A Regent cruiser on Viking

[nearly there]

A Regent Cruiser on Viking

 

So, after 6 ocean cruises (1 Silversea, excellent; 1 Oceania, not so excellent; 4 Regent, all excellent), DH and I decided to do a Viking River Cruise. Romantic Danube, it was called, on one of Viking’s new heavily advertised long ships, the Viking Odin.

 

Dear Reader, it was not a good idea.

 

Let’s start with what was good about this cruise. The crew. They were a mix of people, mostly young and mostly from Eastern Europe and the Philippines with a few others from all over the world. In all of my travels, I have never met such a hard-working, relentlessly cheerful bunch of people. From the smiling cabin stewardesses, to the overworked waiters, to Marek the marvellous programme director, the staff did all they possibly could to make the cruise a success.

 

The other good thing was minor but nice; free Wi-Fi for all passengers. We’ve really appreciated the included Wi-Fi on Regent since we reached Silver; it was very nice to be a newcomer on a cruise liner and have free Wi-Fi right from the beginning.

 

Now, sadly, on to all that was problematic. These fall into two categories. Firstly, there are the things that we just didn’t like about river cruising but which are a matter of personal opinion and which other cruisers may well enjoy (to be fair, many of the other passengers were repeat cruisers on Viking and seemed much more content than we were). Secondly, there are the things that went wrong on this specific cruise and unfortunately coloured our whole experience.

 

The cabins: I never realised just how small how 205 square feet is. We had a Veranda Stateroom A, the biggest cabin that’s not a suite, with a full balcony. The cabin was beautifully furnished with one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever had on a cruise. However, with only 1 chair in the room and the space between bed and furniture/drawers so narrow that only 1 person could pass at a time, the feeling for 2 people was cosy, bordering on claustrophobic. The shower room, again while done to an absolute luxury standard, was miniscule. There was literally not enough room to stretch out your arms to wrap a towel around yourself after a shower.

 

The dining: Lots of the food was delicious. Breakfasts, especially, were lavish with lots of choices and a smiling cook who made eggs and omelettes to order. Breakfast timing was generous as well with breakfast available for several hours most mornings. A small continental breakfast was also served on the Aquavit Terrace.

 

Lunch was a bit more problematic. The main dining room lunch consisted of a salad bar that was mainly just salad, not really enough to make a lunch of. There was then a choice of 3 main courses, always a pasta dish, a sandwich and 1 hot dish. So if you just wanted a cold salad with some cold fish or meat on a very hot day, the main dining room didn’t work. There was a small buffet on the Aquavit Terrace as well, this varied very much day to day, some days excellent, others not as good. Lunch was served at different times each day depending on tours, etc. but as with dinner it was a very set time in both dining room and Terrace; lunch is at 12:45 means 12:45 not 1 or 1:15.

 

Dinner was a bit up and down. Again the set time announced each day felt very regimented. Dinner was at 7PM most days and this meant 7 sharp, a time earlier than we prefer to dine. As Regent regulars, we often thought longingly of the flexible dining times we were used to. I’m not sure why management thought this was the best idea; 187 passengers arriving at dinner at exactly the same moment meant a line to get in and wait staff under tremendous strain. There was no possible way to serve that many guests at exactly the same time and this meant that on the first evening, having been seated at 7, we waited until 7:45 for our starters. We made a bit of a fuss with the lovely maitre’d and on subsequent evenings we were served relatively promptly, but noticed that other tables had long waits.

 

The food was well-cooked and fresh (we often saw fresh food being loaded on to the ship at our stops) and each evening there was a choice of a meat dish, a fish dish and a vegetarian option. The problem came if none of these suited, as the “always available” steak, chicken breast or salmon were not very good. Between us we tried both the steak and chicken and they seemed to be frozen meat and not at all to the standard of the day’s choices. This was another area in which I suppose Regent has spoilt us; we found the choice of mains quite limited, but understood that this is a consequence of the small kitchens that river boats have. Wine was poured generously, but I think it was the same red or white every evening. I say “think” because we were never told which wine was being served and it seemed to have been chosen without thought about the food that it accompanied. Other wines were available at a price.

