VikingReviews of viking.com

Had a Iceland Cruise in June 2026. I needed to cancel due to personal reasons. I contacted Viking and explained my particutar situation. I was giving Viking over a 2 year notice so the cabin can be resold. Viking denied my request for a refund of the "BIG" $50 Deposit. There are always exceptions to the rules that Viking could have made in my case. NOT CUSTOMER FRIENDLY.

I am writing this review before the cruise. I hope I can return and review this with a higher rating. So far it has been a cluster $&@“. Air management team has been a nightmare. They had my traveling companion on a different flight to Amsterdam. Not good. 3.5 hrs on the phone to get it straightened out and of course more $$ out of pocket. I finally just said I will get myself to Atlanta you get me to Amsterdam and back to Atlanta. So one leg of my prepaid trip is paid by me a second time. No ONE travel consultant assigned to us so absolutely no consistency. Lack of communication has also been a big problem. This is to be the Cream de la cream, cruise travel company. I am not seeing it. Hope it changes with the cruise, but they have a lot of work to do in the front end to be given a top rating.

Customer service is no help at all. We booked two cruises at the same time .. they said we can not have transfer in between the cruise to the air port unless we fly back to USA and fly back to Europe?? Secondly we pay for air plus to book the flight we wanted and they changed our flight from directly to transfer to Canada.. so why we pay for the extra 100 ??

I have just got back from a Viking river cruise. From the minute we arrived at the airport on arrival, until they dropped us off at the airport at the end of the 2 weeks, Viking were just amazing. The boats are lovely, the food is amazing and nothing, absolutely nothing is too much trouble. The included excursions are great value and again, everything is organised perfectly, no effort involved on our part. However, I do think people need to be aware that most of the included excursions start at 8 or 8:30am. Which means you have to get up, have breakfast and be ready to board the bus by 8:15am. Not a major problem but having a bit more time would be nice. Also, after you return to the boat, there is time to mingle with other guests in the lounge etc and enjoy some locally provided entertainment, or you can just go and relax in your ‘room’ but then you have to get a seat in the lounge to be there for 6:45pm when a key member of the crew tells you what’s happening the next day. Then, it’s off into dinner for which there is only 1 seating time. Again, not a major problem but worth noting as it sometimes felt as though we were on a ‘school trip’. When you return to your cabin each night there is a sheet detailing everything that is happening the next day so you don’t have to attend the ‘port talks’ but it helps you get to know other travellers. You can watch the locally provided entertainment and the port talks on the tv in your cabin but the audio is dreadful, Viking need to update the tv system. I think it is of utmost importance (probably obvious) that you pick the correct route. We did the Eastern Europe route, whilst it was interesting there are limits as to what you can do in each port, as there was literally only the 1 sightseeing ‘thing’ there and nothing else in some of them. If you want to be able to get off and explore the local port areas etc you need to choose the route wisely. So, the staff were great, the boats were great, the food was great and ‘most’ of the excursions were good. Viking’s management of the whole trip was superb and I would definitely consider going with them again but I would want a route that had ‘stuff’ you could get off the boat and see in the various ports etc. aside from the organised excursions.

We gave Viking $8999.00 toward a future cruise. Due to illness we were unable to book a cruise. When we requested to use that deposit for another cruise and or return the money, they denied the request. Dealing with Miller Rubio was a lesson in duplicity and deceit.I would strongly encourage Ocean travelers to find a more honorable company.

