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Viking Basel - Amsterdam


cruisewiththekids
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We will be in Lucerne the day the boat sails from Basel and will take the train to Basel sometime that afternoon. I can't find an answer as to what time we must be on board in Basel and also what time the boat will sail. I have also read in posts there is a walking tour offered in Basel, but nothing has been offered officially from Viking. Our sailing is coming up in April, and it seems that there are many details that remain up in the air, including all the port times. Can anyone offer insight? Thank you.

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Uniworld's on board times have always been around 3:30. I wouldn't wait until afternoon to leave Lucerne. We did the same last year, but left Lucerne around 10am. Port times are always going to be variable, as they are dependent on lock schedules and the amount of river traffic at a given time.

 

Robin

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We will be in Lucerne the day the boat sails from Basel and will take the train to Basel sometime that afternoon. I can't find an answer as to what time we must be on board in Basel and also what time the boat will sail. I have also read in posts there is a walking tour offered in Basel, but nothing has been offered officially from Viking. Our sailing is coming up in April, and it seems that there are many details that remain up in the air, including all the port times. Can anyone offer insight? Thank you.

 

When I did trip Viking did the tour in mid afternoon (about 2 if I recall correctly). We took a train mid morning, checked out luggage in the train station (there is a service downstairs at the train station, went to the zoo, came back got our luggage and took a taxi to the ship about 1.

 

If we had it to do all over again we would go directly to the ship and skip the zoo (not nearly as good as the Zurich Zoo.)

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I'm hoping Viking is later than 3:30. Otherwise, that will put quite a damper in our Lucerne plans. Unfortunately, I booked through a travel agent, and I can get no information from Viking. My travel agent has been less than helpful. Learned my lesson for the next time though -- I will book direct.

We have a few things in common...We are also sailing this route in April with Viking, and also booked through a travel agent who has been less than helpful with this type of information. (I am very used to planning our own trips.) Anyhow, friends of my in laws sailed this route with Viking recently and I asked the same question about timing and arrival. The answer from their experience was that they were taken directly to the ship from the airport and were on board by around 11 am. There was a buffet lunch served, followed by a walking tour of Basel for those interested, cocktail hour at 5:30, dinner at 7:15 and cast off was at 9 pm. Hope this helps!

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We did this itinerary in late November. We had overnighted in Basel, made our way over to the ship at around 11:20am. The ship offered a walking tour of Basel at 1pm and 3pm. The times of the walking tour change, based on the arrival time/flights of the bulk of the passengers coming in, and the information is given to you upon boarding. In my experience of river cruising, they prefer you to be on board around lunch time or shortly thereafter. Given the safety briefing, getting settled in, introduction of the itinerary and meeting of the crew cocktail gathering, and dinner, my thought is to be on by 3pm.

And rather than booking direct, you need a travel agent who is a river cruise specialist.

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I'll add a couple of extra caveats.

 

1) Make sure that you know where your ship is docked with a clear address that you can give to a cab driver. Most of the ships dock on the east side of the Rhine near the German border--not close to downtown Basel. We once disembarked in Basel, and I had to walk a block to get street names to give the limo driver we'd booked enough information to find us. The docking location the ship's personnel gave me didn't show up on his GPS.

 

2) Monitor river conditions and call the ship on embarkation morning to make sure that it's made it all the way to Basel. Sometimes river conditions won't allow the ships to get to Basel and the dock in Breisach. It takes a little over an hour to get from Basel to Breisach on the train.

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We were on the cruise in 2014, our ship the Viking Tor left Basel at 7:00 PM, we arrived a day early, and took an early train to Lucerne , walked around, had lunch and came back to Basel. The train ride was around an hour and it was a short cab ride from the train station to the ship. I think we got back to the ship around 4:00PM

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There are 3 different docking locations in Basel. You can email the ship the morning of departure and find out exactly which one they are at.

We did this. We woke up in our Basel hotel, emailed the ship, went to breakfast, and had an email back from the ship with the docking location by the time we were done with breakfast.

We took Basel's wonderfully efficient tram service from the hotel to the ship's docking location, about 15 minutes away.

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I just received my Viking cruise documents in the mail today. Surprisingly, there was no information regarding an all aboard time or any indication of a walking tour offered in Basel. The only reference to time states rooms won't be ready until 3:00. They do provide the boat's email address, so I will try to send them a message and hopefully get some definitive answers. I find the lack of this basic and important information quite odd.

 

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When we did this route last year, our docking location changed 3 or 4 times within the 2 weeks, prior to departure. At one point, we we're embarking from Breisach, but eventually left from Kemps??

 

In our case, there were lock repairs, but, my point is..... Things can change, with little to no notice, on a river cruise.

 

Robin

 

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I find it a little unusual that they do not give an all onboard time. I had one, provided by the travel agent, for my Danube cruise. I wonder if other North-American companies do not give such a time either. Due to flights and picking up customers at hotels? At the moment I cannot see that it should make a difference. However, what is normal is that, as Robin has said, such things can change at short notice and if I had any doubts I would phone the ship no more than 48 hours prior to the sailing and again closer to the time if I was still in doubt.

 

notamermaid

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I just received my Viking cruise documents in the mail today. Surprisingly, there was no information regarding an all aboard time or any indication of a walking tour offered in Basel. The only reference to time states rooms won't be ready until 3:00. They do provide the boat's email address, so I will try to send them a message and hopefully get some definitive answers. I find the lack of this basic and important information quite odd.

 

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

 

 

I’m assuming that this is your first river cruise. If that is not correct, let me apologize in advance.

 

I keep telling everyone that the only thing river cruises and ocean cruises have in common is water and a vessel on that water [emoji16]

 

I learned from doing a lot of reading prior to our first river cruise, so I was prepared to throw everything I’d learned about ocean cruising out the window.

 

The problem with time and schedules on the river is that, like the river itself, times are very fluid. So many factors affect where the ship will be, river traffic, what time it will arrive and depart. They are at the mercy of those who control the ports and the locks.

 

I completely understand Viking’s hesitancy in providing that information too far in advance. We are booked on a Viking Ocean cruise and in MyVikingJourney everything is set out on the calendar with times. I checked the river cruise we have booked - no times.

 

This is not the fault of your TA, but the nature of river cruising.

 

Most times the ships will sail during or after dinner. The Daily Briefing - which Viking highly recommends you attend - takes place before dinner at 6:30pm. You need to be onboard by that time.

 

I would recommend making sure you are onboard by 4:00-4:30pm to allow for checking in (not that it takes very long), getting settled and finding your way around. And do contact your ship in the morning.

 

Times for each days activities are listed in the Viking Daily newsletter you will get each evening. But even those times are subject to change. We were given port arrival times the evening before and found ourselves docked already when we got up, or still sailing when we were supposed to be docked.

 

Viking adapts quickly - no worries there - but it does make planning anything on your own difficult.

 

Enjoy Lucerne - it’s gorgeous! And then relax and just go with the flow. It’s the best advice I can give [emoji16]

 

 

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