I really enjoyed the Viking Cruise part of this trip. They have customer service down, from the time you land, till the time you go back to the airport to fly home, they are very hands on. Food was excellent, tours were well done for the most part and we met some of the nicest people, both folks who were part of the Quilt Tour and others who just happened to be on the cruise. There were a couple of afternoons where we were cruising, so ample time to relax. Dinners were also a leisurely affair - several courses, and plenty of time to visit.
The Quilt Tour was kind of a loose thing. While we were on the Viking ship, we had an intro meeting where no one really introduced themselves, including the tour manager. We were encouraged to try to sit together and she got to dinner early to save a couple of tables (there were 25 of us on the ship), but outside of getting maps with quilt shop locations (but often they were really hard to find, or not really quilt shops), that was all that was done.
We disembarked from the Viking Cruise on Saturday morning and boarded a bus for Basel with the Quilt Group (15 people dd the extension trip). We had an opportunity to visit the Christmas Market in Basel, but there wasn't anything available in terms of quilting. We then went to Mulhouse, where the fabric industry started in the 1800's. The Museum tour was good and the Christmas Market was one of the prettiest we saw, but there wasn't an effort on the part of the tour organizer to get us together. The theory was that the trouble manager had done this trip several times and it just seemed like she just wanted to show us where to go and then leave us to our own devices. It was fine - but I would not do another quilt tour with this particular company, even though others on the tour said that they had done other trips with this person that were really good.
Some stats:
Steps walked 120,020
Flight miles 11,806
Cruising on the Rhine: about 1000 Nautical Miles
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