Travel – Viking Cruises – River vs Ocean

I am a big fan of Viking cruises.  Their approach is very much focused on what I want on a cruise: people over 40 and not families with children, good food and wine, a choice of excursions, and especially smaller boats and no huge crowds.  I have no issue with people who are looking for all the things that I am looking to avoid and we can each enjoy the kind of cruise that appeals to us.

I have done two Viking river cruises and one ocean cruise.  There are things I like about each of them and this blog will do a comparison that might help you with your travel planning.  Two major disclaimers:

1. The river cruises I took were before COVID.  Some of the things that I will talk about that I really liked about river cruises may be different while we are dealing with COVID.  The ocean cruise I took was in November of 2021 and I give Viking the highest marks for the things they did to make us feel safe and protect the health of the passengers and crew.
2. The ship we sailed on for our ocean cruise has a capacity for 930 passengers.  We only had 471 on board so just over 50% capacity.  The experience on the same cruise with the ship at full capacity might be different in some ways. 

As indicated, I am a Viking fan and am planning another cruise with them in 2023.  The things that I really like about any Viking cruise, river or ocean, are:

• Very targeted marketing: The Viking cruises that I see on their web site are for an English speaking audience that is looking to cruise with people in the 50-75 year age range.  Some are younger and some a little older but while accommodations are made for those with handicaps, most of our fellow passengers were in good health and active.  The younger people on the cruise were generally mother/daughter or father/son combinations with the child at least in their late 30s.  The activities on board and the excursions were very focused on things this age group would enjoy.
• Excellent service: The entire Viking staff is committed to help each passenger enjoy their cruise.  Within 24 hours of getting on board my stress level is at its lowest and I am enjoying excellent service and people trying hard to make my day very enjoyable.  On the recent ocean cruise we were totally spoiled with the service including being able to walk into any of the restaurants and have a table available.  When the ship has a full capacity of passengers, I believe having reservations at the different restaurants is required and the staff would have more people to wait on.
• Very good excursions:  Both of the river cruises and the ocean cruise did most of their sailing at night, so we were at our next destination in the morning for that day’s excursions.  For the ocean cruise the only day time sailing we did was a few hours the first day from Civitavecchia up to Livorno.  On the river cruises we would start our morning excursion where the boat had docked, and it would sail up the river and we would rejoin it at that location.  There were a few times when we stayed on the boat and enjoyed sailing up the river instead of being on an excursion.  Every day has a at least one free excursion and several ones that cost extra.  On each trip we had one location where Viking really had a challenge finding excursions that were interesting and enjoyable and we took that as an opportunity to just crash for the day on board, sleeping in and just lounging around.  Viking gives each passenger a wifi receiver with headset and is linked to the guide for that excursion and the groups are generally no larger than 25 people.  This lets you clearly hear the guides, who are very qualified, and with the small groups, they have lots of time for questions.  The only negative I can say about Viking excursions is that they do not do a good job with excursions where wine tasting is a key element.  We skipped both of their wine tasting excursions in the Rhone Valley, one of the top wine regions in the world, because they were only tasing two wines.  We scheduled our own wine tasting through Viatour and enjoyed 8-10 different wines each time.   The Chianti wine tasting dinner we had on the ocean cruise was very poorly done and the entire group was very unhappy about it.  However, the wine tasting dinner on the Portugal river cruise was outstanding and the two other excursions that included wine tasting were mixed with one good one and one disappointing one at Sandeman’s Port Winery.  The excursions are generally excellent in quality and I only bring this up because it seems to be a theme that Viking does not have excursions geared towards people who are serious about wine.  For culture, history, scenery, and food – the excursions are all very high quality.
• Dining – The food on all three of our cruises was excellent.  Very good choices and delicious.  My only criticism is that I think the menus could be more closely tied to the cuisine of the region being visited.  The Portugal river cruise did a pretty good job of this.  But the Rhone Valley cruise had one very good lunch buffet of local dishes but nothing else that was tied to that region.  On the ocean cruise we were doing Northern Italy, Southern France, and Spain; three regions known for their outstanding cuisine.  But the top restaurant on the ship, the Chef’s Table, had three different theme menus, none of them related to where we were cruising: The Spice Trade with spices from the Orient, California, and Mexico.  I am sure the dishes were excellent, but we did not come to the Mediterranean to eat Mexican food, even of the highest quality.  Again, as with the note above on wine tasting excursions, this is a complaint about just one aspect of an otherwise excellent dining experience.  Viking provides free wine and beer with lunches and dinners.  I highly recommend the Silver Beverage Package which is priced per person based on the length of the cruise.  It was about $130 per person on the three 8 day cruses we did.  Under this package you can select wines form a very good wine list at no charge to you and all drinks form the bar are included.  We enjoyed some nice after dinner drinks in particular and are big fans of the Silver beverage package.
• Bundled travel – I have lifetime status on United and lots of points to get me in Business Class, so I have not taken the package with Viking that includes the airfare.  But I am very jealous of the people who do take that package.  They are met at their arrival airport by Viking with transit to the ship with their luggage taken care of and on the return Viking gets them and their luggage to the airport on time for their flight.  On several of the cruises some people were going from one Viking cruise to another and again, they had someone taking care of them the whole way.

