Click photo for larger view of Viking River Cruises on the Rhine. Photo Courtesy of Viking Cruises.

Carol and I have recently returned home from a fabulous cruise on the river Danube with Viking River Cruises.

As you may well know, river cruising has become a red hot trend in the travel industry, and Viking River Cruises has become the 800-pound gorilla in the industry.

Before we share the impressions and experiences from our trip, I thought it might be helpful for you to know a few facts about Viking River Cruises.

Top 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Viking River Cruises

1. Viking River Cruises was founded in 1997 by Torstein Hagen as a means to provide tourists a way to explore in comfort the world’s great rivers and waterways.
2. Today, Viking River Cruises enjoys a 50% river cruise market share with a focus on English speaking tourists from the U.S., Canada, Australia, and England.
3. Viking River Cruises has a Guinness World Record for launching the most cruise ships in a single day: 14 new ships launched in 2014.
4. Viking River Cruises has the largest river cruise fleet in the world.  In 2015, they will have 64 ships afloat.
5. 

   Click photo for a larger view. Our Roaming Boomers group enjoying a meal aboard ship after a day of exploration.

   Viking River Cruises owns all of their ships, and operates all of them with their own staff.  Some river cruise companies use leased ships and staff.

6. Viking River Cruises bills itself as the world’s most award-winning river cruise line in the world.
7. 97% of Viking River Cruises passengers rate their experience as “far above expectations”, or “above expectations”.
8. Viking River Cruises has ships sailing the major rivers of Europe, Russia, Egypt, China, and Southeast Asia.
9. In 2015, Viking Cruises will celebrate the inaugural sailing of its first ocean liner, the Viking Star.  With two more ships being built, Viking Cruises will build on the success of their river cruise business offering destination-centric small ship ocean cruises.  Initial sailings will begin in Scandinavia, the Baltic, and the Western and Eastern Mediterranean.
10. To their client’s great advantage, Viking River Cruises has acquired prime docking sites in key European cities. That means you’ll walk off the ship in the heart of many of Europe’s great cities without having to be bused to the city center.
11. Bonus Thing: Viking River Cruises bills itself as an upscale 4-star product making their product more affordable, and right in the sweet spot of most river cruise travelers.

As  you can see, Viking River Cruises has achieved very impressive results, and has a stellar reputation in the industry.  Having now sailed with Viking River Cruises, Carol and I are now squarely in the “exceeded our expectations” camp.  But, we’ll tell you much more about that in another post.  Stay tuned…

To book your Viking River Cruises experience, or to get more information on river cruising,  call us at (480) 550-1235, or click here.

Disclosure: our river cruise experience was provided by the kind folks at Viking River Cruises. Thanks!
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