Sunflower & The Scientist

Jury summons is our worst cruise nightmare. In our state you only get one time to defer, and there is no age limit....we'll be 105 years old and still getting called. They can call us to appear up to 3 times a year. We're just waiting for it to mess with one of our cruises.

Absolutely, the best! My daughter was born in the US just after her parents arrived here. They did not seek help and she was significantly disabled from unsuccessfully delivering her by themselves. She was our joy for 21 years. She was one of our 8 children....we looked like the United Nations.

Evidently you've not run through a wet sheep pasture with knee high grass. Landmines are unavoidable. I'm thrilled he had a wonderful time. You will not be disappointed with the Shetland Islands! It was our favorite port. BTW In 1987 we welcomed a beautiful Hmong daughter into our home.

I understand only taking one pair of shoes, it would save a lot of space. The issue we had on the BIE we just returned from, was that your shoes can get wet. If it rains, you'll have wet shoes, and they take a while to dry. Also depending on what excursions you take, some you walk through wet grass (and mud) and on Shetland the excursion my husband went on (and loved...was his favorite from the trip) included some hiking where he returned with manure on his shoes. Due to lost luggage he only had the one pair of shoes, so we had to so some creative cleaning to have them ready to immediately wear again.

Agreed, do not check it. A man on our recent cruise checked his and it never arrived. We experienced many excursions where wheelchair use would not be possible. Viking is not always aware of the conditions on excursions as those change.

The problem is that not all medications (or products used to deliver medications) are prescription. Some are OTC like nutritional supplements for cancer patients, saline solution, and various skin care products. I've had good success with getting these types of things through security with a letter from my doctor, but for some reason Heathrow said that was not acceptable. In the end I got them through, but that was the first time I have encountered that.

Carrying on all your toiletries could be an issue in some airports. We have everything in 3 oz or less, but at Heathrow they handed us a small baggie and said that everything had to fit in that baggie. If it did not, it would be disposed of. I was really upset as I am a cancer patient and have to use certain creams which I divide up in small tubes, but there are a lot of them and no way would they fit into that small baggie. The guy was totally uncaring and said they'd just throw them out and made it clear I was not taking them through security. My bag was pulled and the guy who pulled me aside to inspect it was very kind. He assured me he would not throw anything out, he would test it. I was so thankful! I have a letter from my physician I carry, but the first guy said that didn't matter. I'm left not knowing, is it Heathrow, or just a nasty security guy....but what if he was the guy at the end who inspected the bags, would he have thrown my stuff out.

Viking has it's issues, I won't deny that, but after just experiencing cancelation after cancelation and being stuck in the airport sometimes standing at the gate only to be cancelled, and arriving 24 hours late, the issues were all with the airlines. We did Viking Air, and they did their best to reroute, reschedule, and found other airlines, but they had no control over the airline mess. Viking was not even able to reschedule us at one point because they airline cancelled our flight, but did not release us to be rescheduled. So we stood in a line with a zillion other people for hours to have the airline release us because Viking hands were tied until we were released.

I wondered about that...we had a British night and I wasn't terribly impressed. I'd love some good British recipes.

We have been watching the luggage move from area to area in Stansted Airport. It goes back and forth between two areas. It's amazing that it not only gives the location, it tells where it is in the building.

That's an interesting point. His AirTag was not notifying him the whole trip, mine was and we know they were together at least at the airport. I think his app is problematic as well. We'll be changing that AirTag out with a new one we have, if we ever get the luggage back.

Update: The AirTag started working again! It just updated and said the luggage arrived at an airport in London 5 minutes ago. (not Heathrow where we flew out of, but Stansted...we don't even know where that is) Now if we can just get to the right people to have it sent home. So far we're getting sent here and there with no one to really contact.

