From River To Ocean In One Port?……….

There are plenty of cruise clients who like to do a “back to back” cruise. This is basically (for those of you who dont know) take one cruise, stay on the ship and do the second itinerary. It may be the same destinations or slightly different.  Of course when booking one of these, it is really important if you can keep the same cabin, as you dont want to be changing in the middle of your holiday!

It has recently been announced that another type of “back to back” cruise is being tested.  Viking cruises, who now have the river and ocean cruise ships have come up with a really good idea.  The new concept is called “Ocean & River Voyages,” basically it means the sailings allow passengers to easily go between two cruises by transferring them between ships in just one port. Okay, you will have to change cabins on this one, but what a smashing thing to do – finish your ocean cruise in one port and then transfer to a lovely river cruise and very different too.

At present for 2018 there will be two itineraries they are testing this on.  The first one combines a Norwegian fjords cruise alongside a Rhine river cruise, transferring ships in Amsterdam.  The second one will be the river cruise first from Basel to Amsterdam and then transferring to the Viking Sky and ending up in Barcelona.

With the quality and service you can expect to receive on a Viking ocean and river cruise I do think this will hopefully take off, perhaps with different destinations offered as and when.  Of course it is all down to where the ships will be berthing, (I guess a logistical nightmare at times). However, as Viking have said, and i quote “this will offer travelers the unique opportunity to experience both of Viking’s award-winning cruise products.”

This is still rather of a niche idea as there is only Crystal out there who also offer river and ocean cruise ships, it will be interesting to see if they will start this too. Time will tell.

Till next time x