Romantic Danube - Viking Lofn: Dec 11-21,2015

[rrgator]

Just returned from our latest Viking river cruise. We did the Romantic Danube on the Viking Lofn, which was substituted for the Viking Freya, which went in early to get maintenance for the 2016 cruise season. The itinerary was from Budapest to Nuremberg, with a post cruise extension in Nuremberg for 2 nights.

 

We flew United, arranged by Viking Air, from NOLA to Washington Dulles (a really crappy airport, especially customs and security on the return) to Brussels to Budapest. The first two legs were United planes, while the Brussels to Budapest was on a Brussels Airlines flight. For the most part, these flights were uneventful, on time, and long, as you expect.

 

While waiting for our luggage in Budapest, we decided to get some Hungarian money as there was an ATM by the luggage carousel and because the Hungarians don't use the Euro. I was surprised when the amount request on the ATM was for thousands of Forints. I was so surprised that I cancelled the process because it didn't make sense. I then checked the internet from my phone and found out the exchange rate is about 288 forints = 1 USD. So we got the money and were walking around with thousands of forints.

 

We got to our ship, very quickly. Nice ride in a small SUV. Driver talked a lot about Budapest, Hungary, refugees, money, you name it. It was a nice intro to Budapest as we had not been there before. The boat is docked on the Pest side, beside the Chain Bridge. Very impressive sight at night all lit up. We had a cabin on the 2nd floor, where the main entrance, desk, and restaurant are located. On our other Viking cruises, we have been on the 3rd deck. Really found no difference in the two decks, so would not hesitate to stay there again. Luggage was in the room, so we were able to get unpacked, get some lunch and join a group to the Christmas market located a couple of blocks from the boat. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in the markets, purchasing 75% of what we ultimately bought on the cruise. The reason is simple. Budapest, compared to Germany and Austria, is cheap. I still can't get over the prices. To give you an example, beer in the market was about the equivalent of 1 USD. Similarly, the Gluwien was about 1 USD also. I had been told that Budapest was affordable and found it to be true.

Dinner was on the ship. We ate in the lounge, as I wanted a Viking burger, which I love, and because we had been up over 30 hours, needed to get to bed early.

 

Sunday morning, we boarded a bus and went to the Buda side, which is very hilly. It was the only day with any cold weather, as the wind was really blowing that morning also. We had exceptional weather for this time of year. Highs in the mid to high 40's and low 50's during the week. For the first time in all of our travels to Europe, we could not get into the church there at that time because mass was going on. We have been to numerous churches with mass being delivered with no problems in entering the church. I don't know what that was all about, but we weren't allowed in. We made up for it the rest of the trip, as I believe we saw more churches on this trip than we had ever seen before. Most of them really spectacular.

 

We then went back to the Pest side, back to the Christmas market. Since we had been there the day before, we decided to sample the food and beer. It was good, particularly the goulash, and the beer was cold.

 

Back to the boat and cruising to Vienna.

 

Monday found us in Vienna. Very nice town. Would like to go back and spend more time there. In hindsight, I wish Viking had left Budapest Saturday, and stayed overnight in Vienna. I would rather have had more time there. We will have to find time to go back as it was a really nice place.

 

We had the option of taking the bus into town for the morning excursion, but chose to alternatively take the subway, known as the underground there. The station is within a couple of blocks of the boat dock. Very easy and clean. Where you get out is near where the buses where letting folks out, so nothing really different. I do think that the difference in taking the subway versus the buses, is that as you are going in the bus the guides were able to point out various point of interest along the route. As we were underground, we missed out on some of that, but we did hear it on other excursions we took during the day, with the comment, you probably heard this this morning but… If you are considering the subway vs the bus, that is the only difference I found.

 

In the afternoon, we did the optional tour of the Schönbrunn Palace. This is the summer palace of the Habsburgs, and is very nice and interesting. You will hear a lot about the Habsburgs, Franz Joseph, Sissy, Maria Theresa, etc., during the cruise as they were around for a long time and most of the history of the area, including Hungary, involves this family. There is also a really nice Christmas market there, which we had over an hour to shop after the tour of the palace. I think this was the nicest Christmas market of all the ones we experienced on this trip.

 

That night, we did the optional Opera excursion. It was held in a hall near the Schönbrunn Palace, about a half hour bus ride. This is a special performance prepared for the Viking guests. It is a shortened version of Mozart’s Wedding of Figueroa opera. You will also hear a lot about Mozart here in Vienna. He remains very popular. Now I am not an opera fan, and this performance did not change my mind. There is something about the frequency of their voices that doesn’t work for my ears. The band was really good. I would have been happy to just listen to the band play without the singing. Having said that, it was much better than the Peking opera we saw on the Viking China cruise we took this past spring, and well worth attending. I would recommend going. Everybody else that went, and there were quite a few of us, really enjoyed it. We were able to talk to the performers both before and after the performance. Many of them are from the US.

