wwinfl91

Host Jazzbeau, I think it's time to shutdown this thread! Viking doesn't need to do anything for this guy!! I followed the link to Tripadvisor and all this guy does is complain about everything everywhere! JMHO!

Why is every time there is a negative thread about Viking in particular do people want to close down the thread. The reason for CC to exist is to share opinions of cruises and cruise lines and not all of those opinions are going to be positive. If someone doesn't want to follow the thread any longer then they can quit checking it out but closing the thread without a good reason doesn't seem like the concept of free speech is being followed.

IMHO

We also did a bus trip from Prague to Budapest. It was in a 16 passenger bus with only 10 of us who had been staying at the Intercontinental on it. We left after breakfast and with our luggage loaded on the same vehicle. We stopped at a "truck stop" right off the highway and were given time to eat lunch there. They had a nice cafeteria with lots of food options. Then we continued on to the ship.

Have a great next cruise.

With the "free" tour we walked from our hotel thru the old Jewish quarter to the old market square where the famous clock tower with the moving figures are. Then we walked to the Charles Bridge, the one with all the statues and all the crowds, on it. Then we had some free time before a small bus, there were only 10 of us, picked us up and took us to the castle. There we saw some of the castle and since 8 of the 10 were doing the lunch, concert and museum additional cost tour, the guide took the other 2 back to the bus to take them back to the hotel. There were people at the lunch and concert who were staying at the Hilton you are going to be at and they were not very happy with the location. They said there wasn't a lot they could walk to that was worth seeing so your idea of getting a pass for public transit is probably a good idea.

The guide we had was pretty good and did try to explain things and answer questions but you can probably do the same kind of walking tour of the old town on your own with a decent guide book and a map. But I also noticed that street signs were all in Czech which was a little confusing the time we were on our own. The views from the castle were really nice.

If you want a really fine dining experience with a great view have your hotel get you reservations at Terasa u Zlate Studne. We went there our last night in Prague and had their tasting menu with wine. It took over 3 hours to finish but the view, the service and the food were all fantastic. It was a little expensive but far less than a similar meal would cost in any major US or other European cities.

Link to it on trip advisor

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g274707-d1092210-Reviews-Terasa_u_Zlate_Studne-Prague_Bohemia.html

Hope this helps a little.

We did the Viking stay in Prague before a cruise earlier this year. We stayed at the Prague Hotel Intercontinental and really enjoyed our stay. They upgraded us to a room overlooking the river and had an excellent breakfast all 3 days we ate there. In our case we didn't get to the hotel until late in the afternoon of the first day and since it sits right next to the historic center of the town we just walked around that afternoon and evening. Then we did the "free" included walking tour of the town that Viking arranged. We had a good guide and after a nice morning tour arrived at the castle. There we did the rather overpriced tour of the private museum, lunch and concert in the afternoon. That occupied our second day. The third day we visited the old town on our own and walked across the famous bridge on our own. Then we had a really nice dinner in a restaurant with a great view of the town. We didn't have a lot of time to visit other museums and didn't use any of the public transportation because we walked everywhere.

I know this doesn't answer your question but IMHO if you stay in a hotel near the old town you may not need a transportation card.

Have a great next cruise.

On our recent Viking cruise almost no one "dressed" up for dinner. Many evening people wore the same clothes that they had worn during the day, i.e. shorts, polo shirts, etc. that may be because we were often late getting back from bus trips.

Have a great next cruise.

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This will be my final post on this thread. I send an email to Viking yesterday afternoon and asked them to contact me by phone this morning. At the time I had requested a Viking rep called and I asked if she had read my email. She replied she had and she was authorized to arrange a settlement with me. After a nice conversation we reached an agreement. By terms of the agreement all I can say is "that this matter has been amicably resolved".

We are happy with the way Viking handled our dispute.

To everyone who understood and supported us, a warm Thank You. For those who disagreed with us, you have a right to your opinion.

I will continue to be an active member of CC so you will see me posting again but not on this issue.