Thanks that's sweet of you! We really know so little at this point that we wouldn't even know what to tell anyone. The last place they sent the luggage (34 pieces of missing luggage) was Edinburgh, They were able to get 17 pieces of luggage. So then we were told luggage would be sent to Belfast, but evidently it did not show up there. Then they said it would be sent to Greenwich but we did not think that was a good idea (neither did Viking) and Viking informed them to send it to our home address. The luggage tracker is saying it's last known place was Edinburgh and that Edinburgh lost all the paperwork and has no knowledge of the luggage. I'm just hoping at some point someone looks at the luggage tag and contacts us.

Yes we are AirTag fans. There is an AirTag in his luggage...evidently the battery has died.

Unfortunately my husband still has no luggage. It followed us to a couple ports they say, but at one port they say they lost it. So the formal word as of today is, it is lost and we don't have much hope. If anyone has any suggestions, we'll take them! You really come out on the short end with the airline and insurance. They don't cover some of the things, and for us not the total amount we lost.

Just off Venus and couldn't agree with you more....tone it down, we don't want to listen to your conversations and we especially don't like trying to eat our dinner with loud laughter. The more wine, the louder it got. We are all for having a good time, but that high pitched loud constant laughing...ugh. No jeans in the restaurant was followed, however they have a list behind the desk that list the people who are to be allowed in wearing jeans. On our cruise the list was long....the most people they have ever had on a cruise did not get their luggage. They kindly accepted us with what we had.

Good luck with that. We just got off Venus and getting split pea was not easy. They were always out of it and tried to interest me in the first soup. I finally got it once. You really had to time it right.

