My Passport’s Travels

A couple years ago, after hearing how wonderful Viking River Cruises are from family and friends, I did it! I used up all the credit card cash back I had been hoarding and booked one for Mom and me. Not just a river cruise, a Christmas Market one! “Christmas on the Rhine” from Basel to Amsterdam on the Viking longship Einar. We have a standard view, which is also sometimes called a Swan Room, because the rooms have high windows that are at water level.

The process of preparing for a river cruise has felt different than an ocean cruise. Even though we don’t sail for a few more months, I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned so far.

Flights

Flights are booked! We’re flying on American Airlines’ miles both ways, although the flights to Switzerland are on Finnair. A couple of unusual things about that:

1) On the AA site, I can’t get my travel document information to save for these flights (although the Finnair site has it all captured correctly and I have successfully saved the exact same information on the AA site for my flights home) and

2) Since I booked through AA, there are 2 PNRs in play – 1 for AA and 1 for Finnair. I have to manually retrieve my flight using the Finnair PNR whenever I’m on the Finnair website, it won’t save.  

For the redeye to Helsinki we have bulkhead seats – and managed to find a row with only 2 seats, so no climbing over strangers in the middle of the night. I did pre-purchase lounge access for the six-hour layover. For the second leg, we’ve got a window and middle seat at the front of coach.

​The flights home are on AA and we were able to snag rows with only 2 seats for both legs. I think the PHL to DFW leg may have a rear-facing flight attendant seat next to the middle seat, but we’ve sat in those before, you get a little extra space for carry-ons between the row in front of you and the FA seat – and it’s the 3^rd row in coach, so we’ll be off quickly.

Pre/post cruise accommodations

It’s much, much cheaper to build your own pre-/post-cruise packages. The Viking packages do include city walking tours, but no meals (unless the hotel includes breakfast). The cheapest pre-cruise option was $699 per person for two nights. We built our own three night pre-cruise package with two nights in Zurich (including breakfast), one night in Basel, full-day excursion to Mt Titlas in the Alps and private transfer from Zurich to Basel for $722 per person.

Packing
How on earth do you pack? We need layers of clothes, stuff to protect any breakables we may buy, etc…

We also took advantage of the end-of-season sales to buy cuddledud layers. We’ll especially need them when we go up Mt Titlas.

What’s happening when?

River cruises differ from ocean cruises because the port times aren’t provided very far in advance. So much depends upon the river levels that they really don’t lock them down until much closer to the cruise. Not only that, but the ship may move to a new dock during the day while you’re out and about. However, you can stop by the front desk in the morning and they will give you a card that details where the ship is and will be that day.

A free shore excursion is included in every port. I was able to book two free shore excursions on one day – one morning and another in the evening. I’m assuming that means the ship moves during the day, but it’s hard to tell from the shore excursion calendar.

Shore excursion offerings:

Embarkation Day – Basel, Switzerland

Basel Walking Tour & Festive Markets

Day 2 – Breisach, Germany

• Freiburg Yuletide Market & Organ Concert (free) – we picked this one!

• Medieval Staufen & Schnapps Distillery ($95)

• Medieval Staufen & Wine ($119)

• Festive Colmar & Riquewihr ($269)

Day 3 – Strasbourg, France

• Strasbourg Highlights (free)

• Panoramic Strasbourg by Land & Water ($119) – we picked this one!

• Alsatian Wine Tasting ($149)

• Christmas Flavors of Alsace ($269)

• Gengenbach at Christmas ($85) – sold out more than 3 months before the cruise

Day 4 – Mannheim, Germany

• Mannheim & Yuletide Market, morning (free) – we picked this one!

• Ruedesheim Festive Market, evening (free) – we picked this one, too!

• Dine in Ruedesheim am Rhein ($139)

• Wine Tasting & Dinner at Eberbach Monastary ($219)

• Highlights of Heidelberg at Christmas ($269)

Day 5 – Koblenz, Germany

• Historic Koblenz at Christmas (free)

• Ehrenbreitstein Fortress ($85) – we picked this one!

• Medieval Marksburg Castle ($105)

Day 6 – Cologne, Germany

• Christmas in Cologne (free) – we picked this one!

• Top of Cologne ($129) – sold out more than 3 months before cruise

• Cologne’s Beer Culture & Dinner ($159)

• Historic Cologne Cathedral ($69) – sold out more than 3 months before cruise

Day 7 – Dordrecht, The Netherlands

• Historic Dordrecht (free) – we picked this one!

• Historic Gouda & Stroopwafel ($129)

Debarkation day: Amsterdam, The Netherlands