Have a great next cruise.

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Sounds like a great start to your cruise. Venice is a wonderful place to visit. Check out Donna Leon's novels about Venice when you get home. She does a great job of making you feel you are there.

Have a great cruise.

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Where did you find a post from someone else who was on the same cruise. I have been watching the boards and have not seen one.

Thanks

I previously posted in this thread, post 119. In June we did our first viking cruise on the ships involved in this story, Skadi and Lif. Due to low water levels around Regensburg we rode buses for two days, then switched ships to get around the bottleneck. I understand some of the issues but I don't agree with a couple assertions made by the OP. Let me say I am not a Viking cheerleader and I am not a Viking hater. The overall experience was good, despite the irritations. I'm not sure if river cruising is my thing, haven't decided.

 

The first story that bothers me is story about packing, finding out at 9pm that they were switching ships and being up until 2:30 am packing. As God is my witness, we each packed in less than fifteen minutes. The cabins are so small we took turns. I literally stood at the bottom of the bed, in front of the dresser to move the clothes into the suitcase, maybe five minutes. I spent another five minutes taking clothes off the hangers and putting them in the suitcase. I spent all of two minutes getting the passports out of the safe. We were given the ship switching news at the 6:30 daily briefing, then we had a leisurely dinner, then we went to our cabin about 9pm. We were done packing by 9:30 pm. The next morning we put the final items in the suitcase, maybe two minutes.

 

The two ships are identical, we had the exact same cabin and the storage set up was exactly the same. I reversed the process, we unpacked in less than fifteen minutes and went about our business.

 

 

 

The other issue that bothers me is the OP talking about how they would have canceled the trip had they known about the dry dock and the anticipated one day riding the bus.Really?? I don't buy it and I don't think very many people would even consider canceling. We have traveled extensively and have had umpteen misadventures on planes, trains, automobiles and cruise ships. The first family trip to Europe started out horribly, just before walking out the door to go to the airport Delta airlines called to say our flight was seriously delayed and it was unlikely we would make our international connection. We didn't make the connection, we had a frustrating thirty six hours of waiting, flying, missing connections due to delays and we missed two days of planned activities and we even lost money. But the good outweighed the bad and we keep going.

 

Viking and any other entity would go bankrupt if passengers canceled for every issue.

 

 

 

We did not get a refund or even a credit from Viking, truthfully I didn't expect one. Yes I grumbled and was irritated by the second day on the bus but things happen.

 

I don't think Viking is going to refund money but offers are being made for credit on a future trip. I would negotiate a little bit and then give Viking another try.

First I will talk about packing. We learned at the 9:30 PM briefing and got back to the cabin around 10 PM. We had 2 large suitcases and 2 carry on suitcases. My wife does the packing because I'm not good at it. I delivered the clothes to her and she packed them. We both had too many clothes for the cruise but we finished packing at 1:30 PM.

I think it admirable you were able to pack in 15 minutes but I know how long it took us. Then once we got to the Lif we had to unpack which took less time but still occupied time we had not planned on.

Once again the reason we cruise is to minimize the number of times we have to pack and unpack and then pack again. To us this was a major inconvenience. When we were on Seabourn the first time we had to change cabins because of a problem with the original cabin. The cabin stewards came in and assisted us in moving our clothes while still on hangers to the new cabin. They also offered to pack the other stuff out of the drawers but we did that and then they carried the suitcases to our new cabin. All Viking did was move our suitcases from one ship to another. That is the difference in a superior cruise line and a mediocre one.

As to your second point I will be absolutely clear that we would have cancelled had we known about the dry dock, the busing and the change of ships. If the cruise lines go broke because they tell the truth then there is something extremely wrong about their financing. When we travel we expect things to go correctly and when they don't we let the people causing the problem know about it.

