We just returned from yet another wonderful trip on Viking. This was our 6th cruise and this time it was on the Danube from Budapest to Nuremburg. We had been monitoring the Viking website for current sailing conditions for a few weeks prior to our trip. The water levels on many rivers in Europe have been low this year causing a need to change ships on this particular cruise. We lucked out and our cruise was uninterrupted. I have read a lot of complaints and I understand these cruises are not cheap but no cruise line can predict what mother nature will bring us. We stopped in Passau, Germany, where we were shown high water marks on the 2nd floors of many buildings from the catastrophic floods from just 2 years ago.
In any case, our cruise, ship, crew and local guides were all delightful. The ships crew works very hard to make our trips memorable and most of them are on these ships for the 9 month season. I can tell you that they all were as happy as we were when we were told our ship would sail through. I can only imagine that the crew's tips (which are not included in the fare) probably suffered on previous sailings but I certainly hope not.
We will continue to sail on Viking as we find them a good value and a wonderfully relaxing experience.

Glad you had a good experience.

My brother just took a Amsterdam to Budapest cruise in Oct.
& hit low water. Viking asked them to pack up their luggage
& they went on a bus tour that day arriving at new ship
after touring to same type cabin.

For the "inconvenience" they were given 2 tix to a Vienna
symphony which was so nice.