Viking River Cruises review: Travel

Viking charges an additional $100 pre person to be able to have “control” of your airline, seats etc. This is sold by the person who books your cruise and must be paid at the time of the booking. AND THEN there is the the travel department who has no communication with the agent who booked your cruise. In fact, several agents admitted that they are in totally different areas and have no direct communication with the booking agents. So to this end I would suggest a liaison between the 2 departments to let the customer know what is realistic and actually obtainable. Let them sit in on the call if necessary. And they are about as flexible as a stone wall.

My sister in law and I booked our cruises together on a three way call and stressed that we wanted to fly together. She is terrified to fly and would only fly with us on the same flights. Although she lives in Chicago, she is going to fly to Atlanta to fly with us at her own expense. As a frequent flyer with delta and I living in the Atlanta area, we prefer delta. We were sent out itinerary by Viking and had all delta flights. My sister in law was booked on Lufthansa. Since we purchased the “have control of your flight” package, she requested to be on delta with us. They said it would be an additional $845 for her husband and her to change. She said fine, I’ll pay that and you take it off the price of,the cruise. “Sorry mam. Can’t do that”. Over and over.

The only way they would allow us to fly together is if we flew Lufthansa one way and delta back. This is our 3rd Viking cruise and for the other 2 we booked our own flights. We decided to try the Viking travel and upon telling several people they all told us it was a nightmare and not to do it. I thought they were exaggerating. I expressed to our booking agent that I was skeptical about using their travel and he said as soon as I got my itinerary to call him and we would do it together. To his credit, he also tried to get it changed and had as much luck as we did. I have spent probably 20 hours trying to get this resolved.

Needless to say I am not happy. I want my $200 back. The whole thing is a scam. I will never use their travel again and may not use Viking since it’s all one company. What a disappointment. And no one suggested we talk to a supervisor to get it resolved. Let me stress that everyone has been extremely nice and apologetic. But that just doesn’t cut the mustard.