 

The dining room itself was quite unpleasant. The ceiling was extremely low, the tables were very close together, and the noise level was horrible. You literally had to shout to talk your tablemates. Speaking of tablemates, there are no small tables on the Odin; tables are for 6 or 8. As we were travelling with good friends we had hoped for at least a few dinners at a table for 4 so that we could catch up on family news, etc. but this was not possible.

 

There was no food available outside of the very strict meal times. The only other refreshments available were a water dispenser and 2 coffee/hot drink machines with some mini-muffins and cookies. There was no room service. There were supposed to be some kind of bar snacks in the evening, but other than a few potato chips/nuts we never saw any.

 

Public spaces: There were 2 public spaces; the lounge plus its outside Aquavit Terrace and the outdoor sun deck on the top of the ship. Halfway through the voyage, the sundeck was closed because we were passing under low bridges; absolutely unavoidable, but it meant that public space was very limited indeed. With a nearly full cruise, 187 out of a possible 190 passengers, this meant that at peak times every seat was filled in the lounge with standing room only. Also because there was only one indoor public space, it had to handle competing activities. This reached the height of absurdity on the penultimate night of the cruise when Euro 2102 football was shown without sound, while three talented opera singers performed their arias (funniest was the baritone sneaking peeks at the football in between songs). Really, the ship just felt crowded and we wondered if the passenger numbers on the new long ships are just too high for the service areas and public areas to cope with.

 

 

Excursions and problems with the ship: As with all river cruises, the excursions were included. They ranged from average to excellent. I can’t really discuss the excursions, though, without explaining the problems that affected this particular cruise. 3 days into the cruise, we noticed that the ship seemed to be moving extremely slowly. That evening we were told that the ship had a minor technical fault but that it would not affect our cruise. However, it most certainly did. In spite of best efforts, external engineers brought on board, etc., the fault was not fixed until the last day of our cruise. The practical effects of this were that each morning we were placed on coaches and transported to our destination (coach trips were generally about an hour long) for our tours. We then had “free time” whether we wanted it or not, before the ship finally arrived at the destination to meet us.

 

This meant that the tours were the only choice for seeing the destination city. One of the things we had most looked forward to on a river cruise, was the idea that the ship docked right in the middle of a town and that you could easily get on and off. However, because of the technical problems, there was no possibility to explore on your own. If you didn’t go on the coach and then the tour, you had to stay on the ship. You couldn’t even take the coach to the city and then go off on your own as you had to be met at the end of the tour by ship staff to be told when and where to meet the ship.

 

Things came to a head on the last full day of our trip. We awoke and began to get ready for the coach ride to Nuremberg, only to find that something had gone majorly wrong with the water system on board and there was no water at all. For everyone on board, this meant a quick wash with mineral water and then on to coaches at 8:30 for the drive into Nuremberg and the scheduled morning tour. We were told the ship would not be getting to Nuremberg until 6 PM (in the event it arrived at about 4:30) so the afternoon was again “free time” but with no option of going back to the ship. Marek, the amazing programme director, who had to cope with all of this, did find everyone at lunch (arranged by Viking) to tell us the water was back on.

 

To sum up, we learned that river cruising is probably not for us. Perhaps without the technical difficulties on this particular voyage, we might have found that leisurely cruising down the river and the chance to explore as we wished, compensated for the things we didn’t like. However, at a per diem rate similar to that of luxury ocean cruising, we found the experience simply didn’t live up to Viking’s hype and our own expectations.

[poss]

Sorry that your river cruise wasn't what you'd hoped, but I VERY much appreciate your taking the time to post, especially in such helpful and judiciously put detail.

[Hambagahle]

We have had two river cruises - one with Viking and one with Deilmann. Sadly Deilmann no longer do river cruises as theirs was far and away better than our Vikign experience!

 

We had no technical problems with either. But viking assigned us to the wrong boat on arrival. We had specifically booked the Primadonna - lovely ship that cruises the Danube Passau to Passau - and were put on a really second rate one on the same itinerary. Luckily our travel agent in Zürich sorted the mess out on the Monday morning and we transferred to the Primadonna. but it meant that Sunday afternoon, evening and most of Monday morning were spent registering our total dissatisfaction, getting some promises of help from the Viking on board staff etc etc. A really rotten start to any cruise!

