sk8teacher

And your Cap 1 Visa will work just fine. That is what we use and have never had any issues with it.

Cheers,

No. They will give you a receipt that you sign when you get your drink, and the price you pay is what is posted. Tips are handled at the end of the cruise.

Cheers,

We are new to Viking and to their liquor policies. $30.00 is quite expensive. How much does a Scotch and water cost? I guess we'd have to know what a simple cocktail, made with premium liquor, would cost in order to make an informed decision on the packages. Thanks.

5.50 Euros - 7 Euros depending on brand. A typical bar menu can be found HERE.

Cheers,

Absolutely. We do it all of the time. If you take your bottle to the dinning room, they may or may not charge you a corkage fee. We buy ours and drink it in our room, or will take a glass up to the sundeck while cruising.

Cheers,

Both of us are wine drinkers, and rarely drink beer or liqueur. Thus the package that Viking sells is not cost effective for us. On our last cruise in November, we were at a table for eight with friends that we had met, and none of our wine glasses were ever empty.

We have also found that you can purchase excellent bottles of wine ashore, for about $10-12 if you talk with the shopkeepers and discuss your preferences. I have paid a lot more for wine in the states that were not as good.

In our opinion, beer is more expensive in Europe than in the US though we have bought a glass to go along with lunch.

Cheers,

Excellent photo's! As we will be going on a similar cruise next December, it was a treat to have an advanced view of what we might see. As an avid photographer myself, may I ask what equipment you used for your photo's?

Thanks for sharing!

Cheers,

On our two river cruises, most of the time the port side was away from the dock. That said, we have had cabins next to the dock, and other than keeping the curtains drawn at night to stop "prying" eyes from passerby's and shut out light, have not had an issue. We really did not notice any excessive noise.

Cheers,

We always send postcards from each port, as our grandson likes to collect foreign stamps. From anywhere in Europe we have never had an issue, only from some of the islands. We also always go to the local post office in each port to get local stamps and then mail them from there. Plan on spending anywhere from $1.50 to $3.00 including the cost of the postcard for mailing.

Going to the post office also provides the opportunity to purchase other stamps for his collection. The various islands sometimes have some absolutely gorgeous stamps well worth buying.

Mailing from the ship we have found to be more expensive and not as reliable.

Cheers,

I have not seen the Viking video, but I can assure you that is not a good example of river cruising. I agree that they should have shown samples of a walking tour perhaps, a quick look at a typical cabin (including the cheap seats :D), and perhaps a tour of one of their ships. On most lines the cabins are all the same size, and you pay more the higher up you go. Personally, we usually get the lowest category depending on the ship. For example, Viking Europe cabins are all 150 sq ft, except for Cat E which is 135 sq ft, and has pullman beds which we hate.

Evening entertainment can be interesting when they bring aboard a local entertainer, but typically it is one of the crew playing a keyboard or something simiar. The attendance is usually slim as most are quite tired from a walking tour in the morning, and then a walkabout on their own in the afternoon. Remember that unlike ocean cruising, a river cruise is very port intensive. You will be in a port every day.

River cruisng is intense, and yet more relaxing than ocean cruising. Once you have done one, you will want to do another.

Cheers,

I could not find anything referring specifically to military personnel, but the State Department has a couple of articles:

HERE

This LINK has some information on specific areas, mainly resorts.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

We are TFL as well and also always purchase travel insurance with medical coverage, and have separate coverage for medevac which covers us anywhere as long as we are at least 150 miles from home. TRICARE is always secondary insurance under these cases.

Cheers,

If you bring your own you pay the same price per minute as using their computers. You can save "time" however, by composing your email off-line, and then logging on and sending it off.

And as mentioned, you can carry it off ship and use local services. Depending on where you are traveling, McDonalds is another venue for free access, especially in Europe.

And by having your own computer you can download your pictures from your camera thus freeing up chip space. I always set up a daily file folder and download my pictures every evening, and then write a review of what we did that day and place it in the daily folder. That makes life a lot easier when we get back in sorting out what we did.

Cheers,

I suppose that a cruise specific site might be interesting to some. Personally, I use http://www.wunderground.com/ to research the weather at each port I will be at. Works quite well and so far as proven to be as accurate as any weather predictions.

Cheers,

i wonder if this has been changed. i ran a search, and there appears to no longer be an exemption on liquor (or cigarettes) purchased in st. thomas. here's the link to the US custom's service page

That is interesting indeed. We were in St Thomas last November and I'm fairly certain I saw the five liter tax free written somewhere there.

Cheers,