My husband and I (early 50s) and two adult sons (early 20s) traveled in May on Viking's Helvetia from Basel to Amsterdam. It a second Viking cruise for my husband and I, a first for the kids.

We were in lower level cabins and were quite suprised at how spacious the rooms, bathrooms and storage were. The ceilings were quite high, preventing the cabins from feeling cave-like. Our windows were large picture windows at water level. The rooms were very clean and were well cleaned and organized every day. Our room stewards were lovely young women who decorated with Happy Birthday signs and cute towel animals on my birthday. They were really happy when I thanked them for remembering my birthday.

Having travelled last winter on Magni on the Danube Waltz, we knew to expect early breakfasts and fairly tight schedules to off shore excursions. They kids were blown away by the expansive breakfast selections--the first morning they discovered how much they needed to pace themselves! I found fruit, yogurt and a little piece of bakery to be plenty and the guys were all over the cheese and meat boards and traditional breakfast offerings. We have Benz as our server during our trip (we found a table and stuck with it the entire trip) and he was very attentive and quick to know our names and preferences. Read more