CharTrav

1 hour ago, FetaCheese said:

Thanks, I checked air pref, and it was as you said, not pre-filled.  Same with dietary, cabin prefs.

I’ve never understood why this information isn’t preserved and applied to new bookings. Checking these profiles is on my standard Viking cruise checklist. 😎

On 5/29/2023 at 12:44 PM, FetaCheese said:

Just booked a V cruise. 

 

Had wondered why my passport info was on guest info form, and not wife's.  

 

When speaking with a V cust service agent, I was informed that wife's passport would not be valid for the required 6 months. 

 

V had stored info, but did not populate form, for that reason.

 

A very attentive V agent.  Filed and mailed appl. the next day, and was received by passport office P.O. Box the following day.

 

Thanks Viking !

 

Also - make sure to check your air profile every time. The data in your GIF carries over into later bookings but not so for your Air Profile. That’s where you provide your seating preferences, known traveler number, preferred airline and frequent flier number. 

Sorry gang -- I should have waited a few more days before I posted the update on May 19.  Apparently, the VE schedule was still changing. I swear, I don't recall any time when a cruise is simply deleted without replacing it with something else at the same time. 

When I was doing the update on 19 May, two Polaris cruises in Oct 2024 (Canada & the Atlantic Coastline) and Nov 2024 (Atlantic Coastline and Patagonia Shores) had been deleted.  I made the deletion without either noting the fact they'd been deleted or noticing that neither of them had a replacement . These replacements may have appeared later that day (don't know) but when I checked again on May 22nd (on a whim), I noticed two new cruises Canada & East Coast Explorer (Oct '24) and Chilean Fjords & Scenic Shores (Nov '24).  Together with Panama & Scenic South America, they are (for Polaris) segments of Longitudinal World Cruise IV.  I didn't make the connection between these two new and two deleted cruises deleted until 2 days ago. Anyway -- I've held off posting the updated schedule with the two new cruises I noticed on May 22nd until today.

As always -- use the link provided on the the ReadMe tab to download a fresh copy.  If you don't already have a copy of the spreadsheet, use the DropBox link (along with instructions) provided in my Signature block to download the spreadsheet.

6 hours ago, lackcreativity said:

You might want to rethink the importance of the paper ones. They have the information needed to direct your luggage to your room and could prevent a delay in receiving your luggage in your cabin.

and @Stickman1990 There are two things sent by Viking before a cruise -- a pair of leatherette luggage tags with a paper insert for you to record your name and home address and two sets of 4 to 5 flexible plastic (not paper) luggage tags (one set per passenger) with the passenger's name and cabin assignment.  The leatherette tags are not that important given that once you've put them on your bags - you really don't need another set (I have a drawer with many brand new, still in their plastic wrapper, tags from previous cruises).  However -- the flexible plastic tags are VERY important.  You DO want them.  You put them on your bags after arriving at your final destination in baggage claim before you meet up with the Viking representative waiting for you there.   As lackcreativity wrote -- they are used by the Viking crew to move them to  your cabin. 

20 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

CharTrav - that is what I was trying to indicate to the OP.

Stuff gets sent by mail and email to your Travel Agent by Viking and not you.  That has the potential for being a problem unless you have a good Travel Agency.

Agree.  And of course - what motivation do external TAs have to do it otherwise? It'd be nice if Viking could/would backstop the external TAs for final travel docs and materials but I can see how these externals TAs would scream bloody murder of they did. 😔

6 hours ago, MamaFej said:

Another data point: we are US Americans who took our first Viking (Ocean) cruise in August 2022. We did not receive pouches or tags. We do get lots of brochures. 

Did you book directly with Viking or through an external TA?  Based on posts above, if it was through an external TA, your tags etc were sent to them and not to you . Your TA should have then sent them to you.

3 hours ago, Twitchly said:

Yeah, our TA really dropped the ball — or rather her office did. She was away when her office received our tags and documents; we never got them. Turns out her office didn’t put adequate postage on them and they were returned. We have not yet figured out what benefit TAs provide.