 

The Deilmann boat - Prague to Potsdam - was quite simply superb. Yes the cabins are small, but that is river cruising! The decor, the amenities, the cuisine etc was loads better than Viking. Neither of them could begin to compare with Regent but that makes sense as river boats are so much smaller than ocean liners...

 

we are considering a river cruise (Rhine) for 2014 and your comments on Viking came at a perfect time. AND reminded me of our experience. We most likely will not go with them again!

[nana541]

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this review! We are going to taking a river cruise next (sniff sniff) and i am well aware it won't be Regent. That being said we had friends last year that did Viking and had a horrible experience.....we plan to do AMA Danube next year.....

Don't give up on river cruising, you just simply picked the wrong outfit...give AMA or Uniworld a try and I think you will be much much happier. Can't do anything about the size of the cabins......but I think 125 passengers vs 190 will make a huge difference!

 

Have heard from friends lots of really good things about these companies! Would be interested in hearing from other Regent cruisers about their experience on differant river cruises.

[Travelcat2]

Your Viking river cruise sounds a bit like the one my friend is currently on (last day is today). She is on one of the new ships and, for some reason, they are having to dock outside of town with 1/2 to 1+ hour bus rides to and from the city. Although she liked some aspects of the cruise, she will never sail on a river boat again.

 

Thanks for posting:)

[rmandmm]

Thank you for sharing! We overheard two couples talking about Uniworld being comparable to Regent for river crusing, for what it's worth--maybe a good possibility to check out.

[RachelG]

Thank you for posting! We were on AMA last year on the Danube, and we had the same identical issues with the restaurant. Specifically, the noise level was so loud that you couldn't hear yourself think. Very chaotic as everyone descends on it at the same time. There are some 2 and 4 tops available, but you had to arrive at exactly 7 pm (actually prior to 7 to get in line) to get one.

THey had the same set up also for breakfast and lunch. I gave up on breakfast--just got my tea in the lounge. At lunch, it was chaos as people tried to get to the salad bar.

Our suite was small but ok. Bathroom was tiny but very high tech.

The boat did not seem crowded at all except in the dining room. With the exact number of seats that there were people on the ship, no way it could not be crowded if everyone has to dine at exactly the same time.

 

Sorry about the mechanical problems--a real downer.

 

I would do a river cruise again, given the right itinerary, but I am not sure how soon I will be able to convince my husband. The dining situation really bugged him.

[pingpong1]

Nearly There - Thanks so much for your post. After having been recently "reprimanded" for not staying "on the designated/acceptable topic" by one of the "Regent police", I have refrained from replying to anything lately. However, your critique and experience with river cruising (Viking, in this case) exactly mirrors my own experience with an Avalon cruise my Dad and I took in March. Virtually all of your comments, particularly those related to your dining room experience (quality of meals, crowds, noisy, hearded like cattle, no private table, etc.) and the size of staterooms, exactly mirror my own observations - which I posted at the time on the River Cruising threads.

 

In August we will have our first "Regent experience". I'm thinking/hoping we've saved the "best" till last. And I'm glad we did the "river thing" first and now have Regent to look forward to. Some will say that it is unfair to compare the two as they are different experiences and venues. But time and money are two resources which both types of cruising have in common. Unless personal funds and available time away from home are "no object", you don't want to waste these resources on a less than memorable experience. My father is 94 - How many opportunities for a wonderful cruise experience might he have left? Actually, the cost of both cruises is/was nearly the same (between Avalon and Regent). After factoring in the additional cost of personal air fares to Europe, upgrading to an Avalon "deluxe suite" (which was smaller than my dining room at home), and the additional cost of hotel rooms the day before and after the river cruise - the per diem cost for the Avalon river cruise turned out to be at least as much (actually more) than the cost of our upcoming Regent cruise. And I believe the river cruise delivered far less in amenities than what is promised by Regent (and Avalon, for that matter). The only "plus" with Avalon was "free WiFi" and I actually am going to see if I can "live life well" for 12 days without the intrusion of E-mail or surfing the web! :)

