tybeelucy2

Good idea. Looks to be about an hour away. 

Hello, first time Viking cruiser heading out on the Viking Shores and Fjords next month. Does anyone have any experience with this shore excursion? The description says it's 5 hours long, I'm just wondering how much of that time is spent on a bus traveling to/from the lighthouse and if it's worth it. Thanks in advance. 

Haven't been able to get into MVJ. It just spins after logging in. 

2 hours ago, claranda said:

Hi tybeelucy2, I think it’s a pretty packed ship! We’ve booked provisionally on one of the Viking walkabouts of Stavanger and will take it from there. It should b a lovely day - as long as it’s not raining!

Yes, same here. We booked the included tour and we'll see what happens after that! 

On 10/30/2022 at 1:28 PM, claranda said:

We’ll be on a Viking cruise visiting Stavanger on 17 March next year. It will be lovely to see the celebrations and we may go and pay our own respects in Stavangers Eiganer cemetery, which has Norwegian war graves and Commonwealth war graves from the ill-fated November 1942  ‘Freshman’ operation to land glider borne British forces to attack the famous Telemark heavy water production site. 

We are on the same cruise! 

Is the Flam train very different from the Oslo/Bergen train? We are doing that one through Viking's pre cruise excursion.  

Thanks for sharing. How long was the train ride? We are on this in May, from Oslo to Bergen (arranged through Viking). This will be our first trip to Norway and first Viking cruise. 

I'll also add that we had a great 8 day cruise. Yes, there were some issues with the AC and plumbing (avoid the bathrooms by the buffet on a pool day!). But seriously, it takes two minutes to walk back to your room. We were at the very back of the ship (not the aft cabins but the last one before those) on deck 8, two minutes down stairs we were in the dining room and two minutes up stairs to deck 10 and across the pool deck we were in the buffet. 

I thought the food and service was great. Our waiters had the kitchen to prepare filipino food for us on four nights (my husband is half filipino and our asst waiter was filipino so there was a lot of talk about filipino food!!) 

I really loved this little ship and would definitely cruise on her again. 

15 hours ago, Island2Girl said:

Thank you for the review Lori, we are on this cruise in 2019 and your review is very helpful. We are in the very same cabin as you, I appreciate all of the views out the windows and the views of the tiny room and water closet. . I have a quick question, how much room is there to store luggage? On past cruises we have stored luggage under the bed, is this a possibility in this room? How about the closet? Any helpful suggestions are appreciated.  

Thank you again for all of the work you put into this review!

We were on in December and I thought there was plenty of room. Both suitcases fit under the bed (carryon size and a 29 inch one), there is a small cabinet with several drawers under the TV, a few small drawers on the desk and a couple of shelves in the closet. I moved the life vests to the top of the closet for more room and brought some extra hangers so that I could hang everything else and left them there. It was fine. 

We did the ship tour in Cienfuegos, and they used Havana Tours. 

He'll be fine. We were just on Empress, and jeans and a nice top will be fine. 

We tipped our guide $30 since he took us to three stores trying to find certain cigars for the hubs,  and driver $10 but the guide said he split what he made with the driver anyways so it would be $20 each. 

On 12/12/2018 at 11:00 AM, Cary Cruiser said:

As far as ports go, it is always at the discretion of the Captain, but try and think positive.  Cienfuegos is in a protected harbor inside a large, almost enclosed bay.  Anything is possible, but it seems unlikely that "weather" will cancel your port stop.

 Not necessarily. The Empress was rerouted due to weather and missed the Ceinfuegos stop, but luckily rescued two fisherman. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/24/lost-sea-their-food-was-running-low-then-empress-seas-appeared/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1863ab2dd8ba

That I do not know..... 

We just took a private tour on Royal Caribbean. 

11 hours ago, Texasnee said:

Have a wonderful trip! We had Raul as our guide and he is a great guy. Very knowledgeable. You will learn a great deal about Cuba from him. He loves baseball and the Astros are his favorite team. I attached a picture of Raul and our driver, Abel, so you’ll know who to look for. 

Awesomeness!! Thanks for sharing!! 

41 minutes ago, sjb317 said:

Tendering in Cienfuegos was a slow, painful process as we were using the ship’s tender boats.  The cruise director said at the show the night before that the key word for the next day was “patience”.   We were number 13 and boarded our tender at 1115.

 

Tickets were hand out in the Viking Crown and I went as soon as they announced the start. I encountered a long, long line. 😳 It took about 20 min to get my two tickets. 😂

 

Sherri🙂

 

 

We are doing a ship tour in Cienfuegos, we should be able to skip this, correct??

Thanks for the post. We leave Sunday on the Empress. We are booked with Blexie, but a different guide (Raul). 

We booked a ship's tour for Cienfuegos. 

Following. What did you think about Hotel Nacionale? We were thinking of having our tour guide drop us off there for drinks after the tour. 

Thanks!! So did it take more or less time than 1.5 hours to get off the ship?

Can you share Nicki's contact info for a tour? Does she have other tours besides food? 

We head out next month for our first RC cruise on the Empress. 

This review has tons of great information. 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2602232-empress-of-the-seas-2018-review-cuba-more/?page=5

Thanks Lori. This review has been more helpful than all the other Empress reviews here combined!

One more question- was there an omelette station in the buffet for breakfast?  

Thanks!

One more question you may have an answer to... we signed up for the My Time Dining every night at the same time. Do you know if we will be in the same table every night or will it move around? 

We are thinking of having our tour driver drop off at the hotel for drinks after our tour, anyone know how far to where the ship will be docked? Trying to figure if it's walkable or do we need a taxi. Does it have a roof top bar?  We're on Royal Caribbean's Empress. 

Thanks

Amy