mazza

1 hour ago, CurlerRob said:

 

I'm confused and don't want to mislead you. What cruise are you on / considering?

 

As far as I know, the provision of coat, pants and boots is a feature restricted to the expedition ships, when sailing in the Antarctic.

 

Your reference to the Arctic Circle and "Northern Lights" seems to suggest a Viking Ocean voyage in Norway - which does not provide clothing as part of the fare. (Or perhaps the Aussies are being treated better than us 😈). 🍺🥌

Ah you are right. I was on the Antarctic page 😞🙄- I got totally distracted - too excited. Well, that answers my question well and truly! Appreciate your knowledge for a newbie - much appreciated. 

1 hour ago, CurlerRob said:

 

The polar expeditions are currently in Antarctica only on the expedition ships (perhaps the high Arctic in the future). These are the only cruises that provide clothing.

 

If you look up any of the roll calls for the  two expedition ships - Octantis and Polaris, you'll find a number of discussions regarding the supplied clothing and what pax chose to bring in the way of personal clothing. In general, the supplied parkas were very warm and well-reviewed (and you get to keep them!) 🍺🥌

Thank you @CurlerRob I'm looking at the clothing site sent to us from Viking with a choice of clothing to buy and a recommended packing list, and there was a note there saying they would provide a jacket, insulation layer, waterproof pants and boots. I know it's not an expedition as such but it will be in the Arctic Circle for four days at two ports. And I really don't want to be cold.🙂Thanks for the tip about the roll calls too, I'll head over and check them out.

Maree 

Hello all

New to Viking, new to polar expeditions (well a Northern Lights Cruise). I read that Viking provides some clothing for these cruises but what exactly is the 'expedition jacket'? I've been searching online and on the Viking site but can't find details about what it is in terms of warmth = the outer jacket or a mid layer type item? Any advice will be very welcome. Thanks.

Maree

On 10/7/2022 at 2:38 PM, Kangakid said:

Tug,definitely agree re conflicting advice from Viking re the embarkation in Cairns protocols.  I have emailed Viking today seeking clarification, as the Eastern Seaboard Protocols that govern cruise ship requirements and the Queensland Protocols both indicate Self Administered RAT test and not the Certified test that Viking indicate.  I queried whether the certified RAT was an additional requirement from Viking???  I am also on the Cairns to Bali section.  
So will wait and see if I get a response from Viking.  
 

cheers

V.

I live in Australia and it seems there are restrictions on cruise passengers - unlike incoming flights. This is a 'protocol' document that explains it and seems to apply to all east and west coast ports.

Maree

18_July_Eastern_Seaboard_Cruise_Protocols.pdf

We have always cruised Celebrity, since 2004. We booked our first Viking Cruise late last year for February 2021. Our main reason was that we both felt it was time for a change, even though we reached Elite Plus on our last cruise. And the itinerary (Northern Lights) was not one that Celebrity offered. So far, I've been impressed in terms of communication, which is all I have to go on at the moment. I am, however, still quite doubtful that we will be cruising by February next year. Australians won't be able to fly out of the country until 2021, so I think we may be cutting it a bit fine in the end. 

I don't know if there are any other Australians here, but we can access this series via 7Plus. We have just booked our first cruise with Viking, so I'm trying to find out as much as I can so thanks for posting the link X-IO1.

If you get off the ship at 5am, and get a taxi, the trip from White Bay Terminal to the airport should take no more than 30 minutes - there shouldn't be much traffic at that hour. And the airport is in the city as opposed to many that are an hour or more away from the dock. We disembarked from the Celebrity Solstice at Circular Key on the weekend and caught a taxi at 7.30am and were at the domestic airport within 30 minutes.

Great. Thank you. We have an excursion that leaves from the Reef Terminal so need to work out how much time we will need to walk from the bus drop off - not much it seems 🙂

Hello

From reading this board, I know there is a Celebrity shuttle from Yorkey's Knob into Cairns, but does anyone know where the drop off point in Cairns is please? Thanks.

Maree

Thanks everyone. It turns out that - as has not been my experience in the past - when I changed the cabin category, the system decided to delete my beverage package/wireless perks and give me a discount on the price instead. No choice, just did it.

