Planning a European river cruise is a true bucket-list experience, but if you are eye-ing the iconic 15-day Viking Grand European Tour, you will quickly encounter one major debate among past guests: Should you sail Amsterdam to Budapest or Budapest to Amsterdam? After sailing this incredible Viking river cruise route in both directions, researching the subtle geographic differences, and talking extensively with fellow travelers, we realized that deciding between the upstream vs downstream directions isn't nearly as simple as it looks on paper.
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Decoding the Itinerary: What Do "AB" and "BA" Mean?
If you have spent more than five minutes browsing online travel forums trying to research this itinerary, you have probably run into a wall of shorthand. Most commonly you will see GET, which is simply shorthand for the Grand European Tour. But then people start arguing over "AB" vs "BA".
The letters are easy to crack: A stands for Amsterdam and B stands for Budapest. The magic is all in the direction of that tiny dash:
- AB (Amsterdam to Budapest): Sailing from the Netherlands, across Germany, and into Hungary.
- BA (Budapest to Amsterdam): Starting in Hungary and sailing northwest toward the North Sea.
Viking has an enormous fleet of identical Longships. During peak travel seasons like May and June, there can be up to 14 different Viking ships sailing this exact route at any given time, moving in completely opposite directions. If you are planning this bucket-list trip alongside friends, double-check that you have the exact same sailing date and the exact same letter abbreviation—otherwise, you will just be frantically waving at each other as your ships pass in the night!