Sunday, 23 February, Planning ahead
Written 23 February 2020
Not a lot of planning ahead involved in this trip. We'd been eyeing this itinerary for a while in the Viking catalog, and once the Sinnetts made clear that they weren't interested in doing it, we just decided to go ahead. Viking, of course, falls all over itself to make booking easy. Once you've booked the cruise (we got the last two cabins available on our sailing date), you can go on line at leisure to book your included and optional excursions.
Once again, Viking provided way too many choices of optional excursions, so David and I sat down for an entire evening and worked out which ones we wanted to do. Mostly we'll do them together, but on a couple of the days, we go off in different directions—e.g., I do a cooking demonstration while he does WWII history.
The cruise description doesn't say explicitly, but I suspect we'll be on our own for dinner on the night of our arrival, which we'll spend in the Radisson Blu in Bucharest before joining the ship on the following day. I poked around a little in Google maps and spotted Le Bistrot Français just a few blocks away, so I may make reservations there. It's a "Relais et Châteaux" establishment, and we've had very good luck with them in the past. The restaurant's website provides a nice, English-language reservaton app.
After that, Viking covers all the meals, mostly on the ship but sometimes out and about on excursions.
Here's the overview map of the trip, which first follows the Danube, then the Main-Danube Canal, then the Main, and finally the Rhine.
To see the route map, visit https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/cruise-destinations/europe/european-sojourn/2021-amsterdam-bucharest/index.html. Click on the map to enlarge it.