· We booked Viking Air. It has gone well for us before, not so much this time. I’m not sure we could have done any better because the problem was with the airlines. Our flight was cancelled the day we were to fly out on Air Canada and rescheduled by Air Canada for 24 hours later. Not Vikings fault. We called the Emergency Travel number they gave us and were disappointed in the individual who we spoke with, we really didn’t receive any help. Later that day we were called by someone at Viking Air, and she was wonderful. She got us rebooked for later that same day. At the gate we were cancelled again. We played this game for the next 24 hours; we rebooked and would get cancelled. When we attempted to reach the Viking Air person who had been so helpful, the Emergency Travel guy would not let us speak with her. She had said to contact her but when the office was closed all we could do is call the emergency travel number. We gave up and went to an airport hotel for the night. The next morning first thing we started up with Viking Emergency Travel. It was nothing but frustrating. The guy left to go home and said his supervisor would finish making the arrangements. It was a nightmare. Finally, after more cancelled flights, he booked us on a less than desirable flight but told us we could get a good flight the next day. Since we were going to miss half of our pre in Oslo, we were fine with going straight to Bergen the next day. He then informed us they would charge us $5000 each for that flight. We took the lousy flight on Iceland Air….so much for our comfy first-class dreams. We definitely have questions regarding the Emergency Travel number Viking sends you just prior to leaving. It appears to me that this is not Viking in California, but something from somewhere else as none of them spoke good English and were difficult to understand. · We finally arrived in Oslo but my husband’s luggage did not. (Yes he had a carryon bag with important essentials, but it gets a little old with only one change of clothes, and for those saying just to do carry on, that is fine if you haven’t broken your back twice, so no need to tell us we should just do carry on. ) That began the luggage nightmare. After a grueling time at the airport getting paperwork filed, Viking onboard did not follow through. Days later after multiple calls, they told us we were working with the wrong person. Why we were not given the right person, we’ll never know. However, when we did get to the right person onboard, she was great. Unfortunately, the lost luggage situation was extensive. They had the most lost luggage of any Viking cruise. During the cruise 17 out of 34 received their luggage. My husband’s luggage eventually was supposed to be returned to our home address. We have yet to see the luggage and last we heard it is now lost and they do not have any idea where it is. Might I add here, the process with Iceland Air regarding luggage reimbursement is not easy. It’s been pretty much two full days and we aren’t done yet. The information we were given regarding IcelandAir’s luggage reimbursement, and what is on their website, is not what it is. They only allow you to list 9 items lost in the luggage. We haven’t even gotten to filing trip insurance yet, we will begin that today. · Spending port time between excursions finding clothing became our goal. From port to port when the luggage did not show up, we searched for a few more things. Yes, we got free laundry, but when you have such a limited supply of clothes, waiting 24 hours to get them back just isn’t practical, so I did laundry, a lot of laundry. (And in the event the lady who took my wet laundry out of the dryer because she wanted to use it reads this, I don’t think highly of you. My husband was waiting in our room for something to wear!) · British Isles is a port intensive cruise. Even the cruise director told us he was tired. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just something to be prepared for. I heard many people expressing thankfulness for the one sea day. We needed it. · Entertainment I really can’t comment on, we were doing laundry after dinner. · Food was fine. Our last cruise was on Octantis which has amazing food, so we did miss that a bit, but it wasn’t an issue. Manfredi’s was great the first night we went. The second night it was not good. We sat and watched as people were seated, ordered, ate, had dessert and we were still waiting for our dinner. After asking if there was an issue with our dinners, they realized they had lost our order in the shuffle. I ordered the same thing I had ordered the first night because it was really good, but the second time it was terrible. We mostly eat in the World Café and have no complaints. · The balcony smoker got caught which we were thankful for as our balcony was too smokey to enjoy the first day. · Ports were interesting but different than we were expecting at times. I think we were not prepared to see some things we saw. We aren’t upset to have seen areas where people are living hard lives as it is reality, but at times it was emotionally difficult to see. In Belfast, Holyhead, and London there were places we saw some sad things. We also experienced some real beauty and were so thankful for great weather (just a little rain which wasn’t a problem at all) so we did not miss any ports. Shetland was wonderful! We found that the quality of excursions depended on the abilities of the guide. Some guides were excellent, others were not. The young woman guide who stood in front of a local pub and pointed out that she had one too many the night before, was not a good experience and we ended up leaving the excursion after three stoned young adult men approached us and yelled at us. The drug deal we had to step around appeared to be the norm. · There were some great fellow cruisers and we very much enjoyed making new friends. I was impressed with the kindness of some of the cruisers when a woman was separated from her excursion group and was lost. When she was found, people in the group kept her right by their side and protected her from getting lost again. There are always a few old grouches onboard, but we commented that on this cruise people really seemed to enjoy being together. · We realize that people do not want to miss out on anything after paying for a cruise, but it was very frustrating to have people who were visibly ill sitting close to you coughing uncontrollably. We got up and moved a few times in the World Cafe. One woman on a few hour bus tour was ill and too ill to get off the bus at stops. She coughed constantly and it wasn’t long until all the seats around her had been vacated! Another couple sat near us on an excursion wearing masks at times but were also very ill. There was a lot of uncovered coughing. · As always the staff worked very hard and were mostly sweet and helpful. We noted that it was difficult to get water poured for us at lunch and dinner. We mostly had to go get it ourselves. At breakfast they did a great job. We love Viking and have two more cruises booked. Were there glitches, yes, but we are still fans and will continue to enjoy the clean, well designed ships.

We found the door hard to open, we did not like it so we go for a slider. If a person had a disability or wasn't strong, a door would be an issue.

If you just use the pressing service, does that take about the same amount of time as full laundry services?

Unfortunately not. Having had a service dog, I wished there was a certification process to weed out those with fake service dogs. Our dog had frequent vet check ups and all shots were current. With certification those things could be checked to keep certification current. Our dog had certification through the service dog training organization, but there are a lot of people who do not have their dogs professionally trained, and therefore there are no guidelines being followed at all.

No.

Is that fish on the bottom plate? What types of fish are you seeing at Mansens at breakfast, have you seen any smoked fish?

Ropomo is correct....It was very simple...snap a pic with your phone and send it to your computer. The entire check in process to check in took minutes, then you can print off your boarding pass.

2 weeks....