We were on one of the first affected Rhone cruises. In our experience, protests in Lyon seemed well-planned and not too much of a hassle to navigate around. The three things I would keep an eye on are as follows:
1) The locks have been closed since the 16th. Viking has four (I believe) ships south of the closed locks, and can only travel between Arles and Chateauneuf de Pape. This looks unlikely to change before the end of the month.
2) Many gas stations were closed when we were there, due to protests at the oil refineries. This may not be an issue any longer, but if it is, I’d be concerned about Viking’s plans to bus all its Rhone passengers hundreds of miles for the next few weeks.
3) Many flights were cancelled due to safety concerns around strikes at the airport. As I mentioned on another thread, we were actually pretty satisfied with how Viking dealt with the unexpected changes. (The locks had only been closed for a few days when our cruise began, so benefit of the doubt…) However, we were extremely disappointed with how cancelled flights - booked through Viking - were dealt with. Have Viking’s emergency travel number handy.
