The Roaming BoomersViking River Cruises Turns Lemons Into Lemonade
Rhône River in Avignon, France. Click photo for a larger view. ©2015, David A. Porter
Just over a week ago, I wrote you about how high water had disrupted our Viking River Cruises adventure on the Rhône and Saône rivers in the famed Burgundy and Provence regions of France. You can read about our saga by clicking here.
What a disappointment for the passengers, and what a nightmare for Viking River Cruises. After all, Viking River Cruises is incapable of controlling the whims of the river.
Viking Offered an Immediate Refund
When we arrived at our hotel instead of our long-awaited Viking Longship stateroom, Viking spoke to us and offered the following options:
- Leave the journey and get a refund for the unused portion of your travel experience, or
- Stay with the journey and hope for lower waters in the coming days. Further, Viking explained that they would get us to as many of the scheduled destinations as possible, but we would have to be shuttled about by luxury motor coaches and not our ship.
A few took Viking up on the refund option, but most (including us) stayed hoping for lower water levels. After all, what are our lives without hope?
Well, as my above referenced story detailed, we were never able to sail these fabled rivers as the water levels during our visit never went down enough to let our ship under the bridges. Bummer. 🙁
Lemons Into Lemonade
First of all, let me say that Carol and I had a wonderful visit in the South of France with Viking River Cruises in spite of the situation. However, we were surprised to received the following email from Viking River Cruises Customer Relations today:
“We sincerely regret that your Viking Delling sailing experienced itinerary changes due to high river levels. While the staff did what they could to make everyone comfortable, we understand that your expectations were likely not met. In consideration of this, we are offering a future cruise voucher for 50% off the paid cruise. The vouchers can be used toward any voyage with Viking Cruises—rivers or oceans—and will be emailed to you separately.”
I must admit that I’m quite impressed with Viking River Cruises caring enough about their client’s experience even though the situation was completely out of their control.
For those who wished a refund, it was offered. And for those who continued the journey with dashed hopes for lower waters, Viking turns lemons into Lemonade with a 50% discount on any future Viking sailing.
Bravo Viking River Cruises! That’s how to turn lemons in lemonade!
Hmmmm. I’m thinking that a sailing on one of their brand new ocean liners might be a lot of fun. 😀
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5 Comments on “Viking River Cruises Turns Lemons Into Lemonade”
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This happened to my clients 2 years ago on the Douro River. Viking really did their best, they were able to stay on the ship in their fabulous suite and had options to do a shore excursion every day and so did not miss any of the promised attractions. Then they received a future cruise credit, just like you did. of course, not everyone was happy, but as you said it so well: no one can control the weather-or the rivers….Go Viking!
PS – we did the same cruise in April several years ago, no flodding, but mistral winds which prevented us from docking in one port.
Hi Melita,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your story. I was impressed with the way Viking handled our situation, and it looks like your clients were treated as valued clients as well.
Some people are going to be bone heads and complain, no matter what the river cruise companies do. So, while we too were disappointed, Viking really did work hard to make lemonade out of the lemons they were handed. 🙂
Viking took very good care of us on their two week Grand European Cruise. Low water levels kept our boat in the Danube and couldn’t get to the Main. So we swapped boats. One boat’s passengers and some crew went to the other boat and the other the same. To us it meant packing and unpacking an extra time plus missing these locks and canals. Instead our day was on an excursion, showing up on the other boat. Viking was very generous, which allowed us to take an ocean cruise with them the following spring. That kind of treatment will get you loyal customers. (PS. Our ocean cruise was disrupted somewhat but Viking was not very generous in compensating for the disruption—not like the river cruise—guess different folks involved)
Hi Bill and Susie, fancy meeting you here. 🙂 Thanks for sharing your story with us.