Berlin Bear

5 minutes ago, tinaincc said:

This sounds like a good solution. Why did you get 2 cabins? Could you order food off the dining room menu or were you stuck with a limited menu etc?

We got 2 cabins because I simply asked whether it would be possible. And it was.  And I was very grateful during  the first few days as I felt a bit rough and wanted to sleep all the time. My husband just had a slight cough.

Every morning they brought the lunch and dinner menus from the restaurant and we ordered whatever we wanted from these. Never had a problem getting through to room service and food was delivered in 20-30 minutes. In contrast to Celebrity, food was served on proper plates. We even ordered afternoon tea every day 🙂. 
 

Apart from that, medical services visited every day - sometimes twice - and guest services called every day to hear if we needed anything. But I still wouldn’t like to be quarantined again and I just can’t imagine doing it without a balcony!

10 hours ago, bunzini said:

We have cruised three times this year and all has been fine.  But after reading JetBlue's thread, I am concerned about our fall New England cruise.  Honestly, if Celebrity can not let us quarantine in a cabin with a balcony, I am not sure I can be comfortable cruising.  I understand the idea if a person is so sick and needs medical attention to keep them close, but to keep someone who had a slight fever and a cough for days on end in a room with no access to outside seems punishing.  How can we expect people to report their illness if this is the treatment to expect?

Same here - also considering cancelling the Celebrity NE/Canada cruise in September and instead booking a similar itinerary with TUI Cruises which, so far, uses balcony cabins for quarantining passengers and crew.
 

Recently came off a Viking Ocean transatlantic cruise where we unfortunately had to spend 10 days in quarantine after testing positive on embarkation day. Their ships only have balcony cabins and the quarantine area is on deck 3. We were particularly lucky and were given two neighbouring cabins where we could open up the balcony divider. We were treated very well, but 10 (or even 5) days is a really long time to be restricted to a cabin, so OV is out of the question for us.

Apart from all the things to see in Barcelona, we enjoyed the restaurant El 4 Gats (4 cats) https://4gats.com 

On the Jupiter recently and disappointed that the TV did not swivel. I like to watch from the comfort of the easychair.

We have a cruise booked for September on the Summit and this report has me somewhat worried. 

We recently returned from a three week Transatlantic (Buenos Aires to Barcelona) cruise with Viking Ocean - small ships with balcony-only cabins. My husband tested positive (PCR) on embarkation day and was transferred to a balcony cabin on deck 3 in the quarantine area for passengers and crew. I tested positive the following day and was transferred to his cabin to begin with and then to the neighbouring cabin a day later. We had the balcony divider open so we could wander in and out of each other’s cabin. My husband just had a slight cough, but I had the whole head, nose, throat thing, was extremely tired and lost my appetite, so was happy to have my own space where I could sleep when I wanted for the first few days.

Internet worked very well and there were loads of films and series on the TV, which I hardly watched because I read quite a few books during that time. Medical services visited every day (sometimes twice), guest services called every day to hear how we were and whether we needed anything particular. We received the restaurant menu every morning and room services always answered the phone when we wanted to order. The longest wait for a meal was 30 minutes. And the food was served on proper crockery! We were PCR tested every day and were released after 10 days according to US CDC guidelines. We were very well looked after, for which we were very grateful, but 10 days is a long time…

We also cruise frequently with the German cruise line, TUI Cruises, and believe the quarantine area for passengers and crew is always in balcony cabins on deck 6. TUI Cruises is a very close „relative“ of Celebrity.

So there are cruise lines out there that respect passenger needs and have the right business model for current times.

I think we also have to consider the effects of reduced passenger restrictions on the crew. We recently returned from a cruise on the Viking Jupiter where we spent the first ten days in quarantine on deck 3 after having tested positive on embarkation day. We were very grateful to be able to stay on board and felt well looked after.

Returning to our original cabin after the ten days, we discovered that our housekeeping angel had been infected and gone into quarantine 4 days after us. It could, of course, be pure coincidence, but we did have a guilty conscience. I’m not sure and cruise line would allow infected crew to carry on working, especially in areas with direct contact with passengers.

5 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Unfortunately, this is consistent with all the cruises. Even when using Viking Air, if you opt to arrive early, or stay longer you do not receive transfers to/from the ship.

Agree. I don’t know of any cruise line, including the German ones which we frequently use, that would offer free (or included) airport transfers without having booked the whole package. Same with any package holiday.

TUI Cruises (the German cruise line) has announced that they are making arrangements to replace St Petersberg with Klaipeda (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia), Copenhagen and Visby (Sweden).