Definite advantage to using a Viking TA ... not an external TA. Of course, if you're doing stuff before and after the cruise not involving Viking (e.g., extensions) and need help with hotel arrangements .. that's another story.  Unfortunately, I don't see a way .. except if your external TA forces the issue - is to have all travel materials sent directly to you including both stuff sent via email (e.g., edocs) and snail mail (luggage tags, etc).

Wow!  Another update -- this time for Viking Expeditions.  The schedule has been extended into September 2025.  Three new cruises have been added that have caught my interest:  Canada & Greenland Explorer, Canada & the Northwest Passage, and Into the Northwest Passage. Am treating them as a Cruise Group (with a GroupCode). Just need to convince my other half we should do either Canada & Greenland Explorer (better IMHO than Canadian Discovery that I've had on my wish list) or Canada & the Northwest Passage.   As always -- use the link provided on the the ReadMe tab to download a fresh copy.  If you don't already have a copy of the spreadsheet, use the DropBox link (along with instructions) provided in my Signature block to download the spreadsheet.

Just posted an update.  The ReadMe tab includes a better explanation of how GroupCodes are used to indicate which cruises, for a given ship, are segments/variants of a larger parent cruise, e.g., Iconic Mediterranean Treasures (IMT) with its nine shorter variants.  Also added some GroupCodes to cover new cruises.  And.. corrected the Region for Viking World Cruise I and Viking World Cruise II that should been World, not Grand.  A shout out to @BluebonnetTexan who pointed out the need for this update.

On 5/13/2023 at 12:47 PM, CCWineLover said:

Good point!  We are doing the first segment this June (NYC-Reykjavik) and the 2nd segment (the other direction) (Bergen-Reykjavik) in 2024.   AND, we are actually starting in Bergen on the Mars and doing Barcelona to Bergen to Reykavik (B2B).

 

One more thing I do hear a lot from people about B2B cruises and segments - Viking likely should do a better job communicating this.  People aren't aware that at the segment junctions (like Reykjavik, Rome, Venice, Athens, and others), where some people get off and new passengers get on . . .   Viking doesn't advance publish excursions for those that say on.  When onboard, however, Viking usually does provide some excursions for those that do stay on the ship (like in those cities).  Someone the other day was very upset there were no excursions for the major city of Reykjavik and I had to explain that because they were continuing on to Bergen while many got off, there was nothing pre-published, but they would certainly have something when onboard.

Agree here. I describe this in the notes on the consolidated reports I publish for the Cruises we've booked. Viking only describes this "feature" in the excursion report sent to passengers with an active booking after their MVJ begins to display their excursions. Not very helpful to folks who haven't made a booking at all.  Something to add to their FAQ page? Maybe I'll send that sugggestion to Customer Relations after I double check the FAQ page to make sure it's not already there. 

51 minutes ago, BluebonnetTexan said:

Duh! I kept missing that line about the Group column in the ReadMe! I thought I'd remembered you had the multi-segment cruises covered. I never scrolled far enough right recently either, obviously! It might be a good idea to add the info to the ReadMe, since the info is so far back in the LogNotes now, and hidden by default. 

 

Also, there's a new group - the Greenland, Iceland, Norway & Beyond cruise, is actually comprised of the Iceland & Norway's Arctic Explorer and Iconic Iceland, Greenland & Canada. Might be some others, I'm just aware of this one because we are doing Iconic Iceland, Greenland & Canada later this year. 

 

Again - you do an awesome job on compiling this info for us! 

Thanks for the suggestions. Will address soon and post. 

On 5/9/2023 at 2:46 PM, BluebonnetTexan said:

Is there a way to denote the cruises that are actually comprised of shorter segments also sold separately? For example, the 29-day Mediterranean's Iconic Shores is actually 4 8-day segments. And, all the various 15-day and 22-day versions contained there-in. It seems lots of folks sign up for these longer versions not realizing it is really a series of B2Bs

Actually I do. If you look at the column way way down on the right (beyond the columns for 2025) you'll find stuff like MIS etc (the codes are listed on the ReadMe page) that allow you to filter the spreadsheet to display all the segments/variants within, e.g., Mediterranean Iconic Shores (MIS). Perhaps I should explain that more clearly on the ReadMe tab. Thought I had but let me look at it again and see what I can do to clarify that caoability. 

