4/9/2023 Viking River Cruise Lyon to Avignon contingency plan due to Rhone river lock strike

[Canal archive]

What ships status? Hermod is on its way from Lyon.

[H3r4ld60]

I was on this same cruise.  My complaint is that they knew about the strikes as early 3 weeks prior to departure.  They changed the itinerary telling us about it a few days before and then would not let us reschedule without forfeiting 65% of our investment.  After the cruise, they offered us that same 35% credit toward a future cruise.  The first two days were hotel based, the meals in Lyon while in the hotel were either buffet, of crowded restaurants that offered no choice of food - everybody got the same thing - one of the meals was some kind of stewed meat over white rice - looked like a Budget Gourmet frozen dinner.  The servers and the food on the ship was better, but our balcony room was useless as we were tied to another ship with another stateroom feet away- a floating hotel with no privacy and no view.  The customer service people after the cruise were insulting in the way they talked to us about our experience.  I am completely unimpressed with Viking management.  It is a shame because they have many great employees on these boats, but the managers on shore made terrible business decisions.  I'll not give them another dime of my money unless they make this right.