Viking Jarl River Cruises Reviews

Loved the service and the food. Very friendly staff.

Viking takes excellent care of their guests.....felt very safe and very secure

This was by far the best trip we have ever taken, and we will likely go on another Viking River cruise after this experience. Viking is very organized and the included tours are interesting and well done. Everywhere we traveled, we had local guides so we got an insiders look at the cities and additional interesting information.

This was an excellent trip throughout. I look forward to many more bookings with you.

Viking provided outstanding service even provide an escort to ensure we got our boarding passes on the way home. Food was excellent and the staff most accommodating. My only complaint is that we were booked on British Air which meant going through Heathrow which is a mess for the transient passengers ( bus, train, long lines, just to get to the next gate). The short holdover between flights in London resulted in my suitcase not making it to Nuremberg. Also did not appreciate having a two-stop on the way over. It would seem to me that it would have been easy to get a one-stop via Frankfurt to Nuremberg.

Excellent tour and from start to finish everything was top notch!

We booked a Viking river cruise, pre and post extensions, and airfare, all of which were a very good value for the money.

My husband and I loved our trip on the Danube and would highly recommend it.

I very much liked the passenger size of 200. I don't care for the large capacity ships. I felt like I received much better personal service

Awesome experience.

The only negative about this trip is that the WiFi connection on the Viking ship was quite poor. My phone would not connect to their WIfi but my Samsung table would connect. However, in general the Wifi was quite a bit slower than we are used to. Never the less the service and organization was fantastic. The food was very high quality. I would mention also, that the river cruise on the Danube at this time of year was quite calm so no worries for someone like me who is prone to motion problems.

Be prepared to be "on-the-go" every day during the trip. Food was excellent. Excursions were well done. Ship was clean and smartly decorated. Met many nice people.

Any time I had a question it was answered promptly and professionally.

Overall the trip itself was better than expected. Nina was extremely helpful and patient, especially as I had no prior river cruise experience. The Viking Crew from the captain on down was exceptional and always willing to answer any question at any time. The dining room staff was personal and quick to respond. The young lady who waited on us in the lounge and dining room treated us like family. Viking is lucky to have her. We were also bowled over by the attention to detail given by the housing staff person. I swear that every time we left the room he cleaned it. We would always recommend Affordable Tours and Viking. The only negative that I have relates to the pre-trip extension to Prague arrangements. First, we upgraded from premium economy to business class. This upgrade is expensive and I see no reason to have to pay $50.00 per person just to ask for an upgrade. The expense of business class should cover the cost of requesting it. Additionally, we had a terrible experience in arriving into Prague with the loss of one of our bags. While this was not Viking's fault, they should have provided some assistance at the airport. I had to call the hotel twice to arrange a meeting with the Viking Representative at the airport.

Excellent trip and arrangements.

Katherine did an excellent job suggesting a Viking River Tour. We had a fabulous time.

The eight day trip through Hungary, Austria, and Germany on the Danube to visit historic sights and the various Christmas Markets was a wonderful experience. The Viking cruise met our highest expectations. Be prepared for a range of temperatures from the 40's to below freezing.

The staff on the Viking Cruise were phenomenal. They were very pleasant, attentive and accommodating. The Program Director, David, was energetic and enthusiastic. He skillfully managed problems that arise that were beyond his control(climate related). He did so in a positive and update manner. Lufthansa Airlines was very disappointing. The loading procedures both here and in Germany were very disorganized. We almost missed a connecting flight! On our return.

There were a few issues. Internet connections were not working for first day or two. Part of "river cruise" was by bus, but Viking tried to make up by dropping cost for optional tour, and otherwise went out of their way to compensate. One problem for many was that notification was made at list minute (after many were already in Europe), though there was reason to believe Danube would be too low for cruises at spots several weeks ahead of time.

The low water on the Danube did not allow us to see the tour we intended. In fact, our Avalon bus tour a few years ago (Imperial Europe), has less "bus time" than the river cruise.

We booked 1 of 2 Explorer Suites on the ship. The room size and view was great, but we were not told the room was over the noisy and vibrating engine room. We had a hard time sleeping at night, and were too exhausted to enjoy the tours during the days. The ship has a fatal flaw.

This was our 3rd Viking Tour and it seemed to us that staff in general was not as trained as previous cruises. Of course there were 2-3 very well trained staff members that were terrific, but we noticed a little less overall welcome in general from the staff. We see it as a lack in training. We did feed that back directly to Viking on our post trip review. Other than that food was exceptionally good on this cruise and tour guides outstanding. It would not stop us from taking another cruise with Viking.

This was our first experience taking a Viking River Cruise. For the most part, it was a wonderful experience and I would consider taking Viking again, although I might want to try one of the other companies for comparison. Pros: The food was excellent. The service was excellent. The ship was very nice for a smaller boat. Cons: The rooms were quite small. I noticed others had a chair in the room and I wonder what the cost difference was for that bit of extra room. The step up to the bathroom felt dangerous. The bed was quite hard and uncomfortable. I expected that to be better on Viking. The excursions did not offer enough free time for shopping and exploring. Most of the excursions we took left about 40-50 minutes at the end of the tour. With the quaint towns to explore, that was not enough time for much of anything. Some tours did not include entrance into a palace or abbey and that would have made the tour much more interesting.

We did not have a river tour, we had a BUS tour. We were not told far enough in advance that the river was too low to cruse to be able to reschedule when we could have actually had a river cruse. We did not arrive on the Jarl until late Thursday, instead of Sunday as scheduled. We saw corn fields, and sunflower fields instead of castles. Because we didn't follow the schedule everything else was off schedule and there was hardy no shopping. This was the vacation I was most looking forward to and the worst vacation I have ever taken. I will NEVER take another.