Kentishincanada

We had three days in Istanbul independently prior to our last cruise.  We stayed in a friendly little hotel in old town and loved every minute,  We felt very safe and it is a city where I would love to return, with the exception of the new port and the walking involved.

We did buy a rug but in Kusadasi.  However, we looked in Grand Bazaar and another couple of rug stores around Istanbul but couldn’t find the colourings or size but had a baseline price before we found the one we bought.  Don’t know whether we had a ‘deal’ but love our rug and Turkey.

I agree the beds on Viking are hard but after our first cruise we ordered a topper and then found the bed and linens very comfortable.  Our only disappointment with food was Manfredis which we had enjoyed on our first couple of cruises but we felt had deteriorated on our cruise last year, both the menu and the standard of cooking.  However, Chefs Table more than made up and we ate three amazing meals there.  I love the selection of fresh fruit always available for breakfast and the ice cream bar is amazing.  Hopefully by our next cruise the pistachio buns will be back to have early morning with the excellent living room coffee.

It would be difficult to find ships with such a relaxing design - particularly love the spa pool and the walking track.

Thank you Fletcher.  I do so look forward to your posts.  Please don’t change any of your observations, especially in the cause of PC.   I find some of your descriptions to echo our experiences of the ports exactly but I would not have found the same eloquence.

Thanks again.  I am sorry your cruise has cone to an end and will be watching for your next advanture.
 

Thank you so much Dr.Koob.  I have been avidly following your posts with the comparisons to VO.  I agree the food on VO has taking quite a fall since our first cruise with them in 2016 to our last in 2022.  However, we love the openness of the ships, the wonderful spa and the Nespresso machine.  We have asked for mattress toppers and they do make the beds tolerable.  We also enjoy the VO lectures.  It is surely time for us to try O and we will now do so armed with your experiences.

Again, thank you.

And you can dream that you might just snag a pistachio roll while at the living room bar in the morning, although they seem to be rare of late.

I think the success of M & G depends on the length and structure of the cruise.  Our last cruise was 8 days with a port most days and we didn’t really have time to be sociable.  Our previous cruise was 24 days with lots of sea days and we really appreciated the opportunity of a M & G to get to know some of the other passengers.  We remained friendly with some throughout the cruise.

6 minutes ago, DrKoob said:

If you have read my posts from the start, the reason I am making this comparison is that we are trying to find a new cruise line. We like being loyal customers. We like knowing where things are on a ship—it makes us feel like we are home when we cruise. We have boiled our choice down to O and VO. 

 

So comparing the cost depends on what kind of cruiser you are. If you are what I call a "bare-bones" cruiser, you are right. O will be cheaper, but if you want or need the extras, it's about even. With V, I get all the internet I want as many devices as I can bring. With V, I get a FREE shore excursion in every port. I agree that you can get inside staterooms cheaper, but V has no insides—every stateroom has a verandah.

 

If you don't drink, O wins every time, but we do, and with V, I get free wine or beer at lunch and dinner. V's cocktail package and the price of individual cocktails are about half of what O has charged me on this trip. And if I want to have a cocktail or glass of wine in my stateroom before dinner, in PV class and above, V gives me free spirits in my mini-bar. Plus, they treat me as an adult and allow me to bring as much wine or hard liquor on board as I want. And there is never a corkage fee in any of the dining rooms. 

 

We did 21 days in the Med last year, and so far, the cost for us has been about even for 14 of those days with all the V perks.

 

Not saying I like V better. But I liked my stateroom on V a LOT better. In comparison to my Concierge Veranda, it was huge. So you would need to compare a PV on V with a suite on O to get the same size and the same perks. And so far, the food on O is about a mile and a half ahead of V. 

Really interested in your posts Dr.Koob as we are in the same space having completed our last three cruises on Viking.  I do love the ships but we felt on the last cruise that the food wasn’t quite up the the previous standard.  The thing I enjoy on Viking is the spa area, open to all with that beautiful pool and always space around the other swimming pools to relax.  Have you tried the spa pool on Vista and is it of a similar size and ambiance?  I think I would very much miss the Nespresso machine - is the coffee as good as Viking’s living room and readily available?

We stayed independently for four nights prior to our Viking cruise last year.  We stayed at Sirkeci Mansion Hotel and found it wonderful.  Apart from being relatively inexpensive we didn’t need to take any taxis and walked to all the attractions as itmwas in the old part of town -we could actually see the Topkapi gardens from our hotel.  The breakfast was amazing, although they did not cater for evening meals - a few steps to good restaurants.  The hotel arranged our taxi from the airport and even sent us a video showing where we should walk when we arrived at the airport.  The staff cannot help enough and we would award Sirkeci Mansion 10 stars if we could.

Now, Galataport was quite a different experience.  It may have improved since last year, however there was a lot of walking.  Again, the hotel arranged our taxi to the port but after arrival we walked over 8,000 steps before we were actually on the ship and there certainly seemed an excess of security.

All in all, we loved Istanbul, the hotel, the food and for a couple of 70+ oldies we found getting about easy and we felt very safe.

On 9/14/2023 at 1:36 PM, Clay Clayton said:

In addition to those already mentioned, I would like to ask TH (that's what he tells his good friends like me to call him😂) to consider allowing those who use Viking Air to fly in a day or three early without having to lay the deviation fee OR if you're going to charge the deviation to include the transfer.  

I really second your comment on the deviation fee especially in the current climate with airlines cancelling and re-arranging schedules.  Regardless of our interest in the departing cruise port, we always try to come in a day or two in advance and get very annoyed about a deviation fee when we are trying to be responsible.