I apologize for posting this review almost a year after the cruise. I spent a great deal of time writing a 20-page report with feedback and recommendations to Viking Cruises, thinking that they would want to know how poorly their business performed and thereby make changes. I spent time searching for the email addresses of Viking’s Chairman and his Assistant, sending them my report, followed by slow mail posted to the Vice-President of Corporate Communications & Customer Engagement in Woodland Hills, CA. Then I waited. And waited. And waited. It was shocking that I never heard from any of them, not even an acknowledgement of receipt of my report. In addition, the poor experience was at the level that I did not want to relive it by writing about it again and again. Nevertheless, it felt wrong not to share our horrific experience with future and fellow river cruise guests. As customers and clients of services, we are reasonable and understand mistakes can happen anywhere and anytime. The essence is how these mistakes, once known, are dealt with by the upper echelons of the business. In this regard, Viking failed miserably. The message I received is that we are only two customers and it really does not matter to Viking that they lost just two customers. The only Viking person I heard from was a customer service agent who called after my travel agent complained to the local manager. And this customer service agent claimed he was an executive level Customer Agent who dealt with escalated cases. I have submitted complaints to all kinds of organizations – Retail, Banking, Tourism, Communications. The executives all responded to me personally and introduced me to their personal assistants to make amends. This Viking agent commented that he could not offer me more than the standard $250 pp refund to compensate for the sewage smell in the cabin because 'we did eat the food and we did sleep on the ship'. He offered vouchers for future cruises but why would we have any confidence in pouring more money to another cruise when Viking had not given any indication they valued our feedback and took our complaints seriously? He was also not able to give me any feedback of how the executives reacted to my report. If anyone is interested in my report, respond here and I will email a copy to you. So as not to take up pages on this forum, I will just provide highlights of some of the problems. Note that Viking will likely explain the poor service as caused by this being a new itinerary and first cruise of the season (Viking’s Capitals of Eastern Europe). Regardless, it is how the problems were dealt with, or rather, not dealt with. • Sewage Smell in Cabin – the steward knew about it before we boarded but did not deal with it. We later found out there were empty cabins but the guest services staff did not offer for us to move. • Absence of Dining Room Etiquette + Errors + Rudeness – Servers, experienced and new, were rude and made mistakes through the entire 14-day cruise. • Misleading Advertising of Excursions – guests who signed up for this all thought they were going to the famous Szechenyi Baths in Budapest based on the photos shown. Not so. • Poor judgment in resolving issues – there was a delay in arriving at a port due to the country’s customs procedures. All guests understood this was not Viking’s fault. But continuing with excursions such that we didn’t get lunch till 3pm (seating, not eating) was absolutely thoughtless. The prudent resolution would have been an early and simple lunch followed by excursions, or have the kitchen prepare packed sandwiches for delivery to the buses where we could eat on the beach. Some guests took to eating candy to sustain themselves. • Unprofessional Tour Operators – It is Viking’s responsibility to vet their contractors. These tour operators had us standing in strong winds listening to them talk and then return to the bus without having seen the actual sights! Some guides did not know the sights were closed for the day, causing unnecessary walking up and down hills in cold and snowy weather – when most of the guests were elderly! Further, the buses had their toilets locked so they did not have to clean them. There were many guests who were loyal Viking guests and even they complained that this was a most unacceptable cruise experience. But the reason why this was the first and last Viking cruise for us is how they handled – or rather, not handled – the feedback we submitted with sincerity.

After reading the reviews for Viking river cruises, it seemed worthwhile to contribute. I have done 5 fabulous Eu Viking cruises from 2014 to my most recent in April 2023. In 2014 The Rhine was in flood and we had to get a coach from Basel to the first port. It was impressive how Viking managed to dock at every other destination. At one point they had to 'flip' two ships because the locks could not be opened. They transferred our luggage to another ship on the other side of the lock while we had a scheduled day tour to Heidelberg Castle. Upon return our luggage was in the same cabin# on their other ship and we continued the cruise as per itinerary. Viking can't control the river levels but they try to do the same when it is in drought. All river cruise companies have this issue,... it's just that Viking copes better because they can flip more ships; and they have their own busses most of the time!

This review is about Viking Corporate - NOT the Viking Vidar staff. Corporate lies - plain and simple. Trying to get specifics on a cruise itinerary was like pulling teeth. And, other than one Customer Rep - Patricia T - the Customer Reps will either tell you there's no way to find out an answer, or they will just tell you something to get rid of you. So what if what they told you made you make a certain choice of an included or optional tour, and THEN, WHILE ON THE CRUISE, you find out it was a LIE! Because of Viking Corporate, I will never go on another Viking cruise - which is sad because the Ship's Crew will do whatever it takes to make this the best vacation of your life