Viking has long eyed America’s mighty Mississippi River as the next logical expansion point for its burgeoning river cruise product. After all, the vast majority of Viking’s passenger base on the waterways of Europe are American: why not give them a river cruise product in their own backyard?
By Aaron Saunders
It sounds simple – but the journey for Viking to get to the Mississippi has been anything but.
CruiseTimes hopped aboard Viking Mississippi this past summer for a look at how Viking’s newly launched American river product has fared – and changed – in its first year of operation.
If you build it, they will come
Setting up shop in the United States sounds easy. After all, Viking came equipped with extensive river experience in Europe, Asia, and Russia, where the line got its start back in 1997. But protectionist American laws made Viking’s foray into the country’s inland waterways more tricky.
To start with, US cabotage laws stipulate that a vessel must be flagged as an American one if it is to sail from one US port to another with no intermediary foreign port of call. And, to be flagged in the US, that vessel must be predominantly built there, using US workers. To complicate matters further, it has to be crewed by Americans as well.
Viking’s existing river fleet is mostly built in Germany, crewed by Europeans. Setting up shop in the US meant that Viking’s existing strategy, so deftly employed since the debut of its Viking Longship product in 2012, had to be rethought.
In the end, Viking managed a workaround: it hired Edison Chouest Offshore, a US-based company known for its deep-sea vessels operating in the Gulf of Mexico, to build and crew Viking Mississippi, based on a new design that combines hybrid elements from Viking’s existing river, ocean, and expedition products into one unique vessel.
Edison Chouest Offshore got to work, equipping Viking Mississippi with technical bells and whistles unheard of in the American river cruise industry. High atop the navigation bridge, its own unique proprietary software (which we were politely asked not to photograph) controls every aspect of the 471-foot, 386-passenger vessel.
Under the waterline are more enhancements, in the form of a variable-pitch Voith Schneider propulsion system that resembles a series of downward-pointing metal prongs more than traditional propellers. It is the first major passenger vessel to be outfitted with the technology, which until now has found application in vessels like minesweepers and deep-sea tugs. The variable pitch allows the vessel to quickly change direction, acting as both rudder and propulsion system, with a fraction of the lag time of traditional screw-and-rudder combinations.
Inside and out, Viking made a conscious decision to eschew the traditional paddle-wheeler-style vessel that was synonymous with this river for centuries. Interiors reflect Viking’s standard pattern of Scandinavian decor, with noteworthy twists that recall the locale and history of America’s heartland. Staterooms are pulled nearly straight out of the line’s oceangoing ships: generously sized rooms that offer more luxury than is typical for the area.
Viking Mississippi debuted in summer 2023. But there were problems. Strong vibration plagued the stern of the ship, where some of its most high-end suites are located. Service was more miss than hit, as Viking struggled to translate its standard of service from its European and international crews to its American ones.
Staffing remains an issue among US river cruise lines. Many American crewmembers, unaccustomed to the work ethic demanded of them, simply walk off a vessel at the next port of call, never to return. Norwegian Cruise Line saw this back in 2004 when it tried to start its first inter-Hawaii services on Pride of Aloha and Pride of America, and it nearly killed the entire venture.
Realising that changes needed to happen, Viking pulled Viking Mississippi from the water in early 2024 for a host of tweaks and changes – and received some help from an unlikely source.
Good vibrations
Credit goes to Viking for doing what many cruise operators would blanch at: pulling a brand-new ship out of service for several months in order to correct design problems.
The biggest and most invasive change was to insert a new 20-foot section into the stern of the ship. This would push the Voith Schneider propulsion system further aft to reduce vibration on the stern-facing suites. The vibration now, while still noticeable, is nothing more than a pulsing bounce at cruising speed, with the extra 20-foot stern acting like a transom to tame the violent wake produced by the Voith Schneider props.
Viking Mississippi also had a tendency to bottom out on low riverbeds, so its bow was reshaped and streamlined, with an added partition on the front to give it a more raked appearance below the waterline, allowing it to cut through shallow banks better.
These changes alone were invasive enough that Viking had to have new plans drawn up and issued by the vessel’s classification society.
Other sweeping changes affected passenger areas. Mamsen’s, Viking’s Norwegian-themed eatery, was excised entirely from the upper deck of the vessel. New furniture was ordered after it was discovered that some of the existing furniture, culled from the line’s oceangoing catalogue, was so heavy it weighed down the ship unnecessarily.
The restaurant on deck 1 formerly featured an open-concept galley to allow diners to see food being prepared; Viking enclosed the entire galley in the centre of the room after complaints about noise disturbing diners. It also converted the upper level of the Explorers’ Lounge on deck 2 to more of a multipurpose lecture and entertainment room, after it realised that no one was using the upper extension of the ship’s primary watering hole.
Other changes were smaller, such as improvements to fit and finish, and a retool of the Living Room on deck 1 to allow for a full-sized jazz band.
Overall, it’s the kind of change that is incredibly expensive to make but that pays huge dividends in passenger satisfaction.
Viking made one last improvement that it has so far refused to make on any other vessel: in the River Café on deck 5, two screens have been installed in the bar area to allow passengers to watch sporting events. Pop-up screens rise from concealed table dividers to allow the rest of the room to watch as well, in a reluctant nod to American sporting culture.
Out of crisis comes opportunity
As Viking was refitting Viking Mississippi, it received help from an unlikely source: the collapse of American Queen Voyages.
The struggling river, lake, and expedition line had been on rocky financial footing for some time prior to its 20 February 2024 demise. And while competitor American Cruise Lines, the largest and arguably fastest-growing American-flagged cruise line, focused on snapping up (and eventually scrapping) much of the American Queen fleet, Viking moved swiftly in a different direction: it snapped up the line’s experienced and now unemployed crew.
The decision worked spectacularly in Viking’s favour. American Queen Voyages was famed for its long-time staffers who adored the company’s eponymous flagship, American Queen. They understood the rivers of the United States and the demands of the job. And, more importantly, they had the experience.
Those crewmembers from American Queen Voyages who came over to Viking weren’t just limited to hotel operations, either: on our August 2024 sailing, our entire complement of navigating officers were ex-American Queen, as were our two bartenders and one cabin steward.
The experienced crew helped guide the junior crewmembers in terms of service, and Viking began pulling from another unexpected source market: Guam. Crewmembers pulled from Guam, an overseas US territory, had the same sense of service that many Asian countries possess, but with the advantage of being able to work on a US-flagged ship.
With the new crewmembers on board, passenger satisfaction started going up. That, in turn, brought up crew morale. Viking also relied heavily on its European crewmembers living in the US, married to Americans, to fill department head roles.
The difference is like night and day: service on a US waterway that rivals the finest hotels and can compete favourably with the line’s European river cruise product.
The future of the Viking Mississippi
With Viking Mississippi sailing at near capacity, the idea that it could one day be joined by a fleetmate is tantalising. While no announcements have been made publicly, the idea isn’t so far-fetched, particularly from the practical standpoint of water levels. A second vessel would allow Viking to, as in Europe, have two ships meet at a blocked point of river to transfer guests from one vessel to another, bypassing the troubled section of water and bringing both cruises to a successful conclusion.
Whether that comes to fruition remains to be seen, but in the meantime, one thing is certain: Viking is on the Mississippi to stay.