We used TAir last year from Heathrow to Istanbul.  The flight and food were both excellent but we have never flown with such grumpy air crew which seemed to extend even to the check in at Heathrow.  They certainly need a charm initiative.  Strange as we encountered only smiling faces in Istanbul and the hotel staff were lovely.

1 hour ago, uktog said:

On a related topic I’ve been trying to get my husband to use a coffee machine for years without success. However, he really took to the machine in a room on Saturn, but I can’t find online that exact model.  I’m not sure he’s ready to be retrained on another model so can anybody point me in the direction of a nespresso model that is a simple pop the pod in and it makes the coffee  I can always keep the water topped up for him!!!

I have a Nespresso Pixie machine which is pretty close to the Viking model.  For some reason they no longer stock Pixie machines in the Nespresso Boutiques but stock them in John Lewis.  Had my machine years and couldn’t function without it. 

We did this extension and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Sure not enough time but in a strange city, it is nice to have somebody help with the luggage, reserve trains etc. and we may go back on our own some day to see more and would feel much more confident having spent time with Viking the first time.  We had a different museum guide, a very helpful lady.  The Viking rep. at the hotel, Intercontinental, was extremely helpful and guided us to some excellent restaurants in the vicinity.  Breakfast at the hotel was a feast.

From our three Viking cruises, we would vote for the long Southern Atlantic Crossing Barcelona to BA.  Lots of lovely sea days in warm weather and the joy of the South American ports in spring, Rio, Montevideo and BA.  Jacarandas were flowering everywhere.  We particularly enjoyed Uruguay and would do this cruise again in a heartbeat.

Athens Gate hotel also has a great rooftop restaurant with amazing views.  Really enjoyed our stay. We also used Georges taxi from airport and again to port - very efficient.

We did this cruise in 2016 and it is terrific was such interesting ports.  For us Ancient Olympia was a cruise highlight as was Kotor where we hired a driver and drove down the coast.   I think we would skip Corfu but maybe because we just chose to take the shuttle and look around town which for us was not too memorable, having been to many Greek islands.  

I agree with you PGI GUY, we tend to shy away from Viking TA’s as there are no interesting ports en route -like your idea of Bermuda or Cape Verde.

2 minutes ago, lackcreativity said:

Personally, I don't think I will ever tire of Barcelona, but love the Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica idea. Can we fit Palma de Mallorca into that one, or is it too far out of the way? How about  Genoa?

Well the voyage will probably have to start in Rome so I think we can easily include Genoa and maybe Cinque Ports in addition.

I concur with KCPVWILL, we would really like an indepth Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica enough of Athens and Barcelona.

We took this cruise in 2019.  The included tour of Recife was a total waste of time  It was a walk around the old town and the craft centre and was a searingly hot day with no shade or anywhere for refreshment.  
We took a day tour of Rio through Viking.  It was excellent and very good value as it included all the rail/cable trips up to the statue, Copacobana beach and a wonderful lunch.

The included tour in BA was also very good and took us the the main sights.

As we didn’t fly out of BA until the evening, Viking took us on a very good day tour on a boat up a river and then took us to the airport.

You will really enjoy the cruise.  The jacaranda trees are spectacular in Montevideo and BA.

.

I thought our bridge instructor on the southern Atlantic Crossing was very good and certainly did not read from any pp presentations.  There was a large span of sea days and two rooms were full with bridge players, one with the more experienced playing duplicate and the other room taking instruction.  Everyone enjoyed and we even had a small party in the Wintergarden at the end of the cruise for the bridge attendees and the instructor and his wife.

I think it is only on the TA.  We had an excellent teacher and played every sea day on our Southern Atlantic Crossing in 2019. 

We stayed four nights prior to our cruise in October.  We stayed at Sirkeci Mansion hotel which is charming and in the old town.  We walked to all the historic sites and were a stone’s throw from Topkapi Palace - so very pleased we selected our own hotel.  Heard on the Viking excursion after we had boarded that buses from the Viking hotel had take ages to get back into town.

We really enjoyed Istanbul and felt very safe.  Everyone we met was very friendly and helpful.

The worse part was the new cruise port - we walked for miles and it was so frustrating as we could almost touch the ship but were sent down a warren to get on to it.

We took this cruise just before Covid Barcelona to BA direction.  Without doubt, it was the best cruise we have taken - we loved it.  We especially enjoyed the sea days and we had wonderful lecturers, I played some bridge, lounged by the pool and spa, and the days just flew by.  Most of the ports were very interesting, perhaps with the exception of Reclife.  We loved Malaga and Montevideo and took a very pleasant excursion in Dakar to the little game reserve.  We purchased the full day excursion in Rio which, with lunch, was excellent value.  We have spoken about repeating the cruise as we have never felt so relaxed.  We had great weather and very calm seas.

You will enjoy.

How interesting Hobson1754, we came to exactly the same conclusion on our Oct 2022 Sky sailing.  We had no problem securing reservations for CT once on board.  We had three truly exceptional meals in CT and the staff there were fantastic.  Our one evening meal at Manfredi’s was very hit and miss - the service was frenetic, the steak quite tough and generally the worse evening meal on the cruise.  This was in sharp contrast to our first Viking cruise in 2016 when we really enjoyed Manfredi.  We thought it was an isolated experience but your post seems to concur.

We took this cruise in 2019.  It was fantastic and would do it again in a heartbeat. The weather in Barcelona and Malaga was overcast but from thereon it was warm and sunny all the way and we spent many of the sea days by the pool.  We went on the game safari in Senegal and enjoyed the tour - more of an open zoo, no big cats but zebra, giraffe, rhino.  We also enjoyed Uraquay and a full day Viking tour of Rio.