CCWineLover

Totally agree with you. If the OP is upset they should just go find another cruise line. Viking is VERY upfront on what they will and won't do and what their policies are. Their ships are going full after COVID so there must be many many customers who feel the issues like the OP stated are worth living with in order to sail with them. That being said, it is a business after all, and if they don't bend, that is very consistent. They don't really attempt to hide anything, or do bait and switch (like other companies). It is what it is. People who are upset, don't feel it fair, or don't like it, usually just go somewhere else. Since we know this is their policy, we book far ahead if we must have a specific itinerary and specific cabin. We pay the price, knowing full well that it might be discounted ahead of sailing. But that is the "cost" of getting exactly what we want. If we don't care about a good or bad cabin or a specific itinerary, we also wait to the last minute (a few months ahead) and book a much cheaper promo. It is the customer's choice.

Thank you Peregrina651. You make some good points. I haven't been paranoid, but based on your experiences perhaps I should be. I will try to put your suggestions into practice in the future. Appreciate your expressing your views.

I can verify that. For our June 7 cruise, suddenly last Sunday lots of restaurant slots for 2 opened up - especially 6:00 and 6:30, on nearly every day of the 14 day cruise on Saturn. There for the pickings.

Azulan - I was able to initiate, coordinate, and get a Roll Call Meet & Mingle together for Viking Star on our Dec/Jan Panama canal cruise. Here is what I did: I sent an email to the ship's email address (which I found in the final documents sent to me several weeks ahead of sailing). I addressed it to the Hotel Manager, Guest Services Manager, and Cruise Director. I explained that I had compiled a Roll Call list of people, emails, cabins, etc (and the number) and would like to work with someone on the ship to get a Meet & Mingle organized. I stated our preferred date (first sea date), preferred time (5:30) and preferred location (Wintergarden). I heard right back from Manager Guest Services. They said 6:00 was better but approved everything and said they would schedule it. They asked me to meet with them in person when I got on board and go over the details. I gave them my Roll Call List, they told me they would have drinks and eats provided, and also would send invitations to the people on the list. I sent reminders to everyone invited and had name tags printed up ahead of time. Several Viking officers showed up at 6 for a toast and a few short hellos. It was very nice and we had over 50 Cruise Critic people attend. It reminded me of the pre-COVID get togethers we've had. So we are indeed back. Viking again told me as long as a passenger initiates and organizes the event, they are happy to get these going again. I am also going to do this for our upcoming June 7th Saturn Iceland cruise. We already have nearly 60 people ready to attend! Good luck with your organization! Let me know if you have any other questions. Kent

I wondered this as well, as we are on June 7th with you. Perhaps worth asking someone at Viking. Perhaps I'll see if my TA can find out. The previous cruise (Reykjavik-NYC) has everyone getting off at 8 AM on June 6th, but we don't "board" until June 7th. Did you have any other details on the naming ceremony? I thought that might be the reason that Viking built in an odd extra day. I remember hearing about the Neptune, which had their ceremony in Los Angeles last winter with the World Cruise passengers onboard (FLL-LA and LA-rest of world). I thought I had seen reference that some people who stayed onboard were able to see it.

Also seasoned on Viking Oceans - and agree with your suppositions. I do have a data point in the last day regarding specialty reservations. On our June cruise, there was just about nothing open when we could book at 60 days. (some 9:00 reservations). Just went in yesterday and literally a whole slew of reservations (mostly 6:00 and 6:30) for nearly every day of the cruise were suddenly available to pick - so we did! This would seem to support the theory that Viking has implemented the pre-COVID restaurant booking scheme. Now whether they are still holding some % back (but a much lesser %) is another question.

Thank you for the pictures! We will have to try this one. You were fortunate to have a wonderful weather day! Last time we were in Falmouth (on Viking), it was not so good weather and we took the included tour which also was not so good. Won't do that again.

Curios - what itineraries and what date are these for?

I guess we are more of a glass half full couple, and we like to make lemonade. Or maybe we have learned to go with the flow, see something positive about unexpected changes. These days, to travel and enjoy it, you pretty much better be that way or you’ll get frustrated.. just my two cents.

@shmabbies Thank you SO much for this report. We had friends who visited Verona on their own ahead of their Viking cruise - and loved it! (And yes - it was NOT all about Juliet). We were definitely considering taking this excursion when we go next February. We've done many tours where the bus ride was 1.5 hours - given what you can see that is so different than home, to us it's worth it!

Hello Mike and Wife - If you are on Saturn, I hope you are meaning you are going NYC to Bergen. I don't believe the ship itself goes Bergen to Oslo. Perhaps you are doing the train extension? Be sure to check out the individual Roll Calls as well. I think the real progress we'll here is when/if we get reports from those who are on the first voyage out of Italy to Barcelona. (May 2?)

Linda - we had to do that once. Worked just fine! Thanks for reminding me! We also had 2 accounts and the situation where one was locked out but the other was not. Nice to have a "backup". MVJ seems to have lots of glitches. Having spent a career in IT, I can just postulate that, like a number of companies, even today, budget allocations to systems is small and they don't realize the true value of working systems. (You get what you pay for)

Thanks as well! This is great. We did the Viking tour last summer and were SO impressed with the Church and with the Grieg house. We'll be back in Bergen again with Viking in 2024 and want to do it again - but this time on our own. Hoping Clay tells us all how it went and any tips/techniques and pics!

Squawkman - We are on the Sept 26 cruise. We also got the notice yesterday of the port change. Frankly, we were expecting this, as had heard that Bar Harbor doesn't want cruise ships anymore. (Probably a good thing). Since I sort of knew Bar Harbor was gone, glad we are not getting another sea day! We view this change with a positive attitude as we've also been to Bar Harbor and Acadia but never Eastport. It should be interesting! I'll just do my own research on it - sounds like a great town with an amazing history - my kind of place.