The code I was querying was a beverage package for one person only and appeared on the invoice I got when I made the change. As explained to me by the Customer Service person: you get an immediate invoice when you make a change, but the change is finalised within 24 hours, so the second invoice you get should be regarded as the final. The second invoice I got had dropped the beverage package code. No explanation about why the system decided to change my perks. But too late now.

My only option now is to cancel this booking and re-book to get the perks back. 

On 4/15/2019 at 9:11 AM, lbenson said:

Thanks for the excellent blog and photos. We were on the same sailing and had a wonderful experience. I loved your pictures. 😊

I hope you get to see Mt Fuji - it was a highlight, only visible for a few hours. And you will enjoy the Millennium, new decor or not. It was a great cruise.

On 4/2/2019 at 10:42 PM, ABoatNerd said:

OP - did the ship lose propulsion during the power outage? 

Did the Millie show down and lose momentum?

To be honest I don't really know. I went out on the balcony and we seemed to still be moving forward but I don't understand ship propulsion enough to say one way or the other. I am trying to remember what they told us in the behind the scenes tour a few years ago about back up power but can't remember. 

2 hours ago, GastroGnome said:

YWG is a flight prefix.  Might that be it?  The remainder - I would assume is "Promotion" "2 people" or possibly "2c" is a cabin class then 14 nights.  An easter puzzle for us all - do come back and let us know the answer!

 

 

Hmm. The mystery deepens then. No flights involved. I will ring on Tuesday when the office is open again and then report back. Thanks.

29 minutes ago, Xport said:

Not a code I recognize but it is possible that the code to which you refer may be one that is only used for pricing and/or promotions in certain markets (such as Australia)...

 

While you may get a relevant response here from someone who recognizes the code as an international one or from a fellow Australian, I too respectfully suggest  that you phone on Tuesday—time is seemingly not of the essence—so as to be sure you get an accurate understanding of the terms of your reservation.

No timing isn't of the essence, and I intended to call on Tuesday, but hoped that someone here would be able to solve the mystery.  A bit over-keen as I said. Thanks anyway.

34 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

As an aside, I hope that you do know that even though you will achieve the correct number of points while on the cruise, Your status will not change during that cruise. Status only changes after the cruise is complete. So you would have your new tier status on the following cruise but not this one. 

Yes, thank you. I'd read on previous posts over the years that this was the case, so I'm not expecting any changes till the next cruise. Thanks.

18 minutes ago, jelayne said:

Let’s start with what you believe you booked for perks or cabin.  Was it a guarantee?  

Knowing what you booked could help decipher the code.

Sorry. Here's the story. 

I originally booked with wireless and beverage package as perks. When I changed the cabin category and got the new invoice, these perks had disappeared. In their place I now have what looks like a fare discount (marked Price Rate Only)and this other code: YWG7-PROMO2C 14N.

I really don't know if it's for, but it was not a guarantee cabin. 

Thanks.

18 minutes ago, florisdekort said:

Call and ask. Problem solved. 

Yeah I do know that but thanks anyway. It's Saturday here in Australia and Easter long weekend (which you know since you are also in Australia) so I can't call until Tuesday at the earliest. Maybe I'm a bit over-keen, but just hoped that one of the friendly and generous people on Cruise Critic who might have have come across the code in their own bookings would share the info. 

We sailed on the Millennium 30 March Shanghai to Tokyo. I did a live blog here. It's not totally complete as I got a bad cold in the last week that turned into a chest infection (ie really tired) and the wireless failed me when it came to photo uploads in the last few days (ie really annoying). My travel blog which I'm updating now will have the full story. A few comments about the stateroom though.

