so that it would not smash against whatever. The camera was becoming a burden to us. Now, over the last 5 years, we have ONLY used iPhones for our pictures that are turned into videos. I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max and my husband got the iPhone 14 when it came out for the upgrade of the camera. We ONLY take landscape photos, never (or rarely) portrait because we don't want the bands of black on either side of the video. We also take an extraordinary amount of videos even if they are only 8-10 seconds in length because when they are made into the video, it gives us much more flexibility in the scene. We often play music on our smart TV and the screen saver is our travel photos - this is another reason to take landscape and not portrait pictures, again so that you don't have the black bands and the picture will fill the screen. Hope this helps...

Really? They have coins? I never thought to ask and assumed that they would only have bills.

We did a cruise leaving Amsterdam on December 23rd and arriving in Basel on January 1st. We did not expect too many Christmas markets, because the vast majority of them close on December 23rd. We only saw 3 or 4 and these were on Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and the 27th. Two were very small and one was large, but also the only thing open in the city so they were packed elbow to elbow. It was actually hard to enjoy them. (You will see in my signature a link to our YouTube channel - our most recent video "Treasures of the Rhine" will give you a taste of the Christmas Markets we did see.) We are doing Viking's Grand European Tour this coming November leaving Amsterdam on November 24th. We expect from our research that most will be open in the bigger cities at that point in November. Many are open during the day often opening as early as 11am. You do want to see the markets in the darker hours for the lights - definitely. Food is everywhere. Food food food. For this, although many took cards, you might want to have local currency with you too.

Hmmm.... interesting.... Here is the deal on that from my perspective. The last Viking cruise that we "modified" was because when we booked it was $6,000.00 pp + air. Then after booking the air became free. We could not just attache the free air to our existing cruise because the booking had to be made during a specific date range (as per the promotion details) and our cruise was booked before that promo was available. Effectively they said we could "modify" to another set of dates for the same cruise to make the booking date coincide with the promo dates, but that meant that the original dates of the cruise had to change. We got free air, which was about a $3K savings overall, but we could not get the same cabin price and ended up spending $500pp more on the cabin when changing the dates. Overall we saved $2K on the booking. The whole "modify" thing works but it is not without its limitations as well. I get that you are frustrated, and we have been with Viking too, but our frustration is always land-side and not once we get on the ship. We now have 4 future cruises booked with Viking and for some reason we keep coming back! Hope you work this out. Oh, and for things like this - not that I am blaming your TA as I am sure that they did their best - we ask to be on the phone with the TA when they make the call, so that we can be part of the conversation and make real time decisions with the TA. As long as the TA approves of you being on the call, Viking don't care. This way, if we want to abandon this agent and try for another agent to see their story, then we can just opt to end the call without making any changed.

As OneSixtyToOne stated, we have had this too, and it was confusing. You really had to recognize the difference because with smartphones and watches, they often just automatically update depending on the settings you have open... so you have shore time on your wrist and in your hand as you look at your smartphone, but the ship is sailing away as you are running along the dock one hour late...

Anyone know of a code for West Indies to Iberia in October this year? On the Viking site it is the following:

We never risk less than an hour before departure time. Not to confuse things, but you also have to know if time changes are in play, if you are talking about ship time vs. shore time. Is the ship adjusting time to the shore or keeping ship time.

Just looked and I still have the app on my phone so will leave it there in case it is ever needed.

My thoughts exactly. I don't believe that insurance is a place that you try to save money. We have price compared (off topic) cancel and interruption insurance and all the major providers are really in line in pricing. We have found that when there is a cheaper option, there is a trade off in coverage. I have always been "Foggy" with car CDW and the whole rental insurance thing and this discussion has really opened my eyes and will make me think now if renting outside of Canada in the future. Paying a few hundred bucks now could save you thousands if something were to happen.

We are the live and let live, but I won't say that I don't look and wonder why some are allowed to get away with what they do. I think as in the dress code violation discussions, there is concern that some may break dining room dress code in the first few days because their luggage did not follow them to the ship. There will always be rule followers and rule breakers. Drive through any city and look at the number of people who don't follow the rules of the road. This crap happens everywhere and all the time. I / We just move one. We don't let these things trouble us in the least. If it bothers us that much we move away from what is bothersome. We are on vacation to have fun and relax and not be stressed by the rule breakers.

I don't normally read dress code discussions because they all have the same outcome - in my opinion... No offence to anyone. Some see enforcement happening and some wish there was more enforcement. I cam into this discussion because we have never done a Viking TA cruise before and we are considering for October this year, and I was curious if there was a dress code difference that we should be aware of. Obviously not. We will continue to "dress for dinner" in a level above what we wear during the day and on excursion. Why? Because we feel like dinner and the show after is more of an event if we shower and dress up a bit, and this makes US feel good. Don't care about what others do or don't do - we will do what we do. The only thing I cannot tolerate is men wearing sleeveless over the shoulder (hate the other name for them) t-shirts revealing their hairy arm pits when I am trying to eat. This includes in the World Cafe. There is a certain build of man that typically sports this look and it is not food friendly. Again - my opinion.

We have found that the wine list and availability depends on where in the world the ship is sailing. Viking cannot load endless supplies of wines to a ship and they restock in many ports. It does depend on what stock is available in the restocking ports. Veuve Clicquot which has been mentioned here many times has not been available on some of our cruises although normally on the menu. We were disappointed on the Treasures of the Rhine cruise that it was not available, although it was on the menu.

Interesting... never heard that, but I have not used Arrive Can since its initial introduction... so there we are.

Sorry for your experience with this but this just proves that the "market" offers what we think are insurance solutions, but it is really buyer beware at the extreme. It is horrible to think you are covered and then find out you are not.

We have Nexus and especially arriving into Pearson I would not see a reason to use the ArriveCan app unless it was mandated. Even the couple of times we did have to use it, we found it clunky.

Hungary and especially Budapest, will accept Euros for payment in most places, but you will get Forint in the change. They typically do not stock Euros to give in change. This is from our own recent trips to Hungary and also confirmed from our Hungarian friends living there now.

I thought that the ArriveCan app was defunct? Maybe I am just lost in time and the money that it cost?

I am going to suggest that it would be "moving forward" from the purchase date.

For some reason, we call and use the word "cancel" because ultimately we do want to cancel that booking, but we want to move it to something else. It is my opinion that as soon as the Viking agent hears the word "cancel" they cannot get past that. Use the word Modify and you will be good. But, still, if one agent does not give you what you want, end the call and call back, or ask to be moved to a supervisor.