4-COLOR BOOKLET OR POUND OF FLESH
We keep getting these expensive four-color Viking Cruise Line booklets in the mail, each touting Viking cruises on both ocean and river vessels. These are not brochures, they’re booklets that are each about a quarter-inch thick, printed on slick paper with beautiful photos. We don’t get two or three a year. We get a couple booklets a week, all inviting us to come onboard for another wonderful international adventure.
The other day, after getting the third Viking missive in a week, I suggested to my wife that maybe we should contact Viking and tell them to stop wasting their money sending us these booklets because we are never going to go on another Viking cr
“Nope,” Carmela said. “I want them to keep sending those booklets until they spend more money marketing to us than we spent to go on their cruise.”
A nutty woman, my wife.
The back-story is that five years ago – in March 2019 – Carmela and I flew to Europe to embark on a three-week Viking River Cruise across Europe that started on the Rhine River in Amsterdam and ended on the Danube River in Budapest. We opted for both a couple extra days in Amsterdam and the end-of-cruise side trip to Prague. Although lots of people love this kind of cruise where everything is planned out, we found that it’s not really our cup of tea.
We spent long hours planning our cruise, picking tours, making arrangements, and being excited about the trip. The first couple of days were great. We loved being on a river boat that floated lazily down the river as we watched the world go by.
But it was the first cruise of the season and because of the snow melt in the mountains, the river was running high. Finally – just west of Wurzburg – we came to a bridge that the long ship would not fit beneath. So we docked for several days and waited, hoping the water would recede enough so we could squeeze beneath the bridge.
But the clock was ticking and the cities and attractions we bought were falling farther and farther from our location, as we remained docked on the wrong side of the bridge. Not to worry though, Viking provided us with lots of pre-packaged cookies and kept the bar open round the clock for us to purchase alcohol to ease our pain.
Normally, when the river becomes impassable by one of the long boats, the folks on an east-bound boat would disembark and change places with the folks on a west-bound boat – then the west-bound boat would turn around and go east and the east-bound boat head west. A little inconvenient, but that’s how travel is. But since we were the first cruise of the season, there was no west-bound boat onto which we could transfer. Not exactly great planning on Viking’s part.
Finally, the cruise line hired buses to take folks to the attractions promised, but as the days passed and the boat didn’t move, the bus rides to attractions became longer and longer, which meant the visits to the promised attractions became shorter and shorter. So, instead of sailing down the river and then taking a half-hour bus ride to our historical destination, the boat sat where it was and passengers had to take as much as a four-hour bus ride each way to see a castle or museum – leaving a visit of an hour or so for our nine-hour time investment.
Of course, travel is an adventure and when you go on an adventure, things can go wrong. But we were on an adventure where we had no control over where we went, how long we spent there, or what we saw. Viking was in charge of all that, and frankly, we were less than impressed.
We didn’t go on a cruise to sit docked on a boat by the side of the river or to go on endless bus rides to far-away places.
Did we have fun? We did, but mostly because Carmela and I have fun wherever we go. We got off the boat several times and wandered on our own into the nearest town on foot. And, we had a couple adventures of our own making. The crew did a wonderful job trying to entertain us and make the best of the situation. But let’s face it, we were really just prisoners on a nice long boat with good food. Our destiny was not our own.
Would we ever do it again? No way. We prefer to be in charge of our own trouble.
Just before our river journey ended, the cook – Chef Roman – addressed a gathering of passengers. He boasted that he himself had fallen ill during the trip, but he soldiered on and never left his post in the kitchen, preparing wonderful meals for us all. By this time, everybody on board was hacking and wheezing, including us. Thank you Chef Roman.
What we realized on this trip was that as much as we liked cruising down the river, we had turned over control of our trip to a company that charged big bucks to entertain and feed us. The little German towns we visited along the river were tourist traps with lots of shops all hawking the same memorabilia and novelty junk. By the third identical town, Carmela dubbed them all “It’s a Small World,” and reminded me that she hates Disneyland.
But, we both agreed that we would have liked to spend more time in Amsterdam, an exciting and beautiful city; more time in Vienna, a place of great culture and beauty that was reduced to a six-hour visit; and more time in Budapest, a city full of restaurants and culture. We got about three hours there.
As it was, the visits to those wonderful, cosmopolitan cities were cut short.
The extended trip, overland by bus to Prague, was probably our favorite city of all. We had a great time there, but it was only a short visit with a plane to catch and a flight to take to another airport where we would take another plane to take us home. And, of course, we were still suffering from Chef Roman’s cold the whole three days we were in Prague.
Having said all that, we know many people who love the Viking cruises, both river and ocean. And that’s pretty cool.
There were parts we liked too, such as sitting on our private balcony, close enough to the riverbank to wave to the people on shore, watching night fall, going up to the top deck which was mostly deserted except for the few other hardy souls willing to brave the cold wind and rain.
The Viking Cruise definitely wasn’t all bad. But it wasn’t us. Maybe because planned adventure is not really adventure at all. It’s just three-week-long “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride with a couple “Small World” turns thrown in.
After our trip, Viking offered to compensate us for a river cruise that even they admitted had gone badly. Fair enough. We would have been happy with a partial refund. The compensation turned out to be discount vouchers for other Viking voyages.
That is never going to happen. So keep sending us those slick, four-color booklets, Viking. Maybe even send them first class mail, instead of bulk.
Carmela wants her due.
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