Viking River Cruises

"Romantic Danube"

March 2015

~ Money Matters ~

Several people have asked us about the money side of things so enclosed herein is text from an email I sent in response.....

We had 150€ leftover from a previous trip.  We added another 100€ from an ATM machine at the airport via our ATM/Check card.  So we arrived at the ship with 250€.  Our ATM/Check card does not have a chip but it worked at the ATM machine.

We spent maybe 50€ on souvenirs.  Viking recommended 1€/pp for bus drivers and 2€/pp for guides.  A couple of the guides were extra special so we gave them a little extra (5€ note to cover both of us).
Viking recommended 2€/pp/day for the cruise director which we paid in euros at the end of the week.
We took the underground back to the ship in Vienna (3€/pp) which was the only public transportation we took.  Other times we either took the Viking bus back to the ship OR walked.  We met some folks who took a taxi back to the ship in Vienna for 20€-25€.
We only ate out once and that was in Vienna, we were frozen and stopped for a coffee and an apple strudel.   Otherwise, all meals were on the ship.
So, to summarize, we got on the ship with 250€ and came home with ~60€.

So how many euros should you get?  It depends.  You can always find an ATM to get more and/or bring extra home for the next trip to Europe.

We found a bank at one of the stops and exchanged a 20€ note for some 1€ and 2€ coins for use in bus and guide tipping.  We were not able to exchange and/or breakdown money on the ship.

In addition, we did some optional excursions and put the cost of those on our on board account.  Viking also recommended 12€/pp/day for the crew gratuity which we also added to our on board account.  We used a Capital One VISA card to cover our on board account.  Capital One does NOT charge a 3% international fee like the others do.  For reference, our on board account totaled ~500€ (300€ for excursions, 200€ for crew) and after exchange my card showed $535US which seemed OK to us.

Germany and Austria are on the euro.  Hungry is not but euros were widely accepted.  We were warned that venders in Hungry will not give you a good exchange rate but we didn't worry about it since we only spent 5€ or 10€.  It would be a concern if you were buying something expensive like some jewelry or, perhaps a Rolex watch.  

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