Viking River Cruises

[Babyjax12]

Am I missing a location for such a forum or does it not exist on CC? I can only find River Cruise Ports. 🤔

[Essiesmom]

That’s it .  There are not separate forums for the many river cruising lines.  EM

[Babyjax12]

Why not? Each of the ocean cruise lines has a forum? I’m baffled. 

[LHT28]

Do you wan Ocean or river cruise ?

 Viking Ocean forum

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/689-viking-ocean/

 CC lump all the river cruises  together

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/115-river-cruising/

 

They do have the Roll Calls   separate

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/851-viking-river-roll-calls/

[Babyjax12]

I still think/wish there were separate river  cruising forums. Between itineraries, ship layouts, excursions and general topics you’d think there would be enough traffic to support such boards. Viking, Tauck, Emerald, Uniworld, etc. should ask if it would be possible for someone start a board. 

[mom says]

Sorry, OP, but you are attaching more significance to River Cruising on this site than it warrants (except to you, obviously).  There is not sufficient traffic for separate boards for each river cruise line. 

 

Look at the post numbers on the main page. There are just shy of 24 million posts for the ocean lines forums. There are only half a million posts for the entire Special Interests Cruising section, of which River cruising is only a small part.

[Hlitner]

The OP does have a good point.  The history of CC goes back to an era when river cruising was still in its infancy.  Prior to the Internet, there was the start of cruise forums on GENIE and Prodigy.  The Prodigy cruise forum became quite popular but had some big problems because of some travel/cruise agents who tried to use the forum as their personal fiefdom.   CC came out of that atmosphere (about the same time that TripAdvisor started to grow) and did a good job moderating their boards and "discouraging" travel agents using CC for their own personal gains.  

 

So now we move ahead a few years, and river cruising (especially in Europe) has grown into a pretty big industry.    While it is still a much smaller market than Ocean Cruising, we do think the river industry has matured and become worthy of more attention here on CC.  Several of the major river lines (Viking, Avalon,, etc) might be ripe for their own boards.  Perhaps CC management is listening :).  As to the ports, CC already has the port boards broken down by country which could also serve most river cruises.   Whether there needs to be sub-forums specific to river boat ports is something to consider.  But keep in mind that you do have ports that are served by both Ocean and River cruises so the ports may well be handled within the current CC structure.

 

Hank

[Aquahound]

23 hours ago, Babyjax12 said:

Am I missing a location for such a forum or does it not exist on CC? I can only find River Cruise Ports. 🤔

 

I happen to think this is a pretty good question.  River cruising has really grown.  Besides, if river lines can have their own roll calls, why not their own threads?  I recommend sending a suggestion to CC to have them added.  

 

5 hours ago, Hlitner said:

The OP does have a good point.  The history of CC goes back to an era when river cruising was still in its infancy.  Prior to the Internet, there was the start of cruise forums on GENIE and Prodigy.  The Prodigy cruise forum became quite popular but had some big problems because of some travel/cruise agents who tried to use the forum as their personal fiefdom.   CC came out of that atmosphere (about the same time that TripAdvisor started to grow) and did a good job moderating their boards and "discouraging" travel agents using CC for their own personal gains.  

 

So now we move ahead a few years, and river cruising (especially in Europe) has grown into a pretty big industry.    While it is still a much smaller market than Ocean Cruising, we do think the river industry has matured and become worthy of more attention here on CC.  Several of the major river lines (Viking, Avalon,, etc) might be ripe for their own boards.  Perhaps CC management is listening :).  As to the ports, CC already has the port boards broken down by country which could also serve most river cruises.   Whether there needs to be sub-forums specific to river boat ports is something to consider.  But keep in mind that you do have ports that are served by both Ocean and River cruises so the ports may well be handled within the current CC structure.

 

Hank

 

Totally agree.  

[mhb1757]

I don’t think it was a stupid question at all but here’s my take…. Having cruised on a few different river lines I think there is a lot of similarity in itineraries and life on board. I have benefited from helpful tips from posters that have traveled on other lines that I might have missed if only reading Viking posts or Avalon posts, etc. And while a Viking river board would likely have lots of posts/participation other, smaller lines likely would not. 

[Canal archive]

I must admit I’ve noticed recently many separate Viking questions maybe they could be rolled into one as it were as in the Roll Calls section where there is a separate Viking Roll Call and all the rest are general River Cruising Roll Calls. I’ve never added them up but there must be many more users of Viking than other river cruise lines because of their number of vessels. Although it is quite interesting reading the Viking questions I sometimes wonder if their explanations either on line through their sellers or in their paperwork is as clear as it could be. Although this could be just myself I tend to read absolutely everything.

So Babyjax12 there is a separate Viking Roll Calls section if you want a specific question answered. 
Good luck !

[Host Jazzbeau]

The benefit of the single River Cruising forum is that we get many who have just discovered River cruising and haven’t settled on a cruise line yet, or who only know of Viking (from all those commercials) and would otherwise lose the opportunity to learn that there are other alternatives.
 

Also there are far more common elements and questions than Viking-specific issues.

 

Once you have zeroed in on a Viking cruise, the Viking River Roll Call forum has a series of ‘pinned’ omnibus topics for all sailings of each itinerary. That is the best place to ask your more specific questions.