Viking River Cruises to sail the Mississippi

Viking River Cruises have this week announced that they are going to be sailing along the Mississippi from 2017.

They are initially going to base 2 ships from New Orleans and aim to expand the fleet to 6 by 2019.

This is really exciting for British cruisers, currently there are very few ship sailing the Mississippi and there are some amazing places to see. The ships will call in at St James, East Baton Rouge and West Feliciana in Louisiana and also sail north to Memphis, Tennesse, Missouri and Minnesota, dependent upon the season.

I have traveled a lot of the States and been lucky enough to sail on the Mississippi at Memphis and she is an awe inspiring river.
The South is steeped in history and so different from the east coast and California and Miami, Florida which are the normal US cruise destinations. I can certainly recommend it.

“We are excited about the prospect of bringing modern river cruising to the Mississippi,” Viking Cruises Chairman Torstein Hagen said which would suggest that Viking will be using their long boats along this stretch of water. This will be interesting as currently it is only really the traditional paddle boats that sail the Mississippi and I’m not sure how the sleek long boat will fit in.

However with Viking’s 5 star standards and the deep South hospitality I’m sure this will be a winning combination and I expect many other European river cruise lines will follow.

Full details of the itineraries and ships are due to be released later this year.

#mississippi #vikingrivercruises #memphis