CCWineLover

Excellent Explorers Society party for Viking veterans! Sasha is our pianist and one of the best and most talented we’ve seen on Viking Ocean. And she’s always friendly, positive and has such enthusiasm!

Just at Explorers Party. 400 of our passengers on Viking are Viking veterans! Also, it was announced that the Saturn is the final and 10th ship in the Star class. There will be 10 ships built in the new class, beginning with Vela in fall 2024. Not sure if they all will be like Vela.

Prosecco definitely IS included in SSBP! DW loves it!!

We are on the new Saturn headed to Iceland. Same observations as you have. Unless you are on WiFi at midnight or before 6:30 am, it is so slow. Definitely hard to text pics. Always get errors. Maybe being further north isn’t helping. Had heard STARLINK was being used now but you wouldn’t know it on this newest ship!

Sunday morning Day 5 we begin our 4 sea days on the way to our added day in Reykjavik. Viking posted 2 excursions last night for people to book for the Thursday bonus visit to the capital. Included tour with the whale museum (2 hrs) and an optional tour - Golden Circle full day $229. looking forward to some sea days to enjoy the ship, the great lectures (3 or 4 a day!) and some Attrium concerts. Explorers society party today at 5:30. had an excellent Italian Primativo wine last night at dinner. Cruise Director Verity - up by the chess set on 8th floor Explorers Lounge.

We are doin Viking Neptune TA this year Lisbon (great port!) to Azores (another) to Bermuda (another) to Ft Lauderdale (ok, have to finish somewhere)

Thank you, Raymond. I just spoke with Alex - and yes he remembered Me Raymond from 8000. He said to give you his regards and hope you are doing well. He is easily the best, most attentive bar person we e had so far!!

Unexpectedly wonderful included excursion today to the French Fortress at Louisville, Cape Breton Island. Again, Viking tremendous at getting these all put together at the last minute. Had no idea about the beauty of Cape Breton - glacier formed. Have met so many interesting people so far. Seems to be a more veteran traveler, travel savvy group! Many cruise veterans and experienced! Makes it so nice as so many go with the flow and know that traveling is an adventure and expect the unexpected!

We were told it is because the iceberg flow is staying much later than normal in this bizarre weather year! iceburg alley is active still in June when it usually is gone or less by May. The question is- is this an aberration or the new normal?

Yes we finally met him! He asked your name.

Patti - Stockholm was the first city we did with Viking and still one of our favorites! Enjoy!!

We have a wonderful new experience today: Vikings first ever visit to Louisville, Cape Breton Island. I can’t say enough how great Verity and her staff have been to put this together with some included excursions at the last minute! We are visiting the old French Fortress. Looking forward to it as we e also never been here.

Great to hear from you guys again! We had friends from Pismo Beach on that Neptune transatlantic. Yes Verity is a great CD. im hearing that Neptune and Saturn have very similar changes to decor. we also miss the glass case ships! 8th floor looks like an airport longe now 😉 hoping our paths cross again on the high seas!

Wonderful sailaway from Halifax. Great guitar entertainer!

Yes. He announced it on loudspeaker this morning while we were all waiting and Queuing by the gangway for Halifax tours. Then the CD told us the new schedule. That’s how we were able to talk to so many today how they felt. Everyone seems very fine, a bit disappointed, but totally understand. We did not know about the 50% until we got back at 4:45 today. Even nicer bonus we all say. We figured the Neptune would have the same experience.

Newfoundland and Greenland will have to wait for another day.

News today. Captain sadly announced the iceberg situation is still bad, so we head tomorrow for Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Then 4 sea days and then an extra day in Reykjavik, before resuming the original itinerary. Everyone we encountered is taking the news in stride. I do feel we have a lot of glass half full people and veteran travel-savy people on board. Certainly the many people we have met. Will be fun.

Had our first lecture with Russell Lee at 2:30. Top notch as always! Full of energy and had the crowd spellbound! A Rock Star! I’ve got our Meet &Minglw coordinated with CD Verity Brown for tonight at 6:30 in Wintergarden. Viking has been great in the organizational help!

Will look for him and Danielle. We reunited with Adrian, who remembered us from Venus last summer. He does drinks at WC-was in CT before.

RBF - yes, I read and followed your Roll Call. We have friends on Saturn as well (Russell and Gail Lee, lecturers) who also kept us updated. I have not seen Alex nor Danielle in the Expl Lounge yet, but have seen several others there. Captain announced 2 Greenland pilots getting on in Halifax tomorrow. At least one good thing your group did was motivate Viking to communicate. The Captain has been giving us many updates on how things stand (iffy) and continues to do so. At least that's good. Fingers crossed. Internet for us has been the usual Viking abysmal. Any texts with a picture fail to deliver. Just have to use words. Same for email. I see no improvement there. Love the open windows in the pool deck area though!

Thanks for taking the time to report on your wonderful adventure, Patti! May you and your sister have a fabulous time! kent

The Captain did announce last evening that they were monitoring the situation with the Greenland Ice Authorities, but wanted to let us all know that currently it did not look good - a very unusually large amount of icebergs in Iceberg Alley for this time of year. He wanted to set our expectations now and said we'd get an update daily. Wondering when they need to make to the go/no go decision. We all appreciated the open communication and letting us all know. I think he used the word "challenging" to describe it.

Thanks, Patti! With SSBP i believe we get a discount on the bottle price - and we have OBC's to spend so that sounds like a good use of them. Will let you know! Kent

Interesting dress code reminder: