We had 3 nights, in Paris, before joining the ship ay Lyon.
When we arrived at the hotel we were given our welcome envelope by the hotel staff checking us in.
In previous cruises we have been met by a Viking rep.
When I tried to introduce us to the Viking reps at the hotel they said that they couldn’t help as they were not with our ship and I should come down early the following day when our rep would be there.
This we did and all was ok but not the normal Viking welcome.
Cruise, staff, food all good but there did not seem to be the normal Viking family feel.
At the first meeting on boards there were very few people in attendance and the cruise director had difficulty getting the guests to listen to her.
The places that we visited were well planned and guides knowledgeable and passionate about the places that they were enlightening us on.
As always we met up with some great other like minded guests who we keep in touch with.
We are beginning to have difficulties with mobility and are very pleased that Viking do offer a leisurely group however on one trip I believe that we were put in the wrong group and we did have difficulties.
The cruise in total was successful and we hopefully will be looking to go again next year.
I would make one concern.
In the last couple of days I had a runny nose and the start of what I thought was a cold.
On our last evening at dinner at a table of eight of our new friends 3 of us commented on the same thing that we had colds.
When we eventually got home and due to the fact that we live in sheltered accommodation, we checked for Covid and I tested positive.
We made contact with others in the group and one other had also tested positive.
Eventually our wives also caught it from us and tested positive.
Hopefully my wife will test negative this week.
I mention this as on a previous cruise on the Douro I had similar symptoms and again tested positive on arrival at home.
Not sure if I should have reported this.