CCWineLover

Same logic we use!

At least the roof is open and no rain!! What a beautiful day it appears to be. 🙂

Sometimes spreadsheets and analysis don't do the trick - you have to try them out. There are so many non-dollar subjective aspects to Viking (mentioned in many posts) so for us it is NOT a dollar thing but an emotional experience thing. Heck - if we were just comparing $$$ to fly from US to Europe or wherever, we'd always fly economy and never fly business class. And we'd never eat at an upscale restaurant - food is food. It is the subjective experieces. What was the famous ad . . . the cost for xyz . . "Priceless"

That is absolutely too funny! Glad you are all having a great time - wish we were there! Say hi to our friend Dobie onboard when you see her again. Kent

@2cruisecats I assume you mean "Iceland's Natural TREASURES EXCURSION". We did this EXACT excursion out of Akureyri last June! We had an absolutely wonderful time, thanks to good weather. It was definitely a long day, however, but we had a really good and large lunch halfway through near Lake Myvatin at a very upscale conference hotel restaurant with a view! I would have listed it as 1/2 demanding and 1/2 moderate (I've been on many Viking excursions both truly demanding and truly moderate. There are several stops where you get out of the bus and have to walk a moderately decent distance to the "attraction". Perhaps that is where the "demanding" comes from. The one area that has some hills is the paved trail through the wonderful towering lava castles and grottoes of the Dimmuborgir lava labyrinth. The walking to the Godafoss waterfalls and the sulphur springs areas is moderately long (maybe 1 mile total?) As for the Diamond Circle - I would have given it the same rating. We took an independent tour out of Reykjavik that went to the attractions on this tour description. It goes to the same lava park (Dimmuborgir) so would have the same walk and hills there. It however, goes to Dettifoss waterfall. I thought the walk to/from the parking lot to this falls was much more difficult than the Natural Treasures excursion's walk to the Godafoss falls. I am a bit surprised that Viking rated these 2 excursions differently. I would have rated them either both Demanding or both Moderate. I would choose whichever one you wish! Hoping that helps relieve any indecision. Feel free to email me and I can say more and send you some pics from both excursions - kjstong at gmail dot com Kent

Yes that should give you plenty of time.

so sorry this has completely spoiled your World Cruise. Life certainly takes different turns. Here is hoping that after you get back, you find a cruise line that fits your needs and treats you well. Let us know.

@millybess Again agree with you. All this fuss about advance reservations - not necessary. We always just book when we get onboard as then we know what the CT menus are and have a better idea of how we wish to eat. Even then, we found on a 2 week cruise at least: -People cancel like crazy the 2nd week as they make other plans or find they don't like the specialty restaurants. This opens up a lot of space! -People don't cancel but simply are NO SHOWS. Viking told us they get about 10-20% no shows each night and it increases if the weather gets rough. We've often just gone down to CT or Manfredi's and get seated with no reservation due to the no shows.

Wonderful! I'm so glad that Frank is back again after COVID! The Asado experience we had with him at his home just before COVID was memorable (including walking around town doing the shopping with him for the food and wine). Easily one of the best times we had. We will plan to "redo" it again in a year when we are on this cruise. Will also use your advise and book the other tours as well! Thank you!

We were just on Saturn - in a DV2 room. There were 2 hooks on the bathroom door. The door was hinged and not sliding. So possibly the sliding bathroom door you reference is part of one of the higher room categories.

Looks a lot better than the same meal we had a few weeks ago!

We did just that on a previous cruise!! Both of us with Viking jackets. Better than losing it

Same for us. Never had good luck with the lobster. Luck of the draw

Yes indeed! Always enjoy the chance to talk about wine and sip a little 🙂 Interesting note - on our recent Saturn Mediterranean cruise, we had a Cruise Consultant who gave a completely new approach to the traditional Cruise Presentations they often do in the Star Theatre. His name is Hamed Esfihanian. He titled and presented several of them oriented to cruises suited to wine tasting !! Really enjoyed them. We also had several one/one discussions later on during the cruise on wine and travel experiences. Very engaging man if you ever run into him on Viking.

millybess - Glad to hear you are doing the Hong Kong Japan trip. We are doing Viking Japan-Hong Kong in October 2025, so will be very interested to hear what you do - especially the private tours! So interesting that you got to meet Ronnie Carrington in Barbados. We did his photo tour way back in 2019 and told Lorna and Ray about him. Ray is such a good photographer and hope he learned something from him! We were just on the Italy/Adriatic/Greece tour with Lorna and Ray. Also hoping to see a post where we can view all his photographs and relive the experience! Traveling is fun - and meeting people who share common interests! We are off back to travel again in May (Barcelona to Bergen to Rekjavik). Will try to share insights along the way. Have a wonderful time in Asia!

