Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenwoodCruise&Travel
They are all great companies. I like Viking the best, just a personal choice. Stay away from Grand Circle. I do not book with them anymore due to complaints from clients.
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This is nonsense. We cruised Grand Circle and recommend them highly. You can usually tell a lot about a company by the number of repeat cruisers. Just about everyone on our cruise was a repeat customer - many with dozens of cruises. It was probably one of the best vacations we have ever taken. They are very highly rated by Conde Nast - higher than Viking. I spoke with one of the couples on our cruise who had previosly sailed Viking but were trying GC for the first time. They said they preferred Grand Circle to Viking.
Here is one example of why I think Grand Circle is great: We were cruising in Germany and were scheduled to make a half-day stop at a town along the way. When the tour directors were preparing their excursions for that town, they discovered that they were having an annual one-week Oktoberfest-type festival while we were there - starting at noon. Seeing it as a great opportunity to get more out of local culture, they petitioned the captain and corporat HQ to modify the sailing schedule so that we could spend more time there. This meant additional costs for the shuttle buses that ran between the river and the town center and also a revision to the sailing/lock schedules but we were given permission to stay for what turned out to be a great day. Viking, Tauck and the other boats that were also there for the morning took off on schedule and their passengers missed the festival.
I do agree that they are all great companies and that you should choose based on the itinerary and price.
You can PM me if you want more information.