We did NOT pay to go on a bus trip something we have never done and will never do. When we cruise we often stay in a city in a foreign county for a week or so either before or after a cruise. If you check my signature we enjoy transatlantic cruises and then we have stayed a week or so in London, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome, Key West and Paris after or before the cruise. For this cruise we stayed 3 days in Prague before the cruise. But when we do those stays we pack a suitcase for that stay and don't have to pack and unpack all our stuff.

We travel a lot and I have never had as much go wrong on one trip as did on this one which is why until Viking does something to make me feel satisfied they will find me posting not only only CC but also on Trip Advisor, Cruise addict, Away.com, Fordor and whatever other travel sites I can find.

Have a great next cruise.

Yes I do expect close to perfection if I have been promised it. Watch Viking ads, the perfect vacation. If you want a perfect vacation try cruising on Seabourn and learn how a great cruise line does things.

Viking is getting into ocean cruising and they are trying to price themselves into the luxury cruise line range. Unless they do a lot better on the 7 seas than they did on our river cruise they are setting themselves up for failure if they try to compete with Seabourn, Regent, Silverseas or even Oceanic or Amaza. Right now as far as I'm concerned their river cruise equates to the worst ocean cruise I was on which was Carnival. And no I wasn't on the one that got stuck in the Gulf for 5 days without power.

Have a great next cruise on Seabourn, RCL, HAL or Princess.

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I am the OP to this thread and contacted Viking today with a long email detailing out all my concerns. If you are interested you will be able to see them on CC soon when I do a complete review of the disaster, oh I mean cruise. I think my title will be Viking cruise, the Good, Bad and Ugly. I will include the good, the waiters and cabin stewards as well as the decent food and service in the dining room. But I will also include rude behavior by some of their front desk staff and a case when we were on the sun deck and my wife asked a waiter for a glass of ice tea. His answer was the self service station was just one deck down where you can get one. Then there is the ugly which I talk about again below.

My major purpose in continuing this thread is to educate people considering a Viking cruise what they may end up experiencing. We had great expectations and had done all kinds of checks on the river conditions before we left.

It is my argument that Viking knew they were going to be putting the boat in dry dock and that they also knew they would be forcing us to switch ships. It is also my argument that they should of informed of these facts before we left home and given us a chance to cancel with a full refund or another cruise without the problems. They did NOT do this and in fact did not inform in a timely fashion of any of the problems we encountered. I do not consider telling someone at 9:30 PM that you have to pack everything up and have it out in front of your cabin by 7:30 AM so you can leave the ship and take a 3 hour bus trip to the ship you were originally scheduled to be on.

Unless you have went through what the passengers on this cruise went through for well over half of the cruise then you aren't qualified to tell me I am wrong in keeping this thread alive. We were on our first river cruise and we chose a highly rated and expensive (to me $4000 a person for a 145 sq ft cabin is expensive) cruise line because we wanted a good experience.

We did Not get one. I have over 5000 posts on the CC boards and believe one of its main purposes is for individual cruisers to post their experiences. I'm not sure why this thread has upset so many people. If you don't want to read it then don't but quit trying to make me quit posting.

I asked Viking to have one of their customer services managers contact me tomorrow morning after they have had a chance to read my comments. I will be posting to this thread the results of that conversation which I hope provides me with sufficient satisfaction and I am not talking about 25% off on a future Viking cruise.

Have a great next cruise.

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I'm still looking for anyone who can post a copy of the email sent to the Prestige passengers about an upcoming drydock during their cruise and offer to get a refund or a later cruise.

It is possible Viking was only expecting to have the Skadi in dry dock for part of the day and believed it would catch up with us in Passau. To me the key issue is you have to schedule dry dock time ahead of time for a 400 ft long ship. This was not done the day before but probably weeks before. In my opinion and in many of those on the cruise we should have been informed before the cruise and given a chance to cancel and get ALL of our money back before we flew to Europe.

We were not given this opportunity and YES my wife and I would have cancelled because we had already read the posts on cruise critic about the cruises that ended up bus trips. If we had wanted to do a bus trip we would have booked one for far less money than Viking charged us. We would have opted out and would have missed all the problems of the cruise.