Agree with you! They've had these on every cruise we've been on. If we are available, we'll attend. (Some are better than others). The most recent one was really good as the Consultant took a different twist. He is a wine lover and so focused his presentations on which cruises provided excellent wine/food opportunities (i.e. South America, many of the European ones, etc). Caught our interest! Was very well done. (Viking Saturn a few weeks ago - his name is Hamed Esfahanian). We had a number of great discussions on wine throughout the cruise one on one. A unique experience!

Well stated - we totally agree! That is what has been fun with Viking - trying and tasting new wines. When we are traveling in various cities we also enjoy doing that! We try to make a Viking cruise part of a larger trip, so that we can experience more! For instance we just spent 10 days in Italy before our recent cruise. Wonderful different wines to taste there (and the food, oh my!). We spent time in Chile, touring and tasting, ahead of our Viking S.America cruise, and also after finishing in Buenos Aires, flew to Mendoza to spend 3 days learning about their fabulous Malbec! I'll also state that we enjoy the pairing of wines with food and have been trying to educate ourselves with that. We've enjoyed some of the wonderful wine/food pairing tastings on the Viking ships (which they schedule on sea days in the past at least). Hopefully some day our paths will cross! Kent

Agree. This past cruise in the Med, we found some interesting and different wines they had picked up in Spain, Portugal, and Italy - that were different from before. We are not that wedded to having to have a California red (although I must admit I'm a bit biased towards them). Sometimes it's fun to try different wines and expand the horizons!

We've been to the Cruise Consultants many times onboard in our past cruises (We've done 16 Viking now). we NEVER had a sales presentation from the consultant. I've been surprised but they never pushed anything - other than if you liked this you might try that. It really helps if you have an idea of what you want and then can get into the nitty-gritty. If you go in and say I just want to cruise and have no idea what to do, then things might be different. Yes - we go armed with discount codes as well. Thanks to the wonderful Cruise Critic thread that has been going on for awhile and seems to be updated daily, you can learn every new code that can be used. Since it is so easy to see the codes, that doesn't bother me as much. We've had nothing but good experiences with the Consultants even though some are A+ and some are B+. We have our TA registered in our on-line files and if we buy something onboard, they get notified immediately and the reservation automatically passed over to them. We still get all those onboard credits. (Although they used to be good in COVID times like $600 pp but are now down to $100 pp OBC last month). Supply and Demand! What we do like about booking onboard, however, is that you can put a hold on a specific cabin. You can then immediately go out and look at it, and other alternatives, in person in a few minutes, since all the Star class ships are the same layout. Helped us with one in particular where the plan diagrams showed a cabin facing the elevator and stairs, but when we looked in person, it was down the hall 6 feet and would not be affected. Little things like that. Here's the promo thread, started by Clay Clayon in 2022.

Interesting and maybe intentional choice of words - "Pillaged" sounds like what the old Vikings did back in 900 A.D. See you on the Oceania boards?

Exactly what we began doing when the $25 deposits came out. I viewed it like a stock option. Put $25 pp down on a cruise as far out as you can (we did 2026) and you: -Lock in the 6 month final payment due for any cruise you book now -Lock in the cruise price of the distant cruise (so make sure it is one you do want) as prices keep going up! Our hand-picked 2026 cruise for $50 was the new Viking Vesta in March 2026 that does the new Med itinerary that includes Malta. Given its popularity I'm sure the prices will rise. Worst case we lose $50. You can also think of it as "insurance", but it seemed to me more like a stock option (pay $50 for the chance to "buy" the far out cruise at a given price). If the price is lower 6 months out, then I cancel and rebook at the lower price.

Thank you for continuing to post your experiences. I will be following as we are doing this exact itinerary one year from now. Will be interested to learn how the seas are when you cross the Atlantic. And what activities they have. How are the lecturers and historians? Have you been able to watch their talks and others (port talks) on TV OK? our past cruise, the sound quality was so bad we couldn't manage, so resorted to seeing them live. As for Manfredi's, you no doubt had menu #4 (of 5 being tried). Many many threads on Manfredi's menu (one started by Clay Clayton recently) in which most describe similar thoughts. Check it out.

Living in a small town, we don't have experience with palm passing tips (as perhaps is the norm in the big cities). What amount do you advise to achieve the desired results?

We just had a wonderful Captain's Q&A onboard Saturn 2 weeks ago. Our CD, Kate, arranged and ran it. She told me it was up to the CD to push it forward and still the Captain had to approve. Guess it depends on your CD and Captain and is not a global Viking rule. She also had onstage the Engineer, the head of Housekeeping, and the Asst General Manager. It was quite an excellent discussion! Maybe we just had a great CD and Captain!! It was done in the Star Theatre on the final afternoon of the cruise.

Thanks! Great idea. Never thought of that. At least for ones we don't see on the list at all. My original point was that some of our favorite wines that were by the glass were now by the bottle only. Specifically asked about Mer de Soleil Chardonnay, which had been by the glass for a long time and then got "elevated" to a buy the bottle only. I asked first if it was still in stock on board and after the yes, asked if we could just have a glass like before and the answer was, you can only buy the full bottle. Disappointing.