CurlerRob - I totally agree with you! We had done this a couple times in the past with no issues (cancel at >120 days, pay the $100pp penalty, and book the same cruise at the sale price). I do wonder if Viking has changed the rules this year however. I could find nothing in writing on this. Several phone calls to them shared the same result - no re-booking the same identical cruise. So had our TA try. Same result. TA did find a clever workaround - you can "transfer" the original booking to a future cruise (keeping the same booking number). Since we had just a $25 deposit pp, at some point we will just cancel that "dummy booking" and give up the $25. We did some dummy cruise in 2025. The TA then booked the promo cruise as a new booking #, saving thousands. (on the itinerary we had just "given up"). Once room inventory freed up (takes a day), we even got our same cabin number back. This probably works best if you haven't paid anything except the deposit. FYI - looking forward to meeting you soon on our Saturn Iceland cruise! Kent

We stayed at Doubletree Vitacura in Santiago, Chile (with an ‘e’). great location.

Don't get me wrong, Clay. We love Chefs Table. We just don't get all panicky like a lot of people about not getting reservations ahead of boarding! Never had an issue. We also would love to get Sweet & Salty (never had it yet).

That is correct - there is no "set" time or schedule for lectures or port talks. "It all depends". One of the issues, as described above, with "always" having a port talk at 6 or 6:30 is that the restaurants do get flooded. On our cruises (11 ocean) - the port talks were scheduled all over the board timewise. On River Cruises, it is more functional to have port talks just ahead of dinner, as everyone has to eat dinner at the same time. On a sea day, they did tend to be around 4:30 and they last about 45 minutes, of which probably only about 20 is useful information. Another reason we now avoid going in person, and just watch it on the TV that evening! If you missed anything, they usually play the recording in the Star Theatre in the morning while you wait for your excursion number to be called, along with many other passengers.

As always @Peregrina651, you have provided such a great summary of all the relevant information on tipping. Just taking a moment to again thank you for all your very informative posts on Cruise Critic - not just for the Newbies but for some of us long time cruisers as well, as we often forget things. 🙂 Much appreciated!

We did a quick/short visit to Windsor. It was a beautiful day, and a really nice place to walk around and sightsee! Very close to Heathrow. Walked a lot so then tired for the plane flight!

To late to rebook! Too many plans set in place. I did find that "upgraded cabin" on cruises we investigated the past few times weren't quite what we thought. It mean "upgraded within a category". Meaning all DV's cost the same, all PV's cost the same. OK but no upgrade from one category to another (like DV to PV).

We found it varies by itinerary. No standard practice. On ocean people eat dinner over a long multi hour span. A lot depends on if a sea day or not. even if you miss the talk live, you can watch it on TV which is what we do. have seen the talks go on anywhere from 1:00 to 8:00 pm. Check your dailies each day.

Funny! You put it well - "High School Cafeteria". For us it wasn't so much the crowded tables where everyone all seemed to have hooked up already in a game of fast musical chairs, but the timing. If for some reason you didn't wish to eat at 7:00 PM for dinner (late meal in town on your own?), you were foodless. No room service (understandable given the small ship), no nothing except cookies (albeit great!). We learned to buy some food items onshore to keep in the room. Same with lunch. As someone said, breakfast was a bit more flexible. You could go down early and have some simple breakfast items on the Terrace without having to join the masses inside. Again - we don't follow routines and I'm sure that those who do (eating at the same time very day) find the River Cruise dining perfect. Each to his own.

Agree with all the above. IMHO, the SSP has dramatically gone downhill in 2022/23 - likely another of Viking's post-COVID cutbacks. For us it seemed the variety disappeared and they were out of stock on 50% of the wines listed. Always the answer was supply issues. Perhaps that is true, perhaps just an excuse. We are going in June out of NYC. Hard to believe this excuse will fly again. They also reduced the types of varietals (like Cabs, Zins, Merlots) in favor of lighter reds and non-oak Chards from what they had before. And pretty much eliminated California wines in favor of Europe. (That may also be due to different itineraries seem to have some different offerings). In some cases, they moved bottles from the SSP to the purchase by bottle category (such as the Penfolds Shiraz-Cab) so you'd have to pay for it even with SSP. Kind of a bit sneaky. That all being said, we always try to bring our own bottles onboard whenever we can - that way we can control things and drink what we enjoy!

We were in the same boat, so to speak, as you. (Everyone has their opinions, but we agree with @lackcreativity . doesn't mean right or wrong). We did many Ocean Cruises and finally decided to "try" a River Cruise (by doing the Norway Fjords Ocean first, changing in Amsterdam and doing the Amsterdam-Basel Rhine River). That way we had an "instant" comparison. Both are Viking, make no mistake, but there are numerous differences - many simply due to the fact that River cruises operate on smaller ships, have a small kitchen, don't have room for washer/dryers, generally tie up close to a town, and more. For us, we missed the quiet open spaciousness of the Ocean ships, and control over our day. River for us was very regimented (not complaining, we knew it going in and understood why) - everyone eats at the same time, mostly in large groups. We were more tired after 1 week of River than 2 weeks of Ocean (and not from walking) - simply because there was no place to get away - we were with and around people all day and evening and the constant social interaction was, for us, wearing us out. (again, not complaining). Some absolutely thrive and relish that constant people interface. Unlike Ocean, you really can't rest in your smaller cabin on River, and if the weather isn't good you really can't escape to the top level. Just some thoughts. That said, we'd do either at any time in the future if the prices is right!