viking tulips and windmill cruise

[elliened]

my husband and i are booked for the viking holland and belgium cruise in april 2005. has anyone any information for us about the company, tours and what we should be sure to see and do. this will be our first river cruise although we have cruised before. we will be grateful for all information. also any opinions on viking.

 

thanks

ellie

[goeurope]

my husband and i are booked for the viking holland and belgium cruise in april 2005. has anyone any information for us about the company, tours and what we should be sure to see and do. this will be our first river cruise although we have cruised before. we will be grateful for all information. also any opinions on viking.

 

thanks

ellie

 

I haven't taken that cruise, but I did cruise on the VIKING BURGUNDY last year, and I enjoyed it a great deal. Viking is a thoroughly professional outfit. You can read my detailed review with photo gallery at:

 

http://europeforvisitors.com/europe/cruising/viking-burgundy.htm

[cmthomas]

Ellie, I hope that you will not expect a river cruise to be like an ocean cruise as they are vastly different products. The river cruise is more port intensive but does include the advantages of a cruise in only having to unpack once and having the benefit of delightful cuisine. We jjst returned from a wonderful river cruise on the Rhine and Mosel, although not on a Viking ship. In our conversations with other passengers on our ship the topic often included a comparison of the competing lines, mainly Grand Circle, Vantage and Viking. Several people had sailed on all three and indicated that they were equally outstanding and that the dates, availability and itinerary should be the determining factor over which line to chose. From this Board it seems that there has been generally very favorable feedback on Viking and I certainly intend to try them one day soon. Hope this helps. Clarence:)

[cmthomas]

By the way, as an additional suggestion you might want to review the posts at http://www.cruisemates.com/MBindex/vikingriver.cfm the deal specifically with Viking River Cruises. Clarence

[elliened]

thank you for the help. we understand that river cruises are very different. my husband has come to hate land tours and the constant hotel changes and the packing and unpacking. that is why we are trying this type of european trip. we were wondering if he should take a jacket for dinner with him or is it really very casual.

thanks again.

[cmthomas]

I can't speak for ALL river cruise lines but on Grand Circle I packed a sport jacket and did not wear it a single time! For those events that seemed to be "dressier" (whatever that means) I wore a sweater over a sport shirt and slacks. I did see the occasional sport jacket but that was the exception rather than the rule on our ship. Clarence:)

[travelnnana]

Viking is a wonderful cruise line. All their tours are included. Grand CIrce has some optional tours - which keeps the price down and you don't have to go if you don't want to. DH and I prefer Grand Circle. I like the Program Directors and for shorter river cruises like France and Holland Belgium in the Springtime, they include land tours as well. We are doing Holland and Belgium in the Springtime and are taking a pre-trip to Bruge (we have been told not to miss it) then 3 nights in Belgium before boarding the river ship.

I don't know about any of the other companies.

[delpan]

my husband and i are booked for the viking holland and belgium cruise in april 2005. has anyone any information for us about the company, tours and what we should be sure to see and do. this will be our first river cruise although we have cruised before. we will be grateful for all information. also any opinions on viking.

 

thanks

ellie

 

Hi Ellie, my husband and I are also booked for viking holland and belgium cruise our ship is the Viking Neptune and we sail 4/6/05. We also have cruise on the big ocean liners, this will be our first river cruise. What ever info you can get will help us also. What ship are you on? Thanks, Cruising Julie

[elliened]

we are booked on the viking sky on 4/10/05. too bad we did not end up on the same trip. we thought this trip would be a good one to try for our first river cruise. we have no real info yet but if we do get some i will lwt you know.

 

ellie

[pdietze]

Took the Viking Netherlands cruise in April of 2002 and am sure you are going to love it! We also like the river cruises because of unpacking just one time. You will be visiting Keukenhof Gardens, which are too beautiful to even describe...that alone would make the trip worthwhile. If you are able, timewise, tour the Anne Frank house while in Amsterdam..truly awe-inspiring. We arrived in Amsterdam early in the morning and could not access our cabin until 4PM, so walked over to the river and took a riverboat tour to the landing where the Frank house was located. Had to stand in line for about an hour (in the rain), since the Netherland residents are just as eager to see it as the tourists. It's a beautiful country, and you will be absolutely astounded at how clean the highways are. It's a country that is steeped in history and gives a whole new meaning to the word "picturesque". Enjoy!!!

[wieslaw]

my husband and i are booked for the viking holland and belgium cruise in april 2005. has anyone any information for us about the company, tours and what we should be sure to see and do. this will be our first river cruise although we have cruised before. we will be grateful for all information. also any opinions on viking.

 

thanks

ellie

Hi Ellie

we did a very similar river cruise on the Viking Europe in April/May of 2003 ("A Dutch Journey" -ours was only 7 days and did not include Belgium, but it had many of the same stops as your cruise).

We also did a number of ocean cruises (about 16) and that was our first river cruise......and it was wonderful and I am sure we will river cruise again.

Viking and its crew were great and we enjoyed every moment of the cruise.

All of the daily tours were included in the price of the cruise (there were only two optional tours offered in addition). Every day 4 buses with local guides were waiting for us to take us to see many interesting places. Every thing was well organized.

If you want any specific information please let me know: arrival at the airport, arrival at the ship, money, daily activities,tips,smoking, entertainment, etc.......I will share with you, what I know.

About the jacket that you have asked in another post - yes the cruise is very casual but there were people (especially from Europe) that did wear jackets even every dinner and they looked very elegant. I did have a suit that I wore twice. The so called 'formal' nights are very informal and jackets are not required but many people did have them on. Also most of local people wore jackets in nicer restaurants. Europe seems to be more elegant than we are.

I still have some of the 'daily' papers - so I can dig out information that might interest you.

I am pretty sure that you will have a wonderful vacation/cruise - there is a lot to see and enjoy.

Wes

[elliened]

we have been looking through the itinerary listed in the viking catalogue and it seems difficult to know how much free time we will have to do our own sight seeing in addition to the excursions from the cruise line. we would be very interested in ths information. we want to go the some of the places not listed in the brochures and hope there will be time to do so. we will be happy with any information you all out there can give us.

ellie