River Cruises

What I particularly liked about the two river cruises we took was being on a ship with only less than 200 other passengers.  There is one dining room and everyone eats at the same time.  On our cruises most of the tables were for 8 people and you could meet different people at each meal.  On both cruises we met some lovely people and arranged to do excursions with them and join them for meals.  We did not get to know any other passengers on our ocean cruise.  This was very much due to COVID restrictions and the collaborative atmosphere that we really enjoyed on the river cruises may now be a victim of COVID.  For the both river cruises the bartender and the wait staff in the dining room was talking to me by name and knew what my preferences were because of the small number of passengers.

There is one bar serving drinks before and after dinner.  Before dinner there is a talk on the next day’s excursions and after dinner most evenings there is some form of entertainment for those who are interested.  Taking your after-dinner drinks, included in the Silver Beverage Package, up to the Sundeck is a very pleasant alternative if the entertainment is not to your choice. 

Most river cruises have locks that they transit and those are interesting, at least the first few times.  The lock we had in Portugal has one of the highest elevation changes of any lock in the world I believe.  Hopefully the picture conveys that.

For those who want a casino and different night club shows every night, river cruises may not be for you.  Also, they do not have pools or health clubs to work out in.  Before retiring my life had high stress levels with deadlines and many meetings.  I am looking for a vacation where things are at a slower pace, and I can be waited on while I sit in a comfortable lounge chair and watch the scenery and maybe read my book.  What I liked most about our river cruises was no crowds, the only schedule to worry about was when the excursion left, and good food and wine.

We will be taking the Viking River Cruise from Amsterdam to Brest in December where we will visit the Christmas Markets in 7 different cities. I suspect here will be lots of pictures from that cruise.

Ocean Cruises

The very first cruise we did was a Princess Cruise from Vancouver to Alaska on a boat with 3,500 passengers.  The scenery was great but I didn’t really relax until we got off the ship for the land portion of the trip.  I had pretty much ruled out cruises from our vacation plans after that until we heard about Viking river cruises.  Having really enjoyed them and talking to several friends who took the Viking Mediterranean ocean cruise, I was willing to give it a try on a ship like the one in the picture with only 950  passengers.  I really enjoyed it and we are looking at several other itineraries for future Viking ocean cruises. 

The major differences for the ocean cruise are the broader range of choices available on the ship.

• Dining – There were four major restaurants and several other smaller ones like the pool bar.  Two of them required reservations and based on how much you paid for your accommodations drove how many reservations you could have in each and how much ahead of your boarding the ship you could make those reservations.  As noted earlier, because of the low passenger count, we could walk into any of the restaurants and be immediately seated.  This gave us a very wide range of cuisines to choose from with each of the restaurants posting that day’s menus on line.  When the ships are back to carrying a full load of passengers, the dining choices each day will be much more limited and driven by reservations for a specific restaurant at a specific time.
• Entertainment – Entertainment is not a high priority for us on a cruise and while the choices were much more than on the river cruise, they are nothing like the huge cruise ships with 7,000 passengers. The ocean ship ship had many more entertainment options including four different Viking resident musicians which were a solo guitarist, a harp player, a string duet, and two very talented singers doing popular and classic rock songs.  At different times they played in different locations so we could enjoy some lovely background music or more lively entertainment.  The closest thing to a night club type environment was the singers in the ship auditorium but with the head count even that had lots of open space.  Other entertainment options included:
  • A Viking Resident Historian offering a set of lectures and discussions on a variety of topics.
  • Guest lecturers on the art, architecture, music, and geopolitics of the places we were visiting.
  • Destination Performances – at least one cultural performing group from the region we were visiting.
  • TED Talks.
  • Port Talks on the next days excursions.

