You will love that itinerary. And I have heard that your direction is more efficient (going with the current), a bit more time in ports.
Dinner attire was nice but not overly formal. Mostly pants, with a variety of how dressy. Some gals had lovely tops over top of yoga pants. For dinner I wore black pants a lot (one pair was black jeans also used for daytime and the other pair was kindof a silky travel pant). I think I also had a black travel dress. My dressiest shoes were a pair of maryjanes with low rubber wedge soles. For touring we wore sneakers.
I don’t recall if shampoo was in cabins. We had a longer trip (3 days prior Amsterdam, 5 days afterward in Italy), and we did handwash of some socks and underwear and and underamour top I wore for touring. There are no washers/dryers, but there is laundry service. We intentionally planned for my husband to have 4 polo shirts cleaned (2 after first day, 2 more later)… $7 each. That splurge is what allowed him to travel with a carry-on roller bag, much easier to deal with on our train ride. I had a larger carry-on roller bag. We both had backpacks with a lot of stuff too.
If you do Facebook, I highly recommend that you check out the Viking Rhine Getaway group -https://www.facebook.com/groups/959821083198653/
and another more general one for Viking Rhine River cruises.
Viking provides a lovely array of toiletries - shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion. They smell very fresh, but distinctive. I brought an extra set home and have enjoyed them during the year since my cruise (Danube Waltz). They are exclusive to Viking.
A tip that worked for me:
Generally I take my showers at night (which does make travel mornings easier, since my husband does morning showers). On the Viking cruise, I often did my shower after touring, before dinner. Sometimes the shirt I wore to dinner (maybe dressed up with scarf or jacket) was reworn as one of my layers for the next morning’s touring.
I wore what I toured in all day to dinner. So did my husband
Some people will dress up for dinner, not all maybe not even many. The people who dressed up every night were the newlyweds we met, so nice but also on their honeymoons. Others dressed up some nights or wore a dressy top and black pants for dinner.
I didn’t wear leggings but pants with a sweater for tours. November it was cool so I didn’t sweat. We were so busy that there was little time between our tours and dinner.
Have fun, we did the route the same. We did the all day tour during our time in Basel, to Stanserhorn and Lucerne. Definitely a highlight of the trip. If you go to Switzerland, don’t miss seeing the alps!
My husband wore what he toured in to dinner. (polo shirt, merino black sweater if needed). I think he did change to his nicer/navy leather sneakers some nights.
I have these Easy Spririt Traveltime soft clog-shoes (which double as slippers) in Navy color and wore them a lot on the boat. They work well for my plantar fasciitis. I always wore them to breakfast, since Viking river boats are small and we had time to go back to the room afterward, before touring. Also wore them sometimes to lunch (instead of my sneakers, to give feet a break) and dinner - they have dark soles, did not look too awful with black pants. https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-4870030/easy-spirit-traveltime-womens-fashion-mules.jsp?topSkuId=58104824&skuId=71195953
So my comments above were for Rhine river cruise. I notice now that it is “Viking Ocean Cruises” forum - I probably have one of those next year. Question for those who have done both - are dress codes about the same?
No, to dine in the restaurant, which is the sit down option or any of the speciality restaurants, you can’t wear jeans.
It’s not that fancy either, just no jeans.
We had friends who dined in the buffet every night because they liked to be casual. The buffet is very nice and has many of the options the restaurant has. The buffet has a raw bar and sushi. Also a gelato station.
We did our B-A river cruise in June. There were a few people who dressed for dinner, but most wore what they had on during the day. It was very relaxed.
We’d like to do an 8 day Mediterranean during the quiet season. Any suggestions which is itinerary is better? would probably fly out of Boston and not interested in multiple plane changes, one change is enough.
In 2012, we did Norwegian’s Western Med cruise that started/ended in Barcelona (with a self-planned nights prior/after in Barcelona …then train to Madrid -stayed 2 nights and flew home from there). Soo many great places to see. But the shore excursions often had long bus rides (2 hours each way). And for Norwegian, cost back then could be as much as $225/person including a splendid lunch.
I was trying to remember which ports we visited, then I remembered I could turn around to look at the framed trip summary behind me in the kitchen. At Naples we visited Pompei and Sorrento, then late lunch was at a mozzella / lemon farm. Civtavecchia wass the port for Rome. And then Livorno was for Florence (which we almost cancelled, being wearing from two long days of touring - phew, we did see the glories of Florence and have since been back for a 4 night stay).
We did Athens to Barcelona end of November last year. 2 week long cruise segments.
The weather was better Athens to Rome. I personally thought that segment was more interesting than Rome to Barcelona. There’s also a sea day on the first segment, none on the second. It was nice to have a chill day.
Personally, I wasn’t as thrilled with the stops Rome to Barcelona. Florence is so far from the port. Some of the other port stops were just ok.
If I were to do it over again, I would do Athens to Rome or Venice to Athens. I’m glad to have been to Barcelona and Florence. Could have missed the other ports tbh
On our Basel-Amsterdam cruise, I usually changed into black pants and a nicer top for dinner (and took off the heavy duty walking shoes), but some days we just came straight from touring and wore whatever we had on. No one seemed to care, and people didn’t “dress” in the way that I associated with cruises.
Help me out, Viking friends. Is the following saying that after you pay in full (almost a year ahead of time)… cancel fee is only $100 if you do so more than 120 days prior to departure?
Thanks for the quick reply! We do have an agent, we are just deferring a call til we have our list of questions together.
NOTE: Per further research, you need to act within 14 days to get coverage for pre-existing medical conditions Viking or Allianz) and Viking/any-reason-cancel. We are past that window, so not a factor for us.
I’ve watched this video before. It is a bit misleading for the side by side comparison. What they didn’t mention is that Viking does a lot of discounting. We have friends who use Oceania exclusively and like Viking, once you’ve traveled with them, they keeping sending you lots of discounted marketing mail and emails.
Yes, you lose your deposit. However, you may lose your insurance as well - I was going to cancel my Oct 2027 trip because my sons wedding got in the way but my TA talked me into rescheduling because then I don’t lose any of my discounts and special credit the TA could share. Check on any insurance though, not sure if that is refundable.
I do think you’d loose your insurance (if already purchased). I’m wondering about the pay-in-full chunk of change. The following is encouraging, but I’m still researching…
AI Overview
If you are a US resident, canceling a Viking Cruise121 days or more prior to departure means you will receive a full cash refund of all fares paid, minus a $100 per person administrative cancellation fee. [1, 2, 3]
Even though Viking frequently requires passengers to pay their entire balance up to a year or more in advance, their standard cancellation penalty timeline does not officially activate until you hit the 120-day threshold. [1, 2, 3, 4]
