Introduction

This is a post cruise recounting of our experience on Viking River Cruise's Switzerland to North Sea Cruise traveling from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Basel, Switzerland.  Thus the dates blogspot attaches to each post will be wrong.  I will recount the day to day locations and activities along with my impression of the trip.

My wife, Carol, and I are both senior travelers, I have even reached the "minimum required distribution age" for my IRA, in case you know what that means.

The trip was booked through Affordable Travel, our second Viking booking Yulanda has handled;

Yulanda Hanson

Tour Agent

AffordableTours.com

11150 Cash Road

Stafford, TX 77477

Toll Free: (800) 935-2620 Ext. 152 

Direct: (281) 269 - 2652 

Fax: (281) 269-2690 

E-mail: yulanda@affordabletours.com 

My Working Hours: 

Mon-Fri: 9:00AM - 5:30PM CT

Our experiences with Yulanda have meet all of our expectations, she has always been available via phone and e-mail when we had any questions, and we have had no problems. The saving made by booking via Affordable helped offset the cost of trip insurance, which we purchased via InsureMyTrip, our third time with them. We originally found them via Clark Howard's web site.

The cruise was booked in August of 2015, we were traveling with my niece and her husband, They were departing from a different origin, and we would meet on the Vidar on day one. Yulanda handled everything for all of us. I even received Vikings discount for referring a new customer. Because of the Viking promotion "2 for the price of one and free air" we opted to fly via Viking Air. We took advantage of the business class upgrade ($700 per person). Be sure to join frequent flyer programs of Viking's preferred partners for your route, and make sure it is included in your booking. We were already British Airways Executive Club members, but didn't have enough points to do the business class upgrade via BA. We were able to do our seat assignment with BA, as soon as the bookings were made. 

As on our previous cruise we booked a "Veranda Suite". I usually wake up an hour or two earlier than Carol, so with a suite I can be up without disturbing her. We recommended that our niece book a "Veranda Stateroom", which she did. We had rooms across the hall from each other.

Even though we live in NE Florida, we fly from Atlanta, rather than Jacksonville.  We have a Bouvier des Flandre and a Black Russian Terrier which we board at Valkin Bouviers, in Pine Mountain, Ga.  So our trip starts, a day early, with the drive from Yulee to Atlanta, via Pine Mountain.  We stay at the Atlanta Airport Marriott overnight and fly out the next day, taking advantage of the long term parking they have.  Because we had an evening departure we also take advantage of late check-out.  We skip there airport shuttle, it drops you at domestic and you have to transfer to an airport shuttle to get to international.  We take a taxi ($20.00 plus tip).  We are looking forward to when Lyft will be able to service the Atlanta airport, reportedly July 2016.  On return we also stay overnight at the Marriott. 


For anyone else departing and returning on a cruise/trip from a hotel, vice home, take advantage of their baggage storage room, pack a small suitcase with your arrival and return clothing and leave it in baggage storage.

Checked-in, on-line, with BA at 10:10 PM, hoping to be able to snag seats 15E and 15F which are reserved for passenger with infants, until 24 hours before departure.  No such luck, I was able to move from 11E/F to 14E/F, as someone had booked 12 D & G and 15D & G were open, and if no-one booked them we would have easy access to the aisle. The BA business class seats lay flat to form a bed, using a fold down foot rest as part of the bed.  If you are in the center seats (E/F) in any row but 15 you must step over the foot rest of the aisle seats to access the aisle, if they are down.  Thus row 15 are the best center seats since there is the bulkhead and no aisle seats to step over.