 

Just a note about the language. German is spoken in Austria, and obviously in Germany. It became apparent very early that I know very little German. Don’t worry if you are the same, the Austrians and the Germans speak very good English for the most part. The Hungarians also speak very good English. It is unfortunate that we in the US, including myself, have not forced ourselves to learn other languages. I can get by with a little high school French and Spanish, but it would really be nice to speak in the native languages when we visit these countries. It seems that in the other countries, they are made to learn English or want to learn it.

 

The next morning, Tuesday, we sailed through the Wachau Valley to Melk. We had been on the Rhine Getaway two years ago. I thought the Castle area of the Rhine was better, but the Wachau was not bad. Even if you didn’t like it, you had to sail through it to get to the end of the cruise, so you may as well enjoy it while you are there. In the afternoon, we toured the Melk Abbey. A beautiful place and very interesting. It has a really nice gift shop, where we bought some additional souvenirs to bring home, including the local wine and liqueurs made there. Again, well worth the trip. We then walked through the small town on the way back to the ship.

 

Another note, this time on walking. You do a lot of walking on these cruises. It’s part of the tours and not extremely difficult although Europe is hilly and most of the walkways are made with what we refer to as pavers. They will be described as cobblestones, but having lived in Philadelphia for a couple of years, these are not cobblestones. They are pavers and much easier to walk on than cobblestones are. It is still a challenge for those with mobility issues but Viking does its best to accommodate anyone with these issues. Overall this trip, based on steps accumulated on an app I have on my phone, my wife and I walked about 48 miles during our trip. Like I said, there is a lot of walking involved.

 

On Wednesday, we arrived in Passau, just across the Austrian border. Again a nice town and a nice tour of it during the morning. In the afternoon, we joined the optional excursion for a boat ride on the Inn River. Passau is where three rivers come together, the Danube (obviously), the Inn, and the Ilz. The boat ride on the Inn was very relaxing. The boat is electric, so very quiet. We went about 5 miles down the river and then came back. Lasted about 1.5 hours with a 30 minute bus ride both ways. We were actually back in Austria for the boat ride. We also saw the only direct impact of the refugee situation here as we passed 2 refugee camps during the bus ride. One had no one there at the time and the other one had about 200 people there. The refugee issue did not appear to be a big issue, at least from what we saw and heard from our tour guides. There is probably more to it, we just weren’t exposed to any of it and it was not a factor during our trip. After the boat ride, we had about an hour to spend in the small town of Sharding. Another small Christmas market and we were able to walk up to some castle ruins with a very nice view of the Inn River.

 

Another note, this time on security in Europe post-Paris. I expected to see armed military on every street corner. Nothing was further from the truth. We saw no armed military and very little police wherever we went. I am sure they were there, just not as conspicuous as expected. Having said that, life seems to be going on as always in Europe. We were never scared or concerned with our safety, and I don’t believe Viking changed anything as the result of the Paris incident. I did find the security in the Munich airport, where we left from, to be more intense and more of than in the past. Even then it was extremely well organized and efficient. Not to be confused with the mess of security and customs in Dulles, as I mentioned before, a real dump of an airport. The Munich airport was the only time during the trip that security seemed to be a little more than normal.

 

One other note, cash and ATM’s. It was very easy to find ATM’s everywhere we went. Even in the small town of Sharding, we were able to find one there and use it. It was also easier to convert USD to Euro’s as the exchange rate currently is about 1.1 Euro to 1 USD. That is much better than the last time we were in Europe, when the exchange rate was closer to 1.4 to 1. It made the cost of buying more inexpensive than in the past. Just another good reason to get to Europe, as if anyone needs many reasons to go there.

 

Thursday, found us in Regensberg, Germany, another nice German town. We spent the morning with a walking tour of the city leaving directly from the boat. This was the only tour guide that we had during the cruise that was less than stellar. She had substantial information, but her delivery would put a New Year’s Eve party to sleep. It may also have been that I was not in the mood to listen. We ended up going off on our own, touring several magnificent churches all within a couple of blocks of each other.