3 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

The fact that one case on board could scuttle your whole itinerary. It only takes one government official to say, "Sorry, we don't want you here. Your permission to dock is revoked." Cruise ships are different because governments say they are.

 

 

Viking reviews the test; it is their requirement for boarding.

 

We sailed from Los Angeles at the end of December. The first thing that Viking asked for was test results and vaccination certificates. They checked the date of the test and the type of test to make sure that it conformed with the current requirement (for us two days before boarding) and that is was negative. Only after that were we permitted to proceed to the check-in desks.

 

For your own peace of mind, considering that you will be in country for 6 days prior to boarding, double and triple check with Viking whether you will need additional testing prior to boarding so that you don't yourselves scrambling to get tested on embarkation day. Make sure that you make it very clear how long you will be in town before boarding.

Agree with all you say and, in addition, and probably most importantly, we are still in the middle of a pandemic as declared by the WHO (which has universal membership) and the great majority of its member countries are still taking precautionary measures to protect their populations. A cruise ship without ports to visit becomes a bit pointless.

We’ve been on five cruises (German cruise line) since summer 2020 and have felt very safe due to testing before boarding, testing while on board and having to wear masks. And don’t forget, the cruise lines are also required to stick to the rules of the countries they are visiting. 

Funnily enough, masks are not really discussed here in Germany. People in general comply because it seems to make sense and has never really become a political debate. We’ve also done 5 cruises since summer 2020 and have thoroughly enjoyed all of them. We have felt very privileged to be able to do so and very safe on all the cruises thanks to the measures.

.

Hello again, I hope you enjoyed your cruise and would love to know whether you managed to get some answers to our various questions and concerns.

I enjoyed a cruise round the Greek islands last week with a German ship (Mein Schiff 5). No customer service problems there 🙂

Really happy to have some feedback - many thanks for sharing your experience. I guess there are very few of us in this position because of the fact that Viking doesn’t market its products in mainland Europe. Similar situation to you - I have dual British/German citizenship:(thanks to Brexit), my husband is German and we pay Viking from my UK bank account.

We really enjoyed our Viking cruise in 2018 - loved the ship and the food and met some very pleasant and interesting people. All in all, a very positive experience. However, we only met one other couple from mainland Europe - a British man with his Polish wife who lived in Spain. He had also booked with Viking UK. So, overall, a homogenous group of English speaking passengers with similar tastes and needs. I’m wondering whether broadening the passenger base to include other Europeans would lead to increased costs for the cruise line as they may have to cater for different tastes and needs. Building (near) identical ships for a fairly narrow passenger base (compared to international cruise lines) most probably has its advantages in this respect.

So, yes, I think Viking is not really interested in gaining a mixed European clientele and our lack of access to Viking UK is probably one of many unintended consequences of Brexit. Still, it was very unprofessional of the company not to reply to my various queries which I mentioned in my first post.

1 hour ago, Mike981 said:

I'm sorry you are having these issues. You shouldn't have to work hard to get information from a business. I have not signed up for any emails from Viking, if I did I would forward you mine.

Thanks for your feedback and kind words. I will have a serious word 😉 with the person responsible for future cruise sales when I’m next on board. We have a cruise booked for March 2022 (Buenos Aires to Barcelona) - not sure whether this will actually take place, of course.

4 minutes ago, Mike981 said:

 

Is it possible that it is going to your spam filter, or being automatically deleted?

I frequent the Celebrity forum and they have the same issues over there with emails. Some can't get them to stop and others can't get them to start. I wonder if it is a third party software that is the issue. Not promoting your business to people that are asking for your sales pitch and on the other hand you are spending millions in advertising to get people interested?  

You may be right, but I look at my spam folder regularly and nothing from Viking has landed there. Mails could be automatically deleted of course, but then I do receive messages from Viking UK regarding my bookings. When I booked the first Viking cruise by telephone in 2018, the UK agent speculated that the problem might be caused by me having a German email address and Viking doesn’t market, or indeed sell, their cruises in mainland Europe. Despite the founder/owner being a Norwegian!

Really enjoying your Reisebericht! We haven’t managed a Celebrity cruise for a little while now - had to cancel 2 cruises in 2019 for health reasons and Celebrity cancelled our 2020 Australia/NZ cruise for the obvious reasons. But we have managed 4 cruises with Mein Schiff over the past year, including the Greek trip you wrote so well about last September/October. I was cruising and reading at the same time 😄. Carry on having a good time!

And I have the opposite problem 😅. I’ve registered no end of times (Website and UK Agent) that I would like to receive information and promotional material. Result - not one single email or brochure. I even did a live chat via the Viking website recently (about 10 days ago) regarding a specific river cruise and the person at the other end promised to send me the relevant information. Result - absolutely nothing. So I feel very neglected!

