Viking River Cruise – Part 1
As I promised in mid-2025, when I did my first ever cruise, now I am going to recap my first ever River Cruise! Peter and I planned this river cruise of the Christmas Markets way back in late summer of 2024 which was more than a year before the actual cruise. For me it was a bucket list item to see the European Christmas Markets!
Planning the cruise itself was easy and there are a LOT of river cruise companies. We chose Viking as we read a lot of great reviews and we were not disappointed with that choice as I will talk about in future weeks. But make sure you do your research because some of the cruise companies did not seem to be as “upscale” as Viking and there were many others that seemed to be on par with Viking.
One other thing that you should consider when booking a river cruise is payment options, Viking required full payment 12 months in advance of the cruise instead of just a deposit and full payment closer to the cruise date. For some that might be a “turn off” and you might want more flexibility for payment so be sure to research the payment options before booking.
Once we selected our dates and the itinerary we wanted for the Christmas Market cruise, we chose to book our own airfare and to go in a few days early for the cruise to give ourselves time to acclimate to the time change and to visit Munich which we had never visited before (and had their own Christmas market that was not part of the cruise).
Ultimately, we flew to Munich and arrived 3 days before the cruise date. We spent our 2 full days in Munich touring Dachau (the longest running of the Nazi Concentration Camps) and the BMW Museum (required by my hubby, but actually amazing.) We also spent time in the afternoons and evenings, visiting several of the Christmas Markets in Munich.
We then hired a driver to take us from Munich to Regensburg, Germany the day the cruise started (a drive of about 1 ½ hours). I think that going a few days early is always best as it eliminates any stress relating to travel delays.
I will follow up in the next weeks about what we liked and didn’t like about the cruise (especially since my hubby was not at all interested in cruising), more detail on the Christmas Markets and more about the cities we visited during the trip!