 

In the afternoon, we toured the Thurn and Taxis palace. This again was an interesting place, with lots of history and interesting rooms. This is a “working” palace with a princess still residing there. We had a really good tour guide for this one, who had a lot of familiarity with the palace and shared lots of stories of the family, as well as our old friends the Habsburgs. There is also a large Christmas market here, with many booths featuring souvenirs as well as food and drinks. On the way back to the boat, we stopped at another smaller Christmas market, which as it turned out was just across the river from where we started in the morning. The boat had moved during the day, but you could have walked across a bridge and ended up in the market we ended up in.

 

On Friday, we arrived in Nuremberg and took the optional WWII tour. This tour took us, by bus, to the **** Parade Grounds, to the Documentation Center, and then to the Palace of Justice, where the war trials were held. We had an exceptional tour guide for this one. John Jenkins, who works with History for Everyone, has amazing knowledge and perspective. He is able to provide personal insides into what everything you are seeing meant to the folks involved during the buildup to war and during it. He was especially appreciated for his insight into the trials when we were in the actual Courtroom itself. This is a very worthwhile tour, my favorite of this cruise, and it was made that way because of the ability of Mr. Jenkins. Hopefully, if you take this tour, he is your tour guide.

 

Let me take a minute here to discuss the food on the Lofn. Not much to say really, it was pretty standard Viking meals. Very good, plenty to eat, and adequate time to dine. If you are looking for gourmet food, Viking is probably not for you. If you are okay with good food, you will not be disappointed. We ate twice in the lounge, which has a smaller menu than the dining room. In the dining room, on Thursday night, we had a nice German meal with all the fix’ns, and on Friday night we had the Captains or Farewell dinner. Both very nice.

 

Another note. I found this Viking cruise to be even less formal than the other ones we have taken, and none of them were very formal. I ate several meals without changing clothes from the afternoon tours. It may have been that the weather, being cooler this time of year, didn’t require a shower and a change of clothes, to dine comfortably. Or it could have been that I was just too lazy to change. What I do know is that I over packed clothes that I had expected to wear to dinner. They just weren’t needed. My wife, as usual, packed perfectly, as by the time we got home, she had worn everything. This is the one Viking cruise, where I did not use the laundry service, which on our other cruises, is a really good service.

 

During the night, the boat was moved to Erlangen, which is a suburb of Nuremberg. Since we were staying 2 nights in Nuremberg, we boarded a bus Saturday morning for a short trip to our hotel, with a stop at the Castle in the old city. We had a terrific guide with us this morning. Unfortunately, I can’t recall her name. (I didn’t write down names of the folks we encountered on this trip as I have previously. Older age I guess.) She also works for the History for Everyone company and was excellent. We had a nice tour of the castle and then went to our hotel.

 

We stayed at the Le Meridien Grand Hotel, which has a great location. It is just outside one of the gates into the old city and across the street from the train station. We had a very nice room on the third floor, which actually had a balcony. They do have the European half shower doors in the bathroom, which I have never figured out how to take a shower in without getting water everywhere in the bathroom. Other than that, the room was very comfortable and spacious.

 

When we got to the hotel, our room was not ready. As we had already exceeded our luggage capacity, we needed to buy another bag to get the rest of the stuff we had bought home. This is not unusual, as every time we have taken one of these cruises we have had to buy a new piece of luggage for the return trip. In China, we bought 2 new bags. Go figure. Our tour guide, man I wish I could remember her name, told us where a luggage store was and then said if we could give her a minute she would walk us there, as she was going that way. We followed her to the store, and as she was leaving, she mentioned that no stores are open in that part of Germany on Sundays, so if we needed luggage or anything else, we needed to get it today. She said the Christmas markets would be open, but I didn’t see any luggage being sold at any of the markets we were at. Since the stores would be closed, she told us that she recommends people take the short train ride to Bamberg, which is what we did on Sunday.

 

That night, we were having a drink in the hotel bar, trying to decide what to do about dinner. We got to talking to one of the bartenders, who gave us a restaurant and directions to it. The old city is not very big, so walking from one side to the other doesn’t take more than 20-30 minutes, depending on the crowds in the markets. The restaurant he suggested was on the other side of the old city, near the castle. We walked there, but when we arrived, around 7pm, it was packed, and the person at the door didn’t seem very interested in accommodating us. Fortunately, there were several other restaurants right there, so we went to the one next door, called Kuchlbauer’s. We ordered the Bavarian platter for 2. It was outstanding. The beer was good and cold also.

 

So on Sunday, we decided to take the train to Bamberg. Getting to the train station was easy as it was across the street, figuring out the tickets, not so much. The tour guide had told us that the tickets should cost 18 euros. When I tried using the ticket machine, I ended up with 2 tickets which were going to cost 150 euros. I figured I didn’t know what I was doing, so we started looking for some help. We found an information counter, and a very helpful employee, who spoke very good English, told us what we needed and wrote it down for us. He then directed us to the ticket office and told us to give the paper to whomever waited on us and they would get the tickets for us. We had about 20 minutes until the train left and got the tickets after waiting about 10 minutes. Again, another very helpful person in the ticket office.