10 minutes ago, amyr said:

This is already happening.  I think Austria and Croatia have said that a person entering who has been vaccinated more than 270 days prior will be considered unvaccinated. I'm sure more will follow in that vein.  

 

 

They’ve started administering booster jabs to the most vulnerable here in Germany today, so I guess it won’t be too long until the rest of us are invited

31 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

 

Vaccination status does not play a role in the travel ban. The US bans travel by foreign residents who in the previous 14 days have been present in the UK, the Schengen states and some other countries such as India and Brazil even if you are vaccinated with a US-approved product. Travelers coming from countries not subject to the ban, including both foreign nationals and  returning US residents, have to provide proof of a negative COVID test or proof of recovery from COVID 19 and can fly to the US whether vaccinated or not. There are some destinations such as Hawaii that may have quarantine requirements for the unvaccinated. but that is a local requirement, not a US federal government requirement.

 

If there were a vaccination requirement why should the US give a green light to the AZ vaccine when AZ did not to submit its data to the FDA? Are we also expected to accept the Chinese and Russian vaccines? As @Berlin Bear said every sovereign nation has the right to decide which vaccines are acceptable.

You’re right, of course, about the vaccination status not playing a role. Just hope we manage to do our NE/Canada cruise in September 2022!

1 hour ago, friendlyfifer said:

I am not concerned about whether or not the AZ vaccine is used or not in the USA. My point is that millions of people in Europe and around the world have received the vaccine and they are not permitted to travel to the USA. How will this be overcome and when?

Well, like it or not, every sovereign nation has the right to decide which vaccines are to be recognized for entry into that country. Who know, even a double dose of Rfizer or Moderna may not be sufficient at some point in time 

1 hour ago, les37b said:

 

You do realise Viking sell cruises to more than just US customers?

 

The EU are playing hardball because they are upset that they are not allowed entry to US. Until last week, that is all they wanted. When there was no movement on this, they've now made this suggestion.

 

It's up to individual countries to ignore their recommendation and hope they do.

You do realise that today‘s recommendations/guidelines cover 6 countries, not just the US? And that they are based on rapidly growing infection rates?

Individual countries already have stricter rules in place than the EU guidelines. For example, nothing will change in Germany because there are already stricter restrictions for those 6 countries

Up to now the EU members states have followed the EU guidelines in this respect

Up to now all the EU member states have followed the EU guidelines

7 minutes ago, Yorkshire-Pudding said:

 

Rumour has it, the reason we can't enter is because the UK used Astrazeneca and it is not authorised for use there. It seems that even their Canadian neighbours can't enter either because they used a mix of vaccine manufacturers. I understand that US mainly used Pfizer or Moderna. There is talk of UK over 50s having boosters possibly of Pfizer so we could find ourselves still excluded for having different vaccines.

EU citizens aren’t allowed into the US either, although AstraZeneca is not used as much over here as in the UK. And infection rates are much lower. Even Merkel‘s request to Biden, when she made her farewell visit to Washington DC recently, to allow EU citizens in couldn’t change his mind.

Hopefully we‘ll make it to our NE/Canada cruise on the Summit in September 2022!

I would be interested to hear what experiences other (potential) Viking customers living on mainland Europe (I.e. not UK) have had regarding queries, questions, chats, etc with Viking customer service.

We live in Berlin, Germany and did our first Viking Ocean cruise in 2018. It was not possible to book it with any travel agent in Germany, so I booked the trip by telephone with Viking UK. All interactions regarding the cruise itself were very good, but I was never able to receive any promotional information however often I myself and the UK agent tried to enable this. Possibly because I have a German email address. We now have a second Viking cruise booked for March 2022, again through Viking UK - managed to do this just before the end of the Brexit transition period in December 2020. 

Now, however, we are no longer able to access the Viking UK website, although thankfully I still receive information about the upcoming booking from the UK agents. A couple of months ago I sent a query through the US website asking who we could turn to regarding future bookings and promotional material, etc. and have never received a reply. A couple of days ago I „chatted“ with an agent about some Danube river cruises which were being offered to UK customers (read about this on CC) at reduced prices. I gave my details and the agent promised to mail me all the relevant information. Nothing up to now.

Viking cruises are not marketed at all in Europe, except in the UK, and I’m starting to wonder whether European guests are simply regarded as a nuisance! With additional ships joining the fleet in the coming years, I would think the company (founded and run by a Norwegian!) would appreciate the additional customer base. Or do we rock the boat…?

Greetings from Berlin

Barbara

Hope you had a great day in Athens - it was uncomfortably hot when we were there last month unfortunately - and I hope you managed to get your masks.