 

River cruising has it's own set of "cheerleaders" and at the time of my river cruise posts, I was somewhat chastized by many folks on that board for committing the blasphemy of pointing out what I thought to be some significant shortcomings of the river cruise experience (along with wasting more of my limited and finite resources) on future vacations which would not be a positively "memorable" experience for our family. I just decided that based upon my own (and apparently your) experience with river cruising - that I probably wouldn't do it again - no matter which company it would be with. No matter whether it is Avalon, Viking, AMA, or Tauck, the square footage per passenger is very small, meal preparation and serving space is very constrained and regimented, and menus are quite limited. Do I go on cruises for the food? At the prices charged, you bet I do!

 

If our upcoming Regent Alaska cruise experience turns out to be as enjoyable as we are hoping it will be, I'm sure I'll direct our family's future planning time (and funds) to booking a Mediterranean cruise with Regent. ((I hope you are not reprimanded by one of the "Board Police" for posting your comment (and presumably wasting his valuable time) on this thread rather than on the "River Cruise" board)). Best regards to all.

[hondorner]

My travel agent toook a Viking River cruise immediately before the Christening Cruise for Riviera a few weeks ago. She had been handling Viking for a number of years. However, her experience was so bad on her recent Viking cruise that she immediately made a decision to not book any more Viking cruises. She has since made an arangement with Uniworld, subject to satisfactory performance.

 

Personally, I've never been interested in a European river cruise since I did a modicum of research. The small cabins and lack of public space don't really bother me; our RV has only 84 sq ft of living space including the bathroom and galley! But, I made that RV choice because it's economical -- I traded space for 23 MPG. The idea of paying luxury cruise prices for that small space is not my idea of a good transaction.

 

Having said that, we are excited at the idea of traveling on American Queen this coming August. While the cabins smaller than Regent, they are unique (with antiwue furnishings), appear to be comfortably sized, and there is plenty of public space and some alternative dining. I'm a little apprehensive about set dining times (typical early and late) but the alternatives willl help in that regard. With included wine and beer at dinner, included soft drinks, hot dogs, ice cream and popcorn availabe 24 hrs a day, included excursions (they bought their own buses to follow the riverboat) and highly touted southern cuisine, all on an authentic steam-powered stern paddlewheeler on American rivers, I think it's going to be a better alternative than European river cruises.

[wripro]

Unfortunately, Viking is not one of the better river cruise lines. imo Tauck comes the closest to a Regent or other luxury line experience.

[newlondon]

Ditto for Tauck

[beaniele]

I have done lots of crushing but tried a river cruise on AMA this spring. I found that I like cruise ships better, for a lot of the reasons the same reasons as stated. We did not have any technical issues so we were lucky.

 

Food on our Amaverde was hit and miss. Breakfast was usually good but lunch and dinner were either good or not so good. We stayed in a suite and the room was small but the bathroom was incredible. Two sinks, shower, and full tub.

 

With the meals at set times it gets crowed and hard to get a table for two since that is what we preferred. Had to be the first in line, for dinner anyway. We had the same waiter every night and he would put menus on our table for us.

 

Being tied up to other river boats meant we pretty much had to keep our curtains closed.

 

I am glad I did the river cruise but after Regent and Crystal will stay with ocean cruising.

[Patti22]

Several years ago, (5, I think, we had never been to Europe. Booked Paris to Nuremberg on AMA. Loved the trip so much we came back next year for Amsterdam to Budapest. Lovely scenery and so many nice people. Yes, the cabins are small, food can be up and down but that is river cruising. On our trips, a light lunch (soup, salads and sandwiches, dessert and cheese) were available on the upper deck where the observation lounge is. Eased some of the crowding. We love Regent and are traveling on Voyager in Sept. Each is wonderful.

[nyfeds]

Thank you for posting a very well-written review. I am sorry that your Viking experience was an expensive dissapointment. Some of the issues you cited parallel our AMA river cruise experience. Our cruising experience, prior to the AMA cruise, was ocean cruising with Regent five times and a river cruise with Peter Deilmann. Sadly, Deilmann no longer offers river cruising. It was superb from start to finish. Dining on AMA was pretty dismal. We too, found the noise level in the dining room on AMA to be deafening. Food quality, variety and preparation was mediocre, at best.