I don't know if you noticed the post where I mentioned the Viking Freya was in port with us at Melk. They continued their cruise upriver without problems with the high water and we saw the ship and the passengers in several ports we visited by bus. I talked with one of the passengers and he said they lost the use of the sun deck but were able to make it under the bridges. If Viking had not put us in drydock our cruise would have continued as planned and I would not be spending hours on cruise critic trying to warn others about what happened to us.

I got an email from another passenger who is also trying to get Viking to do something about what happened. I won't post the whole email but here is one comment I think belongs here.

"I am really amazed at some of the postings on cruise critic - You speak for all of us on the skadi/lif, thank you for doing so."

I still wish others from the cruise would start posting on CC but until they do I will do what I can to keep this thread alive.

Have a great next cruise.

Seems to me that if ANY cruise line makes an operations decision that negatively impacts passengers, then that cruise should be offered at a reduced fare with full disclosure in advance as to what the impact will be. Those choosing to take advantage of that sailing will have made an informed decision. Of course this would not apply to unexpected situations or circumstances beyond the control of the cruise line.

I want to emphasis that had Viking told us before the cruise that our ship was going to be put in dry dock during the cruise resulting in many bus trips instead of river cruising and that in addition we would have to switch ships halfway through the cruise, we would have cancelled the cruise.

We were NOT told any of this in advance instead once we had flown to Europe and boarded the ship then we were told the night before that things were going to happen. One of the worse examples of this was the day we were bused 3 hours to and then 3 hours back to Nuremberg with an additional hour and half bus trip around the city. Then we were returned to the ship around 7 PM and after dinner we were informed in the evening "briefing" by the CD that we would be leaving the ship the next day. In addition we had to have our luggage packed and outside our cabin by 7:30 AM for another 3 hour bus trip back to Nuremberg to board another longship. We were up until 1:30 AM packing and then got up around 6 AM to get ready to have time to eat breakfast before leaving the ship for another bus trip.

We were extremely unhappy as during our time in Nuremberg we missed the castle and city walking tour due a bad thunderstorm. So we had spent 7 hours on the bus for a not very good lunch and 20 minutes at one of the WW II sites. Had we known we were going to have to leave the ship the next day we would have remained on the ship and packed our luggage during the day and wouldn't have been exhausted the next day.

Thanks for your comments as they reflect the way I feel about Viking's lack of planning and information sharing.

Have a great next cruise.

Juat curious to know if the OP has picked up the phone and contacted Viking directly given that a few days has passed since they first contacted him.

Perhaps there may be more information available to Viking, and the OP now.

 

Given that it has been reported here on CC that a 100% refund has been offered to an upcoming cruise, perhaps now IF the OP calls Viking ( as was suggested here a few times most recently by Mark_ T) rather than wait for them to call him, he will get a more satisfactory outcome to his situation.

 

CC is a great place to share experiences both good and bad but individual customer service issues are best resolved privately IMHO.

Thanks for the idea. We were planning on contacting them again next week after we finish a short trip we are on currently. The news that Viking has extended that offer to other cruisers facing a similar issue give me hope that they will do the same for us and the other people that were on our cruise.

I still want to emphasis that the original and continuing purpose of this post is to inform other cruisers who may be considering a Viking cruise of the problems we encountered.

If I had read a similar post before I booked the cruise I would have never booked it.

The worse thing that has ever happened on 32 ocean cruises was missing a port because of high waves (we couldn't tender into the Cayman Islands where I had already been several times).

Anyway thanks for the suggestion to contact Viking again. I will do so once we get back home again.

Have a great next cruise.

HI,

I have heard that Viking has sent an email to passengers of an upcoming long boat cruise telling them that their ship is going into dry dock and offering the passengers an option to cancel with a 100% refund. Does anyone have a copy of the email they can post?