 

The train ride took about 30 minutes and Bamberg was the 5th stop. When we got off the train, we realized that although we knew to take the train, we didn’t know where to go once we got there. We didn’t have map, which would have been helpful, and using the maps on my iPhone wasn’t working very well either. So we started walking. The town was very quiet, not many people out. We came across a church, St Otto, but church services were over, as it was about 12:30. My wife then began asking people we started seeing on the streets for directions. Between their limited English, and our no German, but a lot of pointing, we finally ended up in the Christmas markets. As it turned out, we walked in exactly the opposite direction of where we should have.

 

We spent a nice day in Bamberg. Many exceptional churches, including the Cathedral, which includes a really nice museum. Bamberg seems to be a very religious town, known for its Christmas nativity scenes. They were everywhere. We also were told that they have a unique smoked beer there, which we were able to partake of in a nice little bar in a nice restaurant, the Hofbrau. The beer is dark and has a bacony taste. Not too bad, but one was enough. The other local beer was very good. The bartender was very friendly, spoke English very well, and gave us some ideas of where to go. The weather was great that day, clear skies, lots of sun, and temperature in the low 50’s. A really nice day.

 

On Monday morning, we left the hotel at 6:30 am for a 9:40 flight to Munich. The trip only took about 15 minutes, so we had plenty of time once we arrived. It was easy going through check-in, since there were few people there when we got there. All of our luggage met the weight limit of 50 pounds. In fact, we were a little under the limit, so we were able to put our bulky coats in the bags, so we didn’t have to keep up with them on the flights home. We flew a regional Lufthansa flight to Munich, which took about 20 minutes. We then had about an hour to make our United flight to Washington Dulles, which was taken up by getting through security. As I mentioned earlier, security in the Munich airport was tight. It was very efficient and organized, and we got through it fairly quickly and had a few minutes left before our flight was called.

 

The flight to Dulles was uneventful. I was able to watch the entire first season and part of the second of House of Cards on the TV thing on the back of the seat in front of me, going over and coming home. That is a really good show, if you have a chance to watch it and it kills the time of those long flights over and back. We did hit some pretty bad turbulence, once we got back to North America, down through Canada and the Northeast US.

 

Let me say very quickly, that Washington Dulles is not my favorite airport. Customs and security there leave much to be desired. Compared to how efficient and organized the Munich airport was, Dulles is a joke. Just my opinion and I will leave it at that.

 

We finally made it home to New Orleans, after a 45 minute delay on the ground in Washington and some really bad weather in New Orleans. We got to our house, which is very close to the airport, by 9 pm, and I was able to watch the second half of another Saints loss as we unpacked. By the time we hit the bed, we had been up about 30 hours, but going to Europe is well worth the hassles of the long flights and the amount of time it takes to get there and back.

 

All in all, it was another good Viking trip. We had done the Rhine Getaway two Christmases ago, so we had experienced the Christmas markets before. I thought the markets on the Danube were very similar to the ones on the Rhine. But in my opinion, I felt there was a difference between the people in Bavaria and the people in the Rhine River part of Germany. To me, Bavaria was much more laid back. That is probably only my impression and others may think differently.

 

We will definitely be taking another Viking cruise in the future. In fact, we took advantage of the future cruise offer they make on the boat, where for 200 USD, you get 400 USD credit on a future cruise. I’m not sure which one we will do next, but I know my wife really wants to go to Russia. We’ll see.

 

I am sure that I left out some important points or forgot to mention some others, but it is Christmas Eve and I am ready to get the holiday started, so I will stop. However, if anyone has any questions, I will be happy to answer them. Please let me know.

[Rosethorn40]

Enjoyed reading your impressions of your recent trip as DH and I did the Romantic Danube/Christmas Markets a year ago (However, I do take exception to your remarks about Dulles, Dulles is NOT a dump, you were just in the wrong part. You want a disorganized airport try Newark:)).

 

I agree with your assessment of Vienna. I too wish we had more time there. I wanted to do a carriage ride and drink a cup of coffee at Café Central, neither of which happened. Also, Monday's are the day of rest for the horses at the Spanish Riding School. I don't begrudge the horses their day of rest, but I do wish we had seen more than just a horse or two sticking their head out of a stable door.

 

We had a similar experience with our guide in Regensberg, only in our case he just wasn't interesting. We bailed as we walked by a Christmas Market, and later made our own way back to the boat.