• The cabin decor didn't make me go wow, but then neither did previous iterations. Over time, I quite liked the subtle tones and wasn't pining for the previous colour scheme.
• The bigger bed is not a problem - I didn't think moving around it was any different to moving around the previous version. And it's bigger, always a good thing in my book.
• The mattress and new quilt/doona are great and make for a good night's sleep; the pillows are too soft for my liking though but I always travel with a small chiropractic travel pillow.
• We had plenty of storage room, including the wardrobe, and didn't use all the space available. The location of the wardrobe near the door is only (obviously) a problem if someone comes into the cabin or out of the bathroom while the other person has the wardrobe doors open, but in those circumstances you don't get banged in the head or anything like that. It's more like looks of shock on each other's faces and then the clash of doors is resolved. 
• The new USB points and placement of the power points works really well. If you need to use an adapter though, the USB points in the bedside lamp is blocked. 
• The bathroom is fine, again with plenty of storage. We did have a leak that made the carpet wet near the door in the second week, but that happened after we had a flood in the corridor when a pipe burst - eek! All good, and great response by Celebrity staff. And the shower was re-caulked when we point it out which seemed to deal with the problem. I would have like more room for my own toiletries in the shower - the large bottle of bath wash, shampoo and condition take up all the room - but I coped 🙂
• The 'mini sofa' was good for storage of the stuff we used during the day; we have never used it much and we never get room service, so didn't miss the little table at all. And there is actually more space between the bed and the veranda door now. 
• The chairs on the veranda are very comfortable but we didn't get to sit out there very often because it was too cold and/or windy.
• The mini-bar is colder than before thank heavens.
• The app worked really well for me and I found the info very useful and accurate. I used it often, including using it for unlocking the cabin door.
• I like how the sea pass card isn't swiped anymore but rather placed against a card reader.
• And staff were universally excellent everywhere on the ship.

That's about all I can remember for now. Let me know if you need to know anything else.

I changed our stateroom on our January 2020 Chile-Argentina cruise from Veranda to Concierge so we would hit the magical 750 Captain's Club points on the cruise :) I received the new invoice and it has this code on it: YWG7-PROMO2C 14N. I did a search of the forum but it comes up with nothing.

It's not a code I've seen before and I'm hoping someone might have an idea about what it refers to? Thanks.

Maree

Some Mt Fuji shots as we sailed in to Shimizu and then some taken from the Elite/Elite + helipad viewing.

As promised, some photos of the ship - I didn't get the gym of Cosmos though, hopefully someone else can post them. 

Cellar Masters

Rendezvous Lounge

Martini Bar

I have run out of time to post photos on the ship - we are disembarking tomorrow morning and I'm off to bed shortly.

We caught the free shuttle bus into Yokohama city this afternoon (5 minutes) and walked around for a bit, it was a nice, clean, safe feeling space, but I think that's characteristic of Japan. It was a cloudy, cold day so we spent most of it relaxing and enjoying our last day on the ship which was wonderfully very empty. A few additional comments.

• I ddn't get to much entertainment but everyone else enjoyed the shows they saw. We didn't do the Silent Disco or other evening events, so can't help much there.
• Blu was a great place to eat, although when it's busy, service gets a bit slow, so go early or late to eat.
• Cafe al Bachio continues to be a great place to meet up, although the friendliness of service various on the people serving you. Say hi to Helena if you are on the next cruise - mention Conway, Lutter and Irelandes. She was fabulous.
• The Oceanview Cafe I really liked - good food, and pretty good service all around. Even Alan was happy enough at the end. The hand washing stations are great, although there are sill a number of people who wander through without washing or using the sanitiser. I feel like grabbing them on the collar and dragging them back to the basins! 🙂
• The Martini Bar was the place to be if you like a very loud space - the noise here is kind of overwhelming for me, but I know others like it. The Rendezvous Lounge was our go to place, although we nearly abandoned it towards the end of the cruise as the volume of the band's music seemed to get louder every day, preventing good conversation. Cellar Masters seems to be a quiet bar, good for conversations. We sat outside the OceanView Cafe on the deck the one day we had sun warm enough to sit outside, and the bar service there was great - probably because we were the only people there! 🙂
• The pool area - on the days it was used - didn't seem to have a problem with chair hogs, but there was only a couple of days when the weather was warm enough to spend time out there.
• The ports were great, and all our private tours worked really well. Wonderful guides and we saw some fantastic places. China was fascinating, so different (of course) from 1984, South Korea was a surprise - it was an unknown quantity and it was a fun place to visit and more advanced it seemed in terms of tourism services than China. Japan ports have been great as well. We went to many temples and shrines but all were different so we never got the 'a temple is a temple' syndrome. All the countries are very clean, no rubbish on the streets, little graffiti and in Japan that on time public transport is a god send.
• The local food was universally yummy expect for the Chicken and Ginger soup we had in JeJu. It's great if you like the 'whole' chicken in front of you but if you prefer more 'structured' meals, I'd give it a miss.
• And of course, the staff - they were wonderful, friendly, ever smiling and made the cruise for us - again.

