Viking Cruises in 2026: Rivers, Oceans, and Expeditions Built Around the Destination
In a medieval castle in Tuscany, you can sit in on a cooking demonstration and learn to make pasta with a sauce from local tomatoes, herbs, and spices. Another afternoon might find you in France’s Périgord region, where a local farmer and his hound show you how truffle hunting is done.
Viking has built its trips around afternoons like these since 1997, when it started with river ships in Europe. Today its river fleet sails on four continents, alongside ocean ships that call at ports around the world and expedition ships bound for Antarctica, the Arctic, and the Great Lakes. Everyone aboard must be 18 or older.
An excursion in every port, and more if you want it
Every port comes with an excursion in the fare. On river and ocean ships, it is a guided tour with a local guide, often on foot or by motor coach, and on expedition ships it is a landing or an excursion led by the expedition team.
River and ocean ships also offer optional excursions with limited capacity, and they reach sites and activities the included tours do not. Across the itineraries, excursions include stepping inside a windmill at Kinderdijk in the Netherlands to see both the machinery and the rooms where people lived, and seeing Saigon from a pedal cab. Privileged Access excursions get you into places that are hard to enter otherwise, such as a museum outside its public hours, a private home, or a palace.
On select longer voyages, an Overland Excursion takes you inland for several days, with hotels, meals, and transportation arranged. One follows Normandy’s coast to Omaha Beach and the D-Day Museum, and another has you sleeping in an ice hotel in Norway.
Land extensions of two to six nights add time before or after a cruise, with hotel stays and transfers included. The cave hotel in Cappadocia has rooms that date back to the 5th and 6th centuries and a rooftop terrace where dinner is served by candlelight, and visitors can take a hot-air balloon ride over the region’s fairy chimneys. A Privileged Access visit to Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey was filmed, includes a taste of the estate’s own gin.
On board between ports
Lectures on board cover the art, architecture, music, and natural world of the places on your route. On river and ocean ships, a Port Talk the day before each stop previews the history and the landmarks worth seeing, and short Destination Insights films play on your stateroom television. River and ocean itineraries each include at least one Destination Performance of the region’s best-known tradition, such as Portuguese fado or Viennese opera.
On river cruises, local artisans show how glassblowing and lace making are done, and cooking demonstrations turn out local treats like Austrian apple strudel and Rüdesheim Coffee. The library, stocked by the London bookseller Heywood Hill, has books on the history and culture of the places on your route.
Included in the fare
Much of what fills those days is already in the fare. All meals on board are included, with beer, wine, and soft drinks at lunch and dinner, and specialty coffees and teas are available at any hour. Wi-Fi is included too, though speeds vary, and port taxes and fees are in the price. On ocean and expedition ships, access to the Nordic Spa and the alternative restaurants costs nothing extra, and neither does 24-hour room service. The ships have no casinos, and there are no formal nights, art auctions, or photography sales.
On the rivers
River cruising is where Viking started, and on a Longship the river stays in view. Every stateroom is on the outside, the public rooms have full-height windows, and breakfast and lunch on the Aquavit Terrace come with the scenery drifting past. In the Lounge, you settle in with a cocktail and trade notes on the day. Up on the Sun Deck, there is a walking track and an herb garden that the culinary team harvests daily for the dishes on the menu. The suites have two separate full-size rooms.
Excursions on Rhine and Danube itineraries include a Mozart and Strauss concert in Vienna and a brauhaus dinner in Cologne. Seasonal itineraries are built around Christmas markets and tulip season, and Viking’s other river ships sail the Nile, the Mekong, and the Mississippi.
On the ocean
Viking’s ocean ships are small enough to dock in major cities and in small ports that mega-liners cannot reach, and many itineraries include an overnight stay in the port where the trip starts or ends. Every stateroom has a private veranda.
On port days, the optional Kitchen Table cooking school takes you to a local market to choose the ingredients, then teaches you to cook specialties of that port. Mamsen’s, named for the Hagen family matriarch, serves Norwegian specialties, including waffles made to her original recipe.
The Nordic Spa has a sauna and a snow grotto, and movies play at night on a giant screen beside the main pool, whose retractable roof keeps it open in any weather. Each day, a Munch Moments event in the Living Room presents works by Edvard Munch, arranged by theme, through Viking’s exclusive relationship with Oslo’s Munch Museum. The ocean routes reach Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, Alaska, Asia, and Australia and New Zealand.
On expedition ships
Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris sail to Antarctica, the Arctic, South America, and the Great Lakes. You board small boats from the Hangar, an enclosed marina inside the ship that Viking calls an industry first. You step onto a flat, stable floor out of the wind, and the boat slides out through the slipway.
From there you can paddle a kayak through a quiet inlet, snowshoe across a polar landscape, or ride a Zodiac to watch wildlife along the shore. Optional submarine trips take a small group underwater, with revolving seats and spherical windows. Viking supplies the gear, including a keepsake Viking expedition jacket on polar itineraries.
The Explorers’ Lounge at night on-board the Viking Star.
The Nordic Balcony stateroom puts a glass wall at the outer edge of the ship, so you watch the scenery from indoors, out of the weather. When you want fresh air, the upper part of the glass lowers, and a built-in shelf gives binoculars or a camera something steady to rest on. Binoculars are supplied, and a heated drying closet keeps wet gear ready for the next day.
Resident scientists chosen by the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology travel on every voyage. On shore, you can join fieldwork, such as tracking birds to learn about migration, or go along as scientists collect samples. Back aboard, the Finse Terrace has heated couches and lava-rock “firepits” for sitting outdoors close to the water.
New ships and new itineraries
Condé Nast Traveler readers ranked Viking first for river cruising and first for ocean cruising in October 2025. The ocean fleet has also gained Viking Vesta, which entered service in 2025 and sails Greece and Turkey, among other itineraries. One eight-day sailing has Ephesus, Troy, and Istanbul among its stops, and the ship’s spa has a treatment room with a sand-bed massage table carried over from the expedition ships.
Total Eclipse on the Nile is new on Viking’s schedule. It is a 12-day round trip from Cairo built around the total solar eclipse of 2027, which you watch from the ship on the Nile, in the heart of Egypt. Excursions include a sunrise hot-air balloon ride over the Nile’s west bank, and a four-night extension adds Jordan, where you can explore Petra, carved into rose-red mountains, and take a dip in the Dead Sea.
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