Buglady777

Agreed. We changed our minds on pillows, sodas, etc, once on board, and the butler had it handled in less than an hour. We liked that the butler sat us down the first day and explained all that he could do for us, a big help, as it was our first grand suite.

We enjoyed Explorer suite 784 last year. Huge deck with different areas to sit, so you could be in or out of the sun. And it does look like Splendor 784 is the same layout, probably with different furniture and art, as it is a newer ship. We will be in a suite on deck 12 on the Splendor next year at this time. The only negative I would point out was a LOT of vibration when pulling into docks. They may have corrected that on the Splendor. But vibration otherwise was only slight at times in high seas, and we had some doozy seas at one point. Also, when sitting at the very back deck, we could not see the ocean, only the sky, due to the solid railing. Most ships have open view railing aft, but not RSS. The side was open, as you can see on the original photos. We visited people with forward grand suites, and liked their deck views better...but a lot more wind! We can't remember if RSS contacted us ahead of time for our grand suite setup, but we called in our requests ahead of our cruise. We didn't fill out the butler request form for some reason. We are still in awe over our time on that sailing. Loved the nightly canapes that you could customize every day. Our butler was awesome. And we had a standing reservation daily for specialty dining if we let our butler know before noon that day. Restaurants were fabulous, never had such good food. Enjoy!

Yes, we are on Roll Call. Looking forward to meeting...good bars on the Explorer! Too bad they don't have a meet and mingle set up. Kathy and Bob

We have gone on the May 23 Roll Call a while back and introduced ourselves. We are going to Reykjavik 3 days early, and maybe see some cruisers there before the cruise! We were nervous also, about being the second (?) cruise on a new ship. It was good to hear reassuring words from all of you. We were on the Norwegian Prima in October, a new ship. They canceled their first cruises in Europe due to delays. It will be good to be back on Viking after the Prima experience. What a weird ship.

Thanks to TL and CCWine (BTW, very impressed at your Viking voyages, CC!) for the info and link to that tour company! Dang, we will be in Reykjavik for 3 days prior to boarding the Saturn in May, but no dates line up for us either. Their itinerary gives us a good idea of what to look for though. I go on Roll Call if we need to round up more people for a private tour. Works well, usually.

We will also be on the Vancouver to Tokyo sailing. We did a 16 day TA on Explorer in 2022, and had no trouble booking the additional specialty dining venues while on board. The food was better than we have ever had, and so artfully presented. You will love it even more, as longer sailings allow for exploring the culinary delights.

I agree they are still learning the ropes, so to speak. While standing in line at the Improv (with reservations) the people in front of me bragged that they did not have reservations. they were let in without a second thought. Happened a couple of times, no control of reservations. We ended up with horrible seats.

We ate dinner there only one night, but should have had lunch there to see the beautiful ocean during the day! It got dark at dinner, just saw our reflection. Food, just OK. Service good.

We were on the NYC to Galveston, and we were also, for much of it, disappointed in the small venues (50 seats at the Improv?? And pillars blocking many of those!) Uncomfortably tight seating in the small main theater, and waaay too loud volume on every show, thank goodness for earplugs! If we weren't in the wonderful Haven I would have been mad. Haven food good, all other venues very hit and miss. Bars were great! And, I do understand they are still working out the kinks. Hard to find comfy chairs (lOTS of seating, but, wow, most were hard on my back). I could do a whole post on the pros and cons, but still recovering from the cruise. They wanted to create cozy venues, but it did not work with 3000 people competing for them. I had to show up 30-40 minutes early for lectures/shows at Syds or Improv, just to stand in the back, even with reservations. Sad. And they are going to build more like the Prima. My next NCL will be on an older ship for sure. That said, I liked the colors and decor. Beautiful.

Oh, forgot to mention it was frustrating not having a jogging track per se, but people were walking deck 8, although a bit problematic winding through the aft section. It goes all tthe way around the ship.

That pic shows only half of the gym. It extends around. It opens at 6 AM. I would get there every day about 7-8 AM, and had no problem finding machines. They were glitchy tho! Staff showed me how to flip a switch on the (only 6) ellipticals to reset the computers. Never were all the ellipticals working at once. Not as many weight machines as on other lines. Only our first NCL.