Q – We have been looking over your reviews and, given our philosophy that we would rather take two river cruises than one ultra-deluxe river cruise, we are leaning toward Viking. We notice that you warn people that Scenic has mostly non-Americans on its ships. We wouldn’t want to run into that situation on Viking. Can we count on Viking attracting mostly people from the good old USA? They show all kinds of ads on TV but I do notice the announcer is not American. Also wondering if you would agree with our travel plans to do two trips for the price of the ones you seem to be pushing?
A – Oh, where to begin? We don’t “warn” people that Americans are in the minority on Scenic. Many of our clients feel that is a real plus as it makes it a more international experience and dinner conversations tend to be elevated. Besides, Scenic’s guests are mostly from Australia and New Zealand, and as of 9:30 this morning, we’re not at war actually or verbally with those nations.
The latest stats indicate that Viking River Cruises are currently sourcing 88% of their guests from North America. Now we want to warn you, that could mean that actual Canadians will be sailing on your ship but feed them a Tim Horton mini-muffin and they will leave you alone.
We don’t know what passport the announcer on the Viking ads is holding. We do feel he is well-spoken. You could be correct – he might actually be British. Or, perhaps, he is just another well-educated Bostonian. They are all over the place.
Finally, we are sorry you feel we are “pushing” the better lines simply by identifying who they are. We think you would be much happier securing your information on a site like “CruiseCritic”. We do think your philosophy has merit. The flaw, however,m is that less expensive river cruise products require far more on-board spending so the true cost really does narrow between the “best” and the “not even close to being the best lines.”
