Just returned from Viking Eastern European Odessey; any questions?

[parkie]

We just returned from this trip -- Nuremberg to Bucharest -- and would be glad to field any questions. Good trip overall.

[Mel]

As you can see from my reply below to a previous thread of yours - I would love to hear any and all details of your cruise - don't suppose you could post a little review, could you????

 

'Hi Parkie,

I'm dying to hear how your Eastern European Odyssey went! Any comments would be most welcome. Only 79 days until we leave -- no, I'm not excited or anything..... Mel'

 

How did you find the food (that's always important to me...), the included tours, and did you take any optional excursions?

 

We are in a Cat. E cabin because it seemed like such a great deal and we won't be in the cabin much anyway. Did you happen to talk to anyone who was in this type of cabin and if so, did they have any comments on it?

 

Glad to hear you had a good trip. Mel

[biotech]

I will be on this cruise in June 2010, going from Passau to Oltenia. I would like to know about getting to Passau from Munich if you don't take the ship's transfer. I am also considering doing the 4 day post extention tour of Transylvania and would be interested in any comments that you might have.

[parkie]

As you can see from my reply below to a previous thread of yours - I would love to hear any and all details of your cruise - don't suppose you could post a little review, could you????

 

'Hi Parkie,

I'm dying to hear how your Eastern European Odyssey went! Any comments would be most welcome. Only 79 days until we leave -- no, I'm not excited or anything..... Mel'

 

How did you find the food (that's always important to me...), the included tours, and did you take any optional excursions?

 

We are in a Cat. E cabin because it seemed like such a great deal and we won't be in the cabin much anyway. Did you happen to talk to anyone who was in this type of cabin and if so, did they have any comments on it?

 

Glad to hear you had a good trip. Mel

 

It was a fine trip. The food was good; the only issue that I had was on previous Viking trips, there was always an option at lunch and dinner of a chicken breast or some sort of steak (if you didn't like the entree choices). I have occasionally chosen the chicken breast. This time, the offering was the processed form of chicken and it was not good. My friend chose the rump steak one time and declared it tasty but tough.

 

The included tours were fine; I would like to have had more free time in a couple of cities, like Regensburg and Passau, but we had to leave both these cities due to "docking issues." This caused a lot of consternation amongst the passengers, but the explanation that we got was that "Viking needed the docking space for other ships." (There is a lot of river cruising traffic on both the Rhine and Danube.) When folks complained that this was not in the itinerary, they were told that the information we had was last years trip??

 

After we left Passau, we were taken to some town called Vilshofen which was uninteresting. You could walk around town, and we did, but by the time we got there (around 9PM) everything was closed, so it did no good.

 

We only did one extra tour -- the Schonbrunn castle in Vienna and it was excellent.

 

With respect to category E cabins, we did meet some folks who were on that level and they had no complaints. We were in that category on the Viking Fontane last fall, and our only issue is that there is very little storage space, compared to our category B cabin on the Viking Neptune. We don't travel light, and there was space for everything that we brought.

 

Overall, the trip was fine; my only complaint was that I would have liked to have more free time in the Western cities for shopping. Also, I probably would have liked to travel from Bucharest to Nuremberg, rather than the "west to east" direction we took. The eastern portion of the trip suffered by comparison with the western European architecture, etc.

 

Let me know if you have other specific questions.

[parkie]

I will be on this cruise in June 2010, going from Passau to Oltenia. I would like to know about getting to Passau from Munich if you don't take the ship's transfer. I am also considering doing the 4 day post extention tour of Transylvania and would be interested in any comments that you might have.

 

Oufr tip this year was from Nuremberg to Oltenita; we handled our own travel and flew to Frankfort and then took the train from the Frankfort airport (ICE train, fast train) to Nuremberg and then cabbed it to the ship. I suppose that you could check train schedules between Munich and Passau on the internet; we did so and booked both our train tickets and seat reservations.

 

We did not take the extensions; we did stay an extra night in Bucharest and liked it.

 

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Mel]

Thanks, Parkie. I just looked at the itinerary on Viking's website and it definitely says free afternoon in Passau and Regensburg, then departing during dinner. This is for the Bucharest to Nuremberg itinerary (which we are on, so perhaps they feel they can change it on the west to east itinerary???) I think I'll avoid the chicken! Mel

[ERK42]

We are leaving Dec. 6th - Basel to Amsterdam. We are spending 3 days in Basel before the trip and thinking about acouple days in Amsterdam after the trip. This will be on our own. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

We have cruised on Holland America 5 times...wondering about the food, dinning area and also the "price" of drinks. Wine? Beer? I noticed they an "All-inclusive Silver Sprirts" but think it is kind of expensive...unless a martini is $20 per drink!!!

Does Viking have "formal" night???

Thanks.

[dublin]

We just returned from this trip -- Nuremberg to Bucharest -- and would be glad to field any questions. Good trip overall.

 

How was the cruise - what was your favorite stop or activity

[Mel]

Since five of the seven countries we visit on the Eastern European Odyssey have their own currency, not Euros, I wondered if you ever tried paying for something in either US dollars or Euros or credit cards. With such a short time in some countries, it seems a shame to have to find an ATM and pay the $5.00 fee that our bank charges no matter how small the amount withdrawn is! For instance, if we wanted to buy a coffee, will we need to have some local currency?

[letsgo39]

If you had a business in the States would you accept foreign currency as payment?

My bank does not charge me $ 5.00,they charge $1.25 for a ATM fee. You will definitely need some local currency for any country not part of the Europeon union. If you paid for a coffee with a credit card they will charge you a conversion fee.