Thanks

 

 

I think, fellow CCers, that the OP just wants and needs to vent and isn't ready to 'let it go'. He has aired his concerns, asked for our advice and then chooses not to take it. This thread is getting like an ugly divorce and airing one's dirty laundry in public may give the OP some satisfaction, it will not get him a satisfactory resolution with Viking.

 

PS wonder if the other 20 passengers who thanked him for asking the question about the bus ride length were ticked off because THEY didn't get a bottle of wine delivered to their stateroom from the CD? Just saying, even when things are 'fair' , they are NOT EQUAL.:rolleyes:

Yes I am the original poster and I do want to vent but more importantly I want to let other cruisers know what happened so they can make an informed decision on what cruise line to book.

Evidently something, maybe this thread helped, has caused Viking to change its policy and it is now notifying passengers about ships being put in dry dock. If this thread accomplished that then I am very proud and happy to have helped future passengers. Evidently they are also offering 100% refunds. I hope they decide to do that for us because it is what they should do given the disaster of the cruise was.

Finally the bottle of wine was the same cheap wine they serve everyone for free at lunch and dinner. We took it to our table the next night and shared it with the other couples we were eating dinner with and had a good laugh about the cheap wine as a gift. It probably cost them 2 or 3 euros if that.

Have A GREAT NEXT CRUISE just not on Viking.

Thanks to the OP it looks like Viking have learnt something about communication from this thread.

 

I may be wrong, but I don't think the OP was advised in advance about the dry dock event that was happening to him.

 

All of these new Longships will probably have to go into drydock for their warranty maintenance - so if I had a Viking booking I would be a bit wary.

 

I really feel sorry for those passengers who have already left for pre cruise stays and are unable to act on the email - probably haven't even received the email.

 

For those who have been offered 100% refund - I assume that doesn't include airfare.

 

As Nana541 says NEVER

I am the original poster and I know we were NOT informed of the dry dock or the switch from one ship to another which involved an additional packing and unpacking which is exactly what we try to avoid by cruising. We had trip insurance and if we had known either of these we would have cancelled the cruise. This is probably why Viking wasn't notifying people because they were afraid of the cancellations that would occur.

As far as I know NO one on the cruise was told of either the dry dock or the switch in ships or at least no one I talked to.

Thanks for giving me the credit for Viking starting to notify its passengers. If this thread did that then it has been worth every minute I spent in posting.

Have a great next cruise.

Well said Mart T and joanne2.

This discussion has grown old and depressing. Hopefully the "Host" can put an end to this on going soap opera. It should be between the two parties only.

Lady girl, this is a free public forum and if the subject depresses you think of how much it depresses those of us who took the cruise. If the host does disable this thread then that is censorship of the same kind that occurred in **** Germany and still occurs in the Soviet Union. The purpose of this thread and this forum is to inform cruisers of what to expect when they go on a cruise.

If this thread depresses you quit reading it.

You have a total of 16 posts where I have over 5000. I have been with CC for many years and should have a right to tell the truth about Viking. I just wonder if you and Mark_t are both employed by Viking in attempt to suppress the truth.

I will give you an example of Viking's poor communication skills. The first night the CD told us we were going to be on buses the next day he also said he wouldn't take questions but if we had "individual" concerns we could meet with after the briefing. Since he works for me as well as for Viking, I raised my hand and spoke saying I had a question everyone in the room wanted answered. He proceeded to rudely tell me to be quiet and let him continue his briefing. I again asked him the question "how long would the bus trip be?" which everyone in the room wanted to know. He then even more rudely told me to be quiet and talk with him after the briefing.

I was talked to by over 20 passengers after the briefing all saying they also wanted to answer the same question but were intimidated by the CD's attitude.

I proceeded to talk with the hotel manager who apologized for the way it was handled and later the CD came over and asked for my pardon as he felt he had been too hard on me. They then proceeded to deliver a bottle of wine to my room later that evening like that was going to help.

After that the CD included an "estimated" bus ride time although he consistently under estimated the time.