I will get photos posted when we get to our Tokyo hotel tomorrow hopefully - if not I'll post a link here when my blog is finished and I have the photos posted there. I'm sorry I couldn't finish with a bang, but my first live blog has been a great learning experience and I'll try it again in January 2020 when we are on our South American cruise. Thank you all for your support and I hope those of of you who are heading this way soon have as wonderful a time as we did.

Cheers

Maree (Mazza)

8 hours ago, Rina155 said:

Thank you for all your posts on your journey. I am sitting in the airport lounge in Denver awaiting my flight to Narita. Wave as you depart the ship and I am so happy you had a wonderful trip. 

Hope you have a good flight. We docked in Yokohama about 50 minutes ago. The design of the cruise terminal looks amazing from here on the ship, multiple levels all folding into each other. Like nothing I've ever seen. But sadly, I still can't post photos.

Mt Fuji Continued

Still no luck with photos but a bit more our Shimizu stop. The clouds moved across by late morning and we never saw the peak again. Captain Alex told us that he and his wife had sailed to Shimizu five times and never seen Mt Fuji and this time when we saw it, his wife wasn't with him.

We all stayed on board until after lunch, after a slow and relaxed morning. Expect for Alan, who had work to do and wanted to go to the gym, we got off at about 1.30pm, and had to show our passports again at a Japanese customs tent on the pier. It was pretty perfunctory though. We then found our way to the Verkehr Shimizu Port Terminal Museum, about a block and a half from the ship. As we walked along the waterfront a woman came rushing up to us offering us local maps which we accepted with gratitude.

As we approached the museum which is behind a brown brick wall, there was suddenly much activity within - we could see through the glass doors, and a man appeared to open the door for us and welcome us profusely. We all got the sense they don't get many visitors here 🙂 It was 400 Yen each to go in so we paid and were then escorted on a tour of the ground floor. It's a small museum, two floors but quite interesting if you are interested in history generally and maritime history specifically. There are exhibits on the types of ships that sailed the port from centuries ago to the present day including some 1/10 size replicas which were intricate and quite fascinating. This was a tea port originally, and there was an exhibition room that show the tools used, and what working on the docks was like. The man who took us on the tour was delightful and knowledgeable, although two of his colleagues followed him around with clipboards, so it looked like he was being trained. He did a good job.

The first floor where we couldn't take photos was a collection of old posters and print material relating to the port. There was one particularly old piece, but as is typical for me, I forgot to ask what it was. The ground floor had English as well as Japanese but not so with the first floor. We were free to explore these small exhibits ourselves. We then thanked our guide and headed to the nearby shopping centre.

The weather had turned, and there were no sunshine anymore, replaced by rather fierce looking grey clouds. The ferris wheel that is here was not operating although I did see it lit up with lights as we sailed out later. We explored the shopping centre for a while, then had afternoon tea in one of the cafes and set off for ship. There were a row of local souvenir/craft stalls and the other headed to look at them while I cam back on to the ship. Alan was still at the gym, so I had an hour or so to try and upload more photos but couldn't.

A Blu dinner, everyone is at the gym and I'm finishing this. Seeing Mt Fuji was quite special - it's a beautiful sight. The little part of Shimizu we saw was not anything special but the Museum is worth a visit, if only to provide some visitors for the people who work here. There were some fireworks on the shore to mark the sailing out which was nice. I decided not to book a tour here because it seemed like we'd be away all day, in a bus for a long time, and paying a lot of money. I'm not disappointed with that choice and the day was restful after two busy days in Kyoto and Kobe.

Our last day tomorrow 😞 I'll post photos as soon as I can.

1 hour ago, Nick00712 said:

Sounds amazing!

Quick question; so with gaining access to helipad for such events as that you need to be a certain level within the loyaty progrom?

It was for Elite and Elite Plus only. If I can get the photos uploaded, I'll include the invitation we got.