10%

Viking longships

the right tool for the job

By CHRIS OWEN

March 27^th, 2019

The 2019 Viking River Cruises Naming Ceremony launched seven new Viking Longships. Seen here are a number of photos from stops along the way and a day of scenic cruising on our Viking Longship. First, a non-stop flight from Orlando to Frankfurt on Lufthansa got us most of the way, followed by a short flight to Basel, the home of Viking Cruises.

BASEL - SWITZERLAND

We would be in Basel for two nights. The first one, typical of any river cruise, allows time for travelers from North America plenty of time to arrive at various times of the day. In a way, this is like a built in pre-cruise hotel stay, although Viking offers packages for multiple days on either end of their itineraries.

scenic cruising

A day on the river was next as we sailed from Switzerland to France and our first stop in Strasbourg. Along the way, scenes typical of scenic river cruising.

Scenic cruising with Viking Cruises is all about relaxation. On the way to Strasbourg we passed through a number locks. On board our Viking Longship, we would be briefed on the next day’s activities, have tea time and...well, sit back and relax

The order of the day is enjoying the view. For many Viking travelers, that meant all day forward on the Aquavit Terrace.

While six of the new Viking Longships were identical to others in the fleet, a seventh new ship – Viking Helgrim was inspired by the Viking Longships design. Built specifically for Portugal's Douro River that brought the company’s total number of ships in Portugal to four.

On any of them, cuisine as well as selected wines change to reflect the places we visit along the way.

The six Viking Longships – Viking Einar, Viking Sigrun, Viking Sigyn, Viking Tir, Viking Ullur and Viking Vali – will be deployed on Viking’s most popular itineraries on the Rhine, Main and Danube Rivers.

aquavit breakfast

Breakfast comes in two varieties of Viking Longships, at the Aquavit Terrace for early risers (me) and in the dining room for those who wish table service. Either offer breakfast items cooked to your order and friendly people to help with that.

standard feature

Every Viking Longship has an image grouping of all the ship's officers on the wall.. I like to take a photo of it for reference during the sailing and later down the road. It seems we always see someone we recognize from a previous sailing on these ships.

Alsace - france

mannheim - germany

mainz - germany

Button Label

Story Told With

Start publishing stories like this