Hi, Kathleen.   Sandy & I were most impressed with the Viking Sun cruise ship in every respect.  Not hurting the welcome aboard attitude was the bottle of bubbly awaiting us as we entered our room.  Thank you! 

The cleanliness of the ship was astounding … complete with scrubbing the stairway rubber tread grooves with a toothbrush!  At no time did we feel any sense of not being clean.  Our stateroom was kept in an immaculate condition throughout the cruise. 

The food was, ah, European.  Not all particularly to our tastes, but very well done and presented.  Service was generally quite attentive and efficient, too. 

  The walking and bus tours were wonderful.  The guides spoke clear English and were filled with a wealth of information.  An exception that Sandy noted on her questionnaire was that we should have been advised ahead of time about one of the bus tours traveling over twisty mountain roads.  She and a few others had a slight touch of motion sickness because of that.  Not a crisis, but I think she was right in noting that. 

  We (Sandy & Marilyn actually) stumbled into an excellent restaurant in the train station a few blocks away!  Candlelight, silverware, crystal, nice linens, good service and excellent food.  Oh, and did I mention it was in a train station?  Upstairs … at the window … looking down on the constant stream of every train in & out of Lucerne.  An unforgettable evening for all of us, actually. 

Both the embarkation and disembarkation processes were as smooth as silk!  Very professional in every respect from start to finish. 

As you may well have guessed, the Iceland volcano did us in on the return trip.  We left the gate only a few minutes late and sat on the tarmac for almost 3½ hours (no food and no drink except for water, OJ or champagne) awaiting clearance.  Once airborne we went WAY north and around Iceland to avoid the ashes.  We then came back south across Hudson Bay, Chicago and St. Louis before turning toward ATL.  We missed the ATL to SRQ connection as expected, but a call to Delta’s Medallion number as soon as we touched down confirmed that we had all been rebooked for the 9:39 PM flight that evening.  Medallion status came through.  We all finally got to our homes around 12:30 or so after 26+ hours of being awake or in a semi-coma.  Not an easy day, but there were no other options for us. 

Bottom line: we thank you very much for your efforts in putting this package together for us.  It was a wonderful trip.  We would highly recommend Viking Cruise Lines to anyone asking. 

Jim