embarkation day on the viking delling for our rhone river cruise

 Our Embarkation Day aboard the Viking Delling was absolutely perfect. Honestly, it was the easiest, quickest, most relaxed, and most lovely embarkation experience that I have had on all of the cruises that I have gone on. If you haven't experienced a river cruise with Viking then your view of embarkation day may be one that feels a bit harried, but that is the complete opposite of what you will experience.

Want to see a walk through of our day? Click HERE to view the reel! 

For the Viking Delling the embarkation itinerary began at 12:00pm with a few people who arrived earlier and those arriving later (like ourselves). When you arrive there is a light welcome lunch that is served at 12:00pm (and for our cruise there was another one served at 3:00pm). We had a veranda stateroom so our room was scheduled to be ready at 3:00pm and when we arrived it was all ready to go. 

The wonderful thing that Viking does is that if you arrive before your stateroom is available and want to explore your port you can drop off your luggage and they will look after it for you! 

For this river cruise we did use the transfer option that was available, but for the Rhine River Cruise we did take our own transportation to the ship. Whichever way you arrive you will be greeted with a lovely experience (although I do recommend the transfer option - like I mentioned in this post HERE!).

When we arrived- we were greeted by some of the amazing crew of the Viking Delling and warmly welcomed aboard. One of the neat things was getting to meet Daniel, the Hotel Manager right at the beginning. His warm welcome aboard set a wonderful tone right from the beginning. I think I should note here that you are going to read a lot about the amazing crew on this trip. They truly were just incomparable. I have a theory of why that is, which involves an incredible captain, that I will share more of that in the weeks to come. 

Our room was ready when we arrived and so we excitedly followed one of the crew members to our room. We were met in the hallway by our stateroom stewardess, Kamilla, who was honestly so lovely our entire stay. One of the things that just impressed me about Kamilla from the beginning was the fact that she stopped in the middle of her extremely busy day to take a few moments to ask about our trip to the ship and get to know us. I think she tried to cover a smile when we said that we were going to be up front about wanting lots of water (y'all know my love of water) and sure enough we were never without bottles of water in our room. I will share more about our room, but I so appreciated Kamilla's time to go through some things in our room for us to know right at the beginning. 

We look a bit tired, but we were both so excited to be on the cruise!

There was a beautiful gift upon our arrival and it was truly the sweetest thing. Also- y'all the chocolate covered strawberries were delicious. 

After we explored our room a bit, excitedly started to unpack, and yes, ate a few of the yummy strawberries we headed off to go for a late lunch.

We sat out in the aquavit area and it was absolutely lovely!

Y'all know that salads are one of my favorite foods...this salad was so good. 

After we ate, we explored the ship a bit (which I will be giving a complete tour of the ship soon!), and then went to our room to sit out on the veranda and change for the safety briefing and for dinner. 

At the welcome and safety briefing we met Nuno (our wonderful Program Director) (in the left picture) and Daniel (whom I mentioned above in the right picture). They kicked off a lovely welcome to everyone! You could feel the excitement in this meeting! Everyone was so excited to be there!

The captain, Francois, took time to welcome us all aboard and then completed the safety briefing. After our meeting everyone headed to dinner! I will be sharing more during my food review, but it was at this first dinner that the Matire D, David, came by to each table and spoke to everyone individually about any concerns or allergies they may have. I so appreciate that attention to detail!

After dinner we listened to music for a little bit in the lounge before heading back to our room. I stepped out once more on our veranda and just took a moment to absorb the incredible gratitude for the day. It was a full and amazing day! 

Like I said at the beginning, boarding the Viking Delling was wonderful and the best embarkation experiences I have ever had. Have y'all sailed on the Rhone River with Viking? Please let me know if you have any questions I can answer!