 

We do like the river cruise concept and enjoy docking in small towns and watching the landscape float by. River cruising, IMO, is the happy medium between ocean cruising and land touring. I do believe, from what friends have shared with us, that Tauck offers a very superior river cruise product. Should we decide to river cruise again, we will look to Tauck. We have taken 2 Tauck land tours and are eagerly awaiting our third land tour with them the beginning of Sept.

 

 

Thanks again for taking the time to share and inform.

[Travelcat2]

According to a poll posted on another thread, Viking came out #1, Uniword #2 and Tauck #3. It makes me wonder who votes in these polls.

[nyfeds]

My travel agent toook a Viking River cruise immediately before the Christening Cruise for Riviera a few weeks ago. She had been handling Viking for a number of years. However, her experience was so bad on her recent Viking cruise that she immediately made a decision to not book any more Viking cruises. She has since made an arangement with Uniworld, subject to satisfactory performance.

 

Personally, I've never been interested in a European river cruise since I did a modicum of research. The small cabins and lack of public space don't really bother me; our RV has only 84 sq ft of living space including the bathroom and galley! But, I made that RV choice because it's economical -- I traded space for 23 MPG. The idea of paying luxury cruise prices for that small space is not my idea of a good transaction.

 

Having said that, we are excited at the idea of traveling on American Queen this coming August. While the cabins smaller than Regent, they are unique (with antiwue furnishings), appear to be comfortably sized, and there is plenty of public space and some alternative dining. I'm a little apprehensive about set dining times (typical early and late) but the alternatives willl help in that regard. With included wine and beer at dinner, included soft drinks, hot dogs, ice cream and popcorn availabe 24 hrs a day, included excursions (they bought their own buses to follow the riverboat) and highly touted southern cuisine, all on an authentic steam-powered stern paddlewheeler on American rivers, I think it's going to be a better alternative than European river cruises.

 

Don,

 

I do hope you will report back on your American Queen cruise. It sounds wonderful and a very good option for those looking to cruise "at home." I hope you have a marvelous time!

[Maracamama]

Thank you for posting.

We have only been on 1 river cruise, on AMA (the Amadolce) where we combined 3 legs to spend 2 weeks on the rivers, and we really enjoyed it. Since, in my research, I could find very little positives about Viking, we chose AMA. I would recommend it to anyone.

You just have to go on a river cruise with different expectations, it is a totally different experience.

Hopefully we will be able to find another river cruise on a high end line that spends more time on the water than 4-5 days. Until then, it is the ocean for us!

[freddie]

"According to a poll posted on another thread, Viking came out #1, Uniword #2 and Tauck #3. It makes me wonder who votes in these polls."

 

TC2 - Your point is very well taken. Many of these travel magazine or travel site polls are remarkably unreliable (IMHO) because they are so easily influenced by the number of people who participate.

 

In this case, Viking is probably the dominant river cruise line in Europe, with many boats and larger boats carrying more pax. Therefore, there are a lot more Viking veterans by far than, for example, Tauck, which only has four boats on the most active rivers in Europe (Danube, Rhine, Moselle); and each of those Tauck boats carries only a bit more than half the number of pax as most Viking boats. Consequently, there are many more former Viking passengers to participate in the travel polls than Tauck passengers.

 

After a great deal of research, we chose Tauck, recognizing that it would be a different experience from our wonderful Regent cruises but might be the best river experience in Europe on a non-German-speaking river boat. There are several very attractive boats marketed to the German-speaking clientele that, like the beautiful cruise ship "Europa", look quite good but would not likely be an ideal choice for Anglophones.

[JPR]

A knowledgeable Travel Agent will tell you to stay away from Viking; it's reputation if mediocre to poor. Tauck gets far better reviews.

[islandhalls]

We love Regent and decided we wanted to river cruising and visit France, so we did both last September with Tauck in a cruise that was billed as being wine focused, since we were there during harvest.

