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We were at Paradise Beach on Feb 21, and there were 6 ships in port.  We got into the taxi line about 9:45am, and the guys working the lines were saying Paradise Beach was sold out that day.  If you had a reservation (which we did) you were fine, but if you did not have a reservation already you were out of luck.

Our taxi driver was telling us Sanchos and Playa Mia were also sold out for that day.  I will say it was the longest taxi line we had seen in Cozumel before.  There were people all over the place.

When we got there, we were asked if we had reservations, showed our QR code, and scanned in.  We had purchased the AI online, and the fun passes were an additional $10 per person.  We paid for the additional fun passes with cash.  And it was pretty packed inside.  There was pretty much no seating by the pool, and we were in the back row of beach loungers.

If you can prepay the full amount online, I recommend doing that as it was much faster to get in.  Folks in front of us had only paid half online, and they were directed to another line to complete payment.

We were on this cruise, too!  We had a great time overall.  By far the biggest issue we had was Carnival's handling of our kids' vaccination status.  Originally we were booked for an October 2021 cruise, so we had requested vaccination exemptions for the kids.  We decided not to go and rebooked to this cruise.  Carnival somehow automatically carried over the exemption.  Well, our kids got vaccinated so we wouldn't have additional restrictions to deal with on the cruise.  When checking in online, I filled out the attestation forms that we were all vaccinated.

When checking in at the port, we used Verifly for all our documentation.  Things were going great until something flagged on our kids.  Turns out the Carnival system had them as unvaccinated, so that conflicted with Verifly.  Cue waiting as we turned over vaccination cards and passports for additional review.  Things were supposedly resolved, and we continued through security and the rest of check in.

On the ship, we couldn't get one of the kids into Camp Ocean.  He was showing up as unvaccinated.  We were told to take our documentation back to guest services for review.  Seeing the long lines, we decided to take care of this later.

When we tried to debark the ship in Cozumel, we were flagged yet again with the unvaccinated status for one kid and were unable to leave the ship.  At this point, we ran back to the room and grabbed all the documentation and thankfully there was no line at guest services.  Then we had to go to medical with the documents, and the medical staff applied the vaccination override.  We waited an additional 5 or 10 minutes back at security trying to debark while the computers synced the status.  Finally we got off the ship.

There was at least one other family with this problem, and they were pretty pissed.  I don't know why Carnival automatically requested or carried over the exemption, but that threw a wrench into things.  

If you have kids that originally had a vaccine exemption, but then got vaccinated be prepared to potentially have to jump through additional hoops to get on the ship.  And then double check everything on board to avoid the additional issues we experienced.

Carnival rep at our Carnival Breeze Meet and Mingle last week mentioned Tandoor was going to be removed from all ships in the near future. She did not know a timeline, but I will be sad to see it go.

A favor from another cruiser to ask is if anyone does choose to let their children use electronics in the MDR, please bring headphones. Last cruise I had to listen to Spongebob every night during dinner in the MDR because they would let their child watch it at max volume on their tablet throughout dinner. I did my best to tune it out, but it definitely took away from my experience. I didn't complain because choosing between a child being fussy and crying vs listening to Spongebob, I'll take the latter. But just be kind to the people around and bring those headphones.

Our kids (both under 6) only tablet time on the ship was in the MDR after they were done with their main course. They could watch a downloaded movie during their dessert with their headphones on. We did have coloring/activity books with us any other time we thought they would get fussy or bored. Otherwise tablets stayed in the safe in the room.

We flew from Houston to Frankfurt to Venice for our cruise back in December. We did not have to get and recheck our luggage. It was checked through to Venice.

Side story: We specifically asked when checking our bags in Houston if we needed to get our bags in Frankfurt and were told that we did need to do so. We also had a 1.5 hour layover in Frankfurt. We ended up clearing customs, waiting for luggage that didn't appear (because it was checked through), and ended up going back through the main security and running to our flight. My wife and I are younger than the average Viking cruiser, but it was still a long run to the gate. There was not a golf cart to be found. We ended up at the gate in time to be notified our flight to Venice had been delayed by 30 minutes. Fun times.

My wife and I were definitely on the younger end of the spectrum (we're in our late 30s). As others have mentioned, we had a wonderful time meeting and interacting with folks on our Viking Sea cruise last month. There were several folks younger than us, but not too many. We usually cruise with our small kids, so this was a much more relaxing cruise than we were used to. Make sure you visit the infinity pool and the snow grotto!

Our experience on board the Sea with wifi was a bit spotty. We were on Deck 3, aft, and several days the wifi would continually kick us off the network. This was across several devices. When it was stable, things were fine. I think different parts of the ship had better coverage and speed. Our T-Mobile Simple Choice free roaming data coverage was faster most of the time when in port.

It seems most people were finally taken to the Hilton Venice for a short stay and then began heading to the airport. We arrived and checked into the hotel just before midnight and had to be back at the water to by 7:30am. We know several passengers that had to be ready to go at 4:10am for the airport.

All things considered Viking did a great job getting everyone from Trieste back to Venice. I wish the communication was better but I am guessing plans were fluid all day long.

Unfortunately we are still at the airport in Venice as we were told one time for our flight only to have it be several hours later. Some folks were told an incorrect time and missed their flights completely. We hope to be home by erlt tomorrow morning as we have 2 connections to go.

We are still on the Viking Sea though the debarkation process has started. Majority of passengers are still on the ship.