Letter to Viking as yet unanswered

Here is the letter Elizabeth sent after being invited by Viking to send one.  Seems wasted effort. 

We are Dewey Hill and Elizabeth Reid...  We have a trip booked on
Viking our second river cruise for Dec 10th.. starting in Lisbon.
Dewey put a complaint up on Cruise Critic because our flight to Lisbon
turned out to be three legs and much longer than we hoped.  Because of
the holiday time scheduling we could not get custom air.(we knew this
from our agent and Viking when we booked as we requested custom
air.)..

Traveling is daunting for us as it is for many older travelers.  We
are actually driving from Albany our summer home to Tampa our winter
home between dec 5th and dec 10th.. when we saw that our flight
includes a stop in Washington DC... we wanted to drop the first leg of
our flight from Tampa to DC..  (not possible given airline
regulations).....

We wished that given we were not eligible for custom air ...we had
been given a heads up prior to booking by Viking of the flights they
planned to book for us...  I realize there were few choices because of
the season, but dropping the first leg of the trip would have been a
choice if the ticketing had been discussed with us.

We were told ticketing would happen 3 weeks prior to the trip.  I
called 4 weeks ahead in hopes of a discussion...  and found that the
tickets were already booked and no notice had gone to my travel agent
of that fact...  In the end we will just do what we have to do, but
airline rigidity on these matters seems so unnecessary... and Viking
could add the courtesy of checking with passengers prior to booking
when custom air is not available.

Our first trip with Viking was great in all regards and we used and
loved custom air.  We are looking forward to this trip and know that
after the flight there we will be well taken care of.

Thanks for listening.   Dewey Hill and Elizabeth Reid