That was the level of communication skills we were dealing with. I believe the CD was telling us whatever Viking told him to tell us. No more and no less but then that is Viking's fault for not being honest with its customers, who had paid a lot of money, for what turned out to be a bus trip with a floating hotel.

Try one of those some time and see how you feel afterwards.

While I've seen quite a few negative posts on Viking- esp last summer - this board (ALL of cruise critic) tends to really pile on anyone who posts anything remotely negative. Very many cruiseline fans. Which is great - we all have things we love and love to advocate for our favorites. Doesn't mean bad things don't happen;) Any longtime CC reader thinks long & hard before posting a negative review/post because we don't all have thick skin to deal with the instantaneous feedback when we do.

I really hadn't thought about it that way but you are right in a number of the posts on this thread were defending Viking and if not "attacking" me were at least critical of me for not being more forgiving.

If it had only been the high water then I would have understood because Viking can't do anything about the weather. But the decision to put the Skadi in dry dock in the middle of a cruise and not telling the customers and how that decision affected the rest of the cruise is where I have a real problem with Viking.

One thing I'm also upset about is I believe Viking intended to have us to switch ships from the start. Several things point to this. One the CD and the concierge when we boarded the Skadi were both from the Lif. Also the headsets we were asked to wear on the shore excursions were all from Lif not the Skadi.

I think the ships got out of position during the earlier water level problems and Viking made a decision to get them back into their correct places for future cruises at the expense of the people on the cruise I was on.

All of this makes me very distrustful of anything Viking says. By the way here are a couple of links to other places on the Net where people have posted complaints about Viking.

http://www.fodors.com/community/cruises/viking-river-cruise-disappoints.cfm

http://viking-cruise-lines.pissedconsumer.com/

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187323-d1545128-Reviews-River_Cruises-Berlin.html#REVIEWS

http://www.complaintsboard.com/?search=Viking+cruises

Had I done my homework rather than depend almost solely on CC I would have followed my wife's advice and cancelled this cruise before we went.

Talk at you all later.

No more contact from Viking although via email with others who were on the cruise the general consensus is that Viking's offer is way too little to consider. I have been doing some searches on the web and it is amazing how many negative posts about Viking are out there. That doesn't seem to be the case here on CC why I'm not sure?

Talk at you all later.

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We just got off a Viking Longship and the bathrooms in the lower deck cabin where we were matched pretty closely with a standard bathroom on regular cruise line (RCL, Princess, etc). They aren't as large as HAL's standard bathrooms are and are no where near as large as Seabourn bathrooms. But everything except there toilet paper dispenser seemed to work fine. The toilet paper dispenser is build in under the counter and the toilet paper consistently broke off and the only option was to take the roll out and try to thread it back through. Bad design in my opinion.

Have a great next cruise.

One thing that has surprised since we got home is that no one else from the cruise has posted out on CC. I know I talked with a couple of people who are members and who said they would be posting. Hope they join in soon.

We started the cruise on the Skadi in Budapest although we had been originally scheduled for the Lif. Then at 9:30 PM on the 8th day of the cruise we were notified by the cruise director that we would need to pack our luggage and have it out by the door of the cabin by 7:30 AM. We ended up packing until 1:30 AM and then had to get up at 6:15 so we would have time for breakfast before leaving the ship for buses to take us to Nuremberg which was at least a 2 1/2 hour drive on the autobahn.

To add to our misery we had just made the trip back and forth to Nuremberg that day. If Viking had just told us early in the morning and allowed a local tour from where ever we were docked in the morning and then given us the afternoon to pack the whole episode would have been more acceptable.

Of course when we arrived in Nuremberg at around Noon the ship sailed almost immediately after the luggage got loaded. Then we ended up spending the afternoon unpacking and getting settled back into a cabin on the Lif.

I will be posting a full review of the cruise on cruise critic soon. It was the worse cruise we have ever been on and this was our 33rd but our first river cruise.

Some of the comments above deal with the fact that Viking called my wife's cell phone to talk about our comments on this board and people are responding about how they tracked us down.

See my signature below for our cruise history.