 

Sounds like you had a good time and were not affected by low water levels.

[janetcbl]

Sorry you had such a poor IAD (Dulles) experience. It is our favorite international airport...the last time we used it, from plane through customs to the sidewalk waiting for our hotel shuttle took 21 minutes! I understand this may not be usual,but IAD is a lot easier than JFK, MIA or LAX, IMO.

[alexkrn46]

Thank you for your review.

[Barrheadlass]

Loved all your detail. Thanks for taking the time.

[BranFlakes73]

My mom and I are taking this tour in 2016 for her birthday and we are both so excited! Thanks for the great information! I have a quick follow up. In Budapest, was the tour walking or did you stay on buses the whole time? I really want to go to the Shoes on the Danube memorial and trying to figure out when I can swing it during our time in Budapest. Also, do you think we would have time to walk to Fisherman's Bastion during our free time as well? Any other tips you want to recommend are greatly appreciated! Particularly regarding optional excursions and what you heard from others that might have done other excursions than you and your wife opted for.

Thanks again for the great information!

[rrgator]

The tour was on buses to the Buda side, which is very hilly. We then spent about an hour walking around the castle area. It was Sunday morning, but most places were open. We then took the buses back down to Pest and toured the city in the buses and ended up walking through the Christmas markets. So it was a mixture of riding and walking, which most of the Viking tours are.

 

Depending on when you get to the boat, if you are starting in Budapest, you will have time that day to do whatever you want. The boat is docked overnight so we got there in the early afternoon and had time to tour the Christmas markets, return to the boat for dinner, and we could have then gone back out that evening. I think you would have time to see pretty much anything in the Budapest area on Saturday, since you are really on your own.

 

We always take all of the optional tours on the Viking cruises. I figure that while we are there, take advantage of seeing everything, since we may never get back. I have found the optional tours to be an excellent use of time and money. You get to see some things that others aren't seeing. On this cruise, the Shonbrunn Palace tour was great, as was the Melk Abbey, and really all of them. It's more a matter of do you want to take advantage of the offerings and do you think the cost is appropriate.

 

I have heard very little complaining from folks that have been on our cruises and have taken the optional tours. The few complaints have been from people who complained about pretty much everything during the trip.

 

I would recommend you do the post cruise stay in Nuremburg if you have the time. If you do, remember that stores are closed on Sunday in that part of Germany. So Sunday is a good day to get on the train and go to another town around there, such as Bamberg, like we did.

 

Hope that helps. You will have a great time.

[stretchcruz]

The Shoes on the Danube memorial is about 5 minutes walk from the Chain Bridge. You can do it easily any time.

[BranFlakes73]

Thank you for the feedback!

[Capt_BJ]

I would recommend you do the post cruise stay in Nuremberg if you have the time.

 

We spent 3 days in Nur' at the end of our Viking trip (booked on our own) and had a FANTASTIC time. It is a transportation hub and between the trains trolleys and underground we got ALL over the place.

 

We spent a good 4 hours at the "documentation center" ... very moving and well done. It was raining the day we went so we didn't walk around the area much but could have spent another couple of hours doing that I'm SURE. Getting there by the trolley system was just as enjoyable . . . we saw many places we wanted to jump off to explore.

 

We went from Nur' to Hamburg and found Nur' to be easier to get around by public transportation (once you figure out how to read the system map!!!!!!)

[MalibooNewYork]

I found your report to be very interesting. We were on Viking's Danube Waltz in October so was especially intrigued with a December sailing.

I echo your opinion of Dulles airport. It is one hot mess. A few years ago I had to overnight there after missing my plane due to immigration, customs, and security mass confusion. I will never transit through Dulles again.

[Keith1010]

I enjoyed reading your report.

 

Thank you for posting it.

 

Keith

[BarbRN]

Excellent review! You should be congratulated for your excellent writing. We are anticipating a Viking, first time, cruise in 87 days. Thank you.

 

I was wondering how much selection of types of wine they offer at meal times.

[Capt_BJ]

I was wondering how much selection of types of wine they offer at meal times.

 

the "free stuff" has a white and a red each night

 

but not a selection ....

 

A white and a red is the nightly pour . .

 

the wine list is available (at cost)

Edited February 2, 2016 by Capt_BJ

[theopup]

Great review, very detailed with lots of visuals, thanks

[datman57]

What a great review, we booked yesterday for Dec 2/17 on Viking Njord,and now just read your review, sounds like my wife and I will have a great time.......thank you for the note on currency in Hungary......not euros......

 

 

Thanks again!

Dan:)