• Pool and Spa – The ship had two pools, each with a Hot Tub.  At the very stern of the ship was an Infinity pool and mid ships was a larger pool with a sliding roof that they could open or close.  While we were in the Med, it was November so they kept the roof closed most of the time so passengers could take a dip in the pool or enjoy the hot tub.  They also had a well-equipped health club and spa and both my wife and I enjoyed a massage.  For us, the hot tubs and the Spa were things we very much enjoyed that are not available on the river cruises.
• Nooks and crannies – The ship and many different places on different decks to sit and relax or talk.  The chairs were very comfortable, and it was never far to get a glass of wine.  We upgraded our room to the Junior Explorer Suite which had a sofa as well as two chairs with a curtain to pull between the sitting area and the bed so one of us could read without having a light on while the other slept.  But with the different nooks and crannies we never felt like we had to stay in our room and could easily find more comfortable chairs to relax in.  Again, with twice as many passengers on board, more of those nooks and crannies would not have been vacant.
• Sailing vs mobile hotel – For our itinerary virtually all the sailing was done in the evenings and overnight.  We were at the dock in a new port most mornings.  That made the experience more like a mobile hotel than a cruise.  Talking to other passengers, mostly during the excursions, who joined the ship at an earlier departure point, they said they had some days where the ship was sailing, and they could sit out and enjoy it.  From Barcelona where we ended our cruise, the ship had a few other stops around the Med and then was going to South America so that would be several days at sea with no excursions.  If you want to enjoy some sailing time on the boat and not just a very nice mobile hotel, check the itinerary so see what will be available.
• Motion sickness – The river cruises are never far from shore and did not have any time when they had any motion that could cause sea sickness.  Many times there was no sensation of movement at all.  Several times we finished dinner and walked in the companion way to see that while we were at dinner another Viking boat had some in and was between us and the dock and we needed to walk through it to get on and off.  But we had no idea the ship was moving to make that happen.  The big Princess boat we were on did go through one storm on the way to Alaska and even with its gyro stabilizers at least 1/3 of the passengers skipped dinner with waves breaking against the windows in the dining room.  But we had no bad weather in the Med during our cruise and virtually no sense that the boat was moving at any time. 

Summary

I really enjoyed both the Viking River Cruises and the Ocean Cruise.  But I have no interest in getting on any of the big cruise ships with 5,000+ passengers so I will stay on the much smaller boats like Viking has for any future ocean cruises.  In choosing between booking a Viking river cruise or an ocean cruise my recommendation is if you are primarily interested in what you will do each day when the ship is docked then a river cruise might be your first choice.  If you are very interested in what you can do on board the ship, especially in the evenings, then you might enjoy the ocean cruise more.  River cruises have things to do each night but nothing like the choices that the ocean cruise has.  Ocean cruises have great excursions but you are covering a much larger area from the start of your cruise to the end so you get breadth where the river cruises give more depth.  Our Rhone Valley cruise started in Avignon and ended in Lyon 8 days later.  You can drive from Avignon to Lyon in a few hours so we really had a chance to explore the Rhone Valley.  On the Portugal trip we sailed from Porto up the Duoro River to the Spanish border and then sailed back for 6 days on the boat.  For the ocean cruise we started in Civitavecchia, the port city for Rome, and went around the coast up Italy, across France and ended up in Barcelona.  Three different countries compared to two different cities.  Both are very good, just pick the itinerary that best fits your interests.

Of the three cruises we did the Portugal River Cruse was my favorite but we really enjoyed all three and are looking forward to our December cruise. I hope this post has been interesting and helpful to you.

Link to Viking River Cruises: https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/

Link to Viking Ocean Cruises: https://www.vikingcruises.com/ocean