Yeah - maybe I should re-examine my cruise categories (Grand, Med, etc) to align better with how VO does it now. Will consider. Have tried to replicate the VO categories. 

This thing really does continue to be a work in progress altho not as much as at the beginning. Now it's little tweaks here and there. 

Got it done and have uploaded the updated spreadsheet.

VO:   Basically major shifts of Saturn's schedule in 2024 (mostly) and 2025, which affected Sky and Jupiter in a few instances. Biggest changes are that in 2024  the number of sailings of Viking Homelands has been reduced from 18 to 12 while the number of sailings of British Isles Explorer has been increased from 14 to 19.  Cruises tied to Viking Homelands and British Isles Explorer (e.g., Baltic Jewels & Midnight Sun and British Isles & Iceland Explorer went up or down, as well).  Three TA cruises were added:  Mediterranean to Caribbean Sojourn and Mediterranean & South Atlantic in 2024; and Atlantic & Mediterranean Horizons in 2025.

VE:  Additional sailings in 2024 of Longitudinal World Cruise II, Canada & the Atlantic Coastline, and Panama & South America.

Refer to the Log Notes tab for a complete description of these changes.  Also -- I didn't notice until this week --  that the number of sailings of Alaska & the Inside Passage in 2024 has nearly doubled from 12 to 22 because Mars will be joining Orion. This change happened last February.

If you already have a copy of this spreadsheet -- just use the link provided in the ReadMe tab to update what you have. If not,  download a copy of this file from my DropBox folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8pm1betyh91wlhf/AABBcPIWuqWJQtR5JrNSFOqMa?dl=0. No DropBox account required.

Heads up regarding the 2024 and 2025 VO schedules.  Looks like there is some major reshuffling in, at least, the 2024 schedule -- maybe more for 2025.  I started to do what I thought would be a minor update to the schedule, a simple addition of new itineraries.  But it's more than that and I don't have time today to handle it.  For one -- the number of Viking Homelands cruises in 2024 has been reduced from 15 to 12. Also seeing shuffling around with Sky and Saturn. Anyway -- more complex than I want to work on today.  Will try to work on the schedule this Sunday.

FYI - the schedule for Viking Expeditions has been extended into February 2025.  Check out my Combined Cruise Schedule thread -- https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2651194-viking-ocean-combined-cruise-schedule/?do=findComment&comment=65289268.

Have posted an update.  No changes to VO schedules.  VE schedules for both Polaris and Octantis have been extended into February 2025.  A new cruise  has been added - Longitudinal World Cruise IV - for Octantis from Milwaukee to Ushuaia. Again -- if you already have a copy, just use the link provided in the Notes tab to update what you have. Otherwise -- use the link provided under "General Viking stuff" in my signature box  to open the folder containing this document with an obvious name.  Remember no DropBox account required to simply download the file.

Have finished updating the spreadsheet.  With respect to VO -- all the changes are with respect to Saturn which is now scheduled thru mid-Sept 2025, including adding a new cruise called Malta, Morocco & the Mediterranean that starts and ends in Barcelona.  Am seriously considering that for 2025! With respect to VE -- a few changes to the schedule for Polaris including adding a new Grand Journey called Antarctic Explorer & The Americas that travels from BA to Fort Lauderdale. If you already have a copy -- just use the link provided in the Notes tab to update what you have. Otherwise -- use the link provided under "General Viking Stuff" in my signature box.

just noticed updates made to the 2024 and 2025 schedule -- will post update soon.

29 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

The US is discussed frequently, but most coastal nations have some type of Cabotage Laws. In Canada we have the Coasting Trade Act, which in some cases is more restrictive than the US.

