Sailing with Viking River Cruises after the 2019 Viking Longships Naming Ceremony in Switzerland, the next day was a day at sea. No, wait, that’s not right: the next day was a day of scenic cruising on the way to Strasbourg. That brought some time for a few of your Viking River Cruise questions.

Onboard Activities

“What is there to do on the ship?” asks Bob S from Omaha. Good question Bob and the answer depends totally on you. Yesterday we spent the entire day scenic cruising from Basel, Switzerland to our docking position for a day in Strasbourg. That’s about as close as it gets to the ‘day at sea’ we might spend on an ocean cruise. Frankly, those days are few and far between on a river cruise so one answer to your question is: nothing. A river cruise is very focused on what happens off the ship. You might need scenic cruising to catch your breath. But you probably won’t want to. If you are on a Viking River Cruise, odds are your favorite top deck attraction will be that the top deck is just steps away from amazing. These are places you may have read about, seen in films or on TV and now have the opportunity to experience first hand. You will not miss the water slide you would not have used anyway.

“Seven ships in one day! Will they ever stop building them?“, asks Roger C from Tulsa. Roger, my best answer there is: Probably not! Seven ships this year and seven more in the works for 2020 brings the entire fleet of Viking ships close to 100 if I have that right. I count 82 on the Viking website right now (check our resources page for a complete list).

New ships next year are quite exciting too. Another ship on the river Nile will be a wonderful addition as will four new ships on the Seine and two for the Rhine, Main & Danube.

Interestingly, as opposed to (I think) any other cruise line, all Viking Longships are identical and make up the majority of the fleet. Those ships for the Seine and Nile are cut from the same cloth but customized for those specific rivers. It’s like the ship we sailed on the Elbe in Germany, inspired by Viking Longships but even smaller with even fewer fellow travelers along for the ride.

I’ll have more of those questions answered later. Right now, it’s off to explore so stick around. Another nice thing about a river cruise, you pretty much always have a usable Internet signal on the ship or ashore with an international data plan.