 

Well, we won't be river cruising again until we are much older, since the age of the other passengers was significantly older than we anticipated (we are 65 and 54). We had asked our TA about it, but she assured us that it was billed to be a very active cruise and the average age should be younger than all the grey hair in the brochures. Don't get me wrong, we've met many great older cruisers, but the problems was that all the included excursions were filled with people with walking problems, walkers, wheelchairs, so the tours were painful. We were on busses much more than we liked, one time they boarded up (slowly) into the bus to go the Valrhona chocolate factory, and it turns out it was such a short walk away we could have crawled there and gotten there faster. It was the first season that they offered that cruise, there were many other passengers that felt the same way, hopefully they will make some changes.

 

The ship was very nice, staff competent, but not real personable. The rooms are very small for the price, bathroom are minuscule, not a lot of public area, limited menu, food acceptable. No tables for two; we don't mind mingling at dinner, but all three meals gets very tiring. The wine serves was not anything special and they did nothing to make the cruise wine focused other than serve wine. We visited one winery, but the whole boat was with us, not enough seats, mediocre wine.

 

When we did just get to just the cruise the river, it was really lovely. We really enjoyed France.

 

Can't wait for our next Regent cruise this September!

[ededmd]

Nearly There - Thanks so much for your post. After having been recently "reprimanded" for not staying "on the designated/acceptable topic" by one of the "Regent police", I have refrained from replying to anything lately. ((I hope you are not reprimanded by one of the "Board Police" for posting your comment (and presumably wasting his valuable time) on this thread rather than on the "River Cruise" board)). Best regards to all.

 

- A brief side note -

I personally wouldn't recommend you take Tom's suggestion as a reprimand, nor would he be first to come to my mind when one references the "Regent [board] police" :rolleyes:...

 

Rather, it is just that smoking is such a contentious topic which inevitably devolves the conversation into a lot of hurt feelings and a thread shut down.

 

Don't let your currently bruised feelings limit your value derived from this board nor color your view of what should be a wonderful RSSC Alaskan cruise. I've done it and can thoroughly endorse the experience! Best regards to you too.

 

- And back OT -

Thanks much to the OP. Fantastic comparative review from an experienced perspective!

[OrpingtonT]

- A brief side note -

I personally wouldn't recommend you take Tom's suggestion as a reprimand, nor would he be first to come to my mind when one references the "Regent [board] police" :rolleyes:...

 

Rather, it is just that smoking is such a contentious topic which inevitably devolves the conversation into a lot of hurt feelings and a thread shut down.

 

Don't let your currently bruised feelings limit your value derived from this board nor color your view of what should be a wonderful RSSC Alaskan cruise. I've done it and can thoroughly endorse the experience! Best regards to you too.

 

- And back OT -

Thanks much to the OP. Fantastic comparative review from an experienced perspective!

 

Thanks for spotting this, I had missed that it was my intervention pingpong1 was referring to.

 

It gave me a good laugh to consider I was thought of as a Regent policeman. I wonder if I can get a nice colourful uniform to wear whilst doing my one fingered typing. I shall be taking notes of your behaviour in future and there will be a naughty stool in the corner of Compass Rose awaiting you on your next cruise if you transgress.

[RachelG]

Tom, I do think you need a uniform, but also a riot baton.

[ededmd]

Thanks for spotting this, I had missed that it was my intervention pingpong1 was referring to.

 

It gave me a good laugh to consider I was thought of as a Regent policeman. I wonder if I can get a nice colourful uniform to wear whilst doing my one fingered typing. I shall be taking notes of your behaviour in future and there will be a naughty stool in the corner of Compass Rose awaiting you on your next cruise if you transgress.

 

Even if the only way I could cruise Regent was on the naughty stool, it would still be vastly more enjoyable than many other vacation options. :)

I giggled envisioning you as a sentry in "high colors" intently hunt and peck typing.

[Island Cruiser]

Our last trip was Vietnam-Cambodia. It included 7 days on the Mekong on AMA's LaMarguerite. We left our luxury cruising expectations back home and enjoyed the riverboat experience. The food aboard exceeded our expectations but the dining room was so noisey it was impossible to carry on a conversation. It helped that six of us were traveling together. We did our chatting before and after dinner.