 

I haven't studied Australian Laws, but I suspect you have a similar law, as foreign flagged ships when cruising around Australia all stop in Bali, or another foreign port.

Ah ha!!!! That explains why the new circum-Australia cruise in 2025 starting and ending in Sydney does what I have thought is an odd jog up to Bali. Makes sense now. 

Also why the Viking Mississippi that travels within the US had to be built in the US and owned by a US based  company that leases it Viking. Similar to what we see in Egypt, Vietnam etc. 

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Hi Char,

 

The US PVSA only considers your ports of embarkation and disembarkation, they do not take into consideration if you booked multiple cruises.

 

Boarding in New York and disembarking in Milwaukee will require a stop at a distant foreign port, which unfortunately is not possible. Therefore, this is in contravention of the PVSA.

 

If you continue from Milwaukee and disembark at a Canadian port, it would be legal.

OK. Toronto in the middle doesn't count because I haven't formally disembarked. If say...ha ha.. I sailed from New York to Toronto - actually left the ship - and boarded again even a day later - and sailed to Milwaukee that would be OK. But of course - that's impossible. So...ç'est la vie. Thanks for the quick response. I'd be happy with a 2 wk cruise  mostly in the same time zone too! Think PEI etc are on the Atlantic time zone. Just an hour difference. Easy peasy. Nothing compared to the time zone shift we went thru last month returning from a wonderful Australia/New Zealand cruise followed by the Best of Australia extension. 

Question for @Heidi13, @chengkp75 regarding Jones act and Cabotage rules. Am looking at doing a back to back that starts in New York ends in Toronto and then continues from Toronto ending in Milwaukee. Is this permitted? Legal? I'm really just interested in the St Lawrence piece but hubby would like to extend thru thru to Milwaukee. I'm afraid it's not legally doable. Thanks in advance!

4 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

 

RAR is a file compression format similar to ZIP. It handles larger files but uses more memory. ZIP is ubiquitous and predates RAR. RAR is proprietary which is why it is not built into more systems. The WINZIP program usually handles RAR. Linux geeks love RAR. It's another computer religious war because RAR is more efficient and Linux users love to show they are superior.

True. But my point is that compression should not come into play at all. It's a simple file download. The only time Dropbox yips about using compression to download is if you pick a whole folder or multiple files rather than an individual file. Clicking on the link my post from a desktop browser displays the first tab of the spreadsheet. All that is needed then is to click on the download button at the top. Which then downloads the file. No compression. I've just tested this out making sure I'm logged out of Dropbox. And it works. So I'm a little confused. 

Not getting into the conversation about which OS is better - be it Linux, Unix, Windows, MacOS etc. I'm married to a Mac bigot. And have had to listen to dear colleagues harangue me about why am I still using Windows - for years. Sigh.....😜

1 hour ago, FetaCheese said:

Thanks for your response.  Have Excel, and tried download, didn't open in Excel, but said I need WinRar -- don't know what that is.  I'm not going further, but appreciate your help.  I'll just try to find the schedule on V website.

WinRar is some file compression software that you don't need. I'm on my iPhone right now but I'll go to my workstation and see what you need to do to simply download it from a browser like Chrome or Firefox. 

Alternatively - look at my signature box which has the link to the folder where I keep that file, as well as, instructions for how to download a single file from a folder. 

1 hour ago, FetaCheese said:

Thanks, will try to download on desktop, where I have Excel.  Not working on mobile.

Am sure it'll work for you. It's not meant to work on a mobile device. But be aware that you'll have to configure Excel to permit macros. 

1 hour ago, FetaCheese said:

Can you or anyone else help me understand your dropbox?  I'm looking for the new Saturn schedule, but have not found it.  Thanks .

Assuming you have successfully downloaded the file and are able to run Excel - open the Cruises tab and filter the Ships column on Saturn. This will display Saturn's schedule sorted by first sail date. Of course - as I wrote earlier - she's not scheduled beyond Sept 2024.