Laundry on Grand Euro cruise

[Packman1000]

We are planning a 15 day Grand European cruise on Viking.  I know they don't have laundry machines on board for passengers to use.  Is there potential to take laundry off the boat and find a laundromat close by in one of the ports.  With the pre and post hotels, we will be traveling for about 3 weeks and would prefer not to pay the normally outrageous prices of laundry service on the ship.

 

Second question.  Any advice on the post hotel packages?  Trying to decide between Prague and Budapest.  The price difference is $400 pp for just one more night in Prague ($399 pp for 2 nights in Budapest versus $799 pp for 3 nights in Prague).  Is going to Prague worth it?

[WisRiver]

You could probably take your laundry off ship, find a laundry service or spend time in a self service laundry. I do not think it would be worth the time time and trouble The Viking Ships have an on board laundry service.  We did a 21 day Bucharest to Amsterdam Viking River Cruise.  We hand laundered a few things (shirts and unmentionables), but sent out a couple of bags (pants, mens underwear, tee shirts, etc).  I would rather spend our days touring rather than looking for laundry services.  While pricey, we did not find the ship board laundry cost to be outrageous.  

 

 

[gnome12]

21 minutes ago, WisRiver said:

You could probably take your laundry off ship, find a laundry service or spend time in a self service laundry. I do not think it would be worth the time time and trouble The Viking Ships have an on board laundry service.  We did a 21 day Bucharest to Amsterdam Viking River Cruise.  We hand laundered a few things (shirts and unmentionables), but sent out a couple of bags (pants, mens underwear, tee shirts, etc).  I would rather spend our days touring rather than looking for laundry services.  While pricey, we did not find the ship board laundry cost to be outrageous.  

 

 

Laundromats in Europe are generally not cheap either, and really are a waste of your time. And what happens if the ship has to leave early; do you leave your laundry behind? As @WisRiver said, wash a few things and send others to the laundry on board.

[Shmoo here]

1 hour ago, WisRiver said:

We hand laundered a few things (shirts and unmentionables), but sent out a couple of bags (pants, mens underwear, tee shirts, etc).  

That's how we do it, also.  

 

 

[Host Jazzbeau]

Calculate the cost of the cruise per waking hour – and then compare the cost of the onboard laundry service.  Your time [dealing with a laundromat] is much more valuable!

[Packman1000]

OP here.  I thought I would ask about the laundromat option as I read that most river ships take the passengers laundry off the ship to wash - that they have enough to handle with sheets, towels, etc.  Not sure if that is true, but if it is, I thought there might be an option for the passenger to do it themselves at 1/10 the cost.

 

I also could see an entrepreneur in one of the port towns opening a laundromat by the docks with hundreds of potential clients walking by every week.  As far as time, it's an hour, maybe 90 minutes to wash two loads once in a three week trip, no big deal.  Otherwise, we'll do our small items in the sink and pay for the rest.  Thanks for the responses.

[Bake apple]

22 hours ago, Packman1000 said:

We are planning a 15 day Grand European cruise on Viking.  I know they don't have laundry machines on board for passengers to use.  Is there potential to take laundry off the boat and find a laundromat close by in one of the ports.  With the pre and post hotels, we will be traveling for about 3 weeks and would prefer not to pay the normally outrageous prices of laundry service on the ship.

 

Second question.  Any advice on the post hotel packages?  Trying to decide between Prague and Budapest.  The price difference is $400 pp for just one more night in Prague ($399 pp for 2 nights in Budapest versus $799 pp for 3 nights in Prague).  Is going to Prague worth it?

You will love the Grand European cruise, we have done this cruise  twice and enjoyed it immensely.  As others have noted, touring once off the ship is precious time and why you’ve come to Europe.  First trying to find a laundry place, and then the wait around , well not sure it’s good use of your time. Up to you of course. I always rinse a few unmentionables but the rest goes to the ship’s laundry.  It’s delivered the next day either on hangers or in a tissue lined leather box.  It worth the euros IMO. 
 

We  had three days in Budapest and four days in Prague on both cruises but did these on our own staying in vacation rentals. Difficult decision as to which was more worth while but Prague is a little out in front because of the beautiful and fun Old Town, the Charles Bridge and the food.  We watched lots of on line videos before we left home so structured our tours around what we saw. You won’t be disappointed with either location!  Safe travels.

[TravelerThom]

4 hours ago, Packman1000 said:

OP here.  I thought I would ask about the laundromat option as I read that most river ships take the passengers laundry off the ship to wash - that they have enough to handle with sheets, towels, etc.  Not sure if that is true,...

I think you have the scenario reversed. Many/most/all(?) river cruise lines have their linens offloaded to be washed ashore and pick up linens left previously by the company which have now been laundered. This works because boats of the same company use identical linens and can be swapped out. 
Passenger laundry, which can not be swapped out, is done on board. 

[Peregrina651]

If you really want to find a laundromat, Google is your friend.

 

For instance, in Budapest (ship docks near the Chain Bridge, lower left on the map), there are two not that far away. One of them has a website with prices (it is a dry cleaner but may have laundry service; I didn't translate). It is in Hungarian, but you can use Google translate to see what it says. Do this for other stops along the way and you will have a good idea whether this will work for you or not.

 

 

 

[Daisi]

17 hours ago, Packman1000 said:

I also could see an entrepreneur in one of the port towns opening a laundromat by the docks with hundreds of potential clients walking by every week.  As far as time, it's an hour, maybe 90 minutes to wash two loads once in a three week trip, no big deal.  

 

While that sounds like a profitable venture (and really would be no matter what), just think of 6-8 boats coming into port, and say 1/2 of the pax wanting to do an hours worth of laundry...you would need a massive amount of machines!  I'm sure I've underestimated the number of boats, as we only did the Rhine in early May, and I'm sure it's much busier in the summer.  6 -8 boats would be an average of what we say in any port we stopped at. 

 

I've seen comments about the stampede to dinner....can you imagine the one for the local laundry? 🙂