Viking Sun Antwerp to Basle

[woofas]

Last year I contacted Viking to thank and congratulate them on a wonderful "Eastern European Odyssey" holiday aboard the Viking Neptune (Budapest - Black Sea - Vienna). My wife and I returned on 24th June from a "Treasures of the Rhine" trip on the Viking Sun. I would dearly love to say that it measured up to our previous experience with Viking, but sadly it was a bitter disappointment.

 

With the exception of the cleaning staff, the whole crew appeared to have no real interest in the passengers other than what they could sell them. Specifically:-

a) at least three of the waiters seemed to have no idea about what they were supposed to do and in some instances were quite aggressive. On more than one occasion it took over an hour to serve the first two courses of dinner.

b) without doubt the food was of a much lower standard than on the Neptune although it did get better during the voyage which suggested that even the chefs were on a learning curve. On one evening the "International Cheese Selection" comprised of just Brie rolled in pepper, Brie rolled in paprika & Brie rolled in chives!

c) the layout of the lunch and breakfast buffets needed considerable thought and revision - food placed out of reach, cold plates, fruit juices with the hot dishes etc.

d) very limited & poor quality evening entertainment, eg. a word game with only six words! A hastily arranged question & answer session with the captain suggests scraping the barrel for ideas.

e) a penny pinching approach. I consider that €6.40 ($9.6) for a litre of water & €10 ($15) corkage charge on wine are excessive. I bought 9 litres of water in Antwerp for €2.75 ($4.12)

 

Overall, my view is that the Viking Sun carries far too many passengers for the current crew and facilities to handle properly. Added to which I consider that the crew were not adequately trained or experienced. Viking holidays are not cheap and it should be expected that staff are properly trained and that customers do not have to put up with the consequent poor service whilst still paying top price. Needless to say that I shall give considerable thought to taking any future holidays with Viking and will certainly avoid the larger ships if this is an example of what to expect.

 

I contacted Viking on June 26th to let them know of my disappointment and with the hope that they might improve things for other travellers. To date I have not even received the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

[smallshipcruiser]

Thank you so much for your review; I am looking to take a similar itinerary next year and thought that the Viking Sun would be a good way to experience Viking for the first time. After reading this review, and the other one posted here, there is no way; maybe as you said, there are too many people on board, but that is no excuse for the disinterested staff, especially when this is such an expensive cruise. It may well be the Sun that is the issue; perhaps another ship/itinerary would be a better choice for my first Viking cruise in Europe. I am definitely planning on doing China with Viking but will have to think carefully about what itinerary to try with them in Europe.

[roberts2005]

Your comment about the service in the dining room rings true. Most nights it took forever to have the first two course served, and then the the main course was rushed. It was like the food wasn't started until the orders went in.