CDNPolar

We are sailing with Hurtigruten in December - next month.

Pre-pandemic Viking Air was different. My Opinion. Now, we have been booking our own air. There is no advantage now for us to book through Viking unless it is Free Air. We were quoted on a recent trip BC air at over 6K per person, and we booked it for 3.5K on our own. Same airline. It seems that there is a lot of trouble with Viking Air Plus lately. I don't necessarily put all the blame on Viking because any air bookings in the last couple of years are frustrating even on your own, but when dealing with contract rates, I would presume Viking's Air Plus agents have their hands tied. I have also experienced that you call once and get once story, call twice and a third time and get completely different story.

Helpful for some experience for sure. Thank you. I don't get the impression that BC is a popular insurance, but then it is not available in every province....?

Patrick - this explains why you did not answer a few questions.... Not sure if you are good to go back and see some of the questions?

Totally agree with your thoughts here...

I don't know what your deal was for price, but Viking were just launching their expeditions to Antarctica when we were booking our upcoming cruise to Antarctica. We are loyal Viking cruisers BUT we found a cruise line that has been doing Antarctica for a long time and has very good reviews. We also bought this at less than half the price of Viking per person. I know that Viking have submarines and this line does not, but that was not enough for us to pay double. This line did not offer free air, and we could only book our air ourselves. This line did not have any contract pricing from Canada. Even purchasing air (Delta One) we are still half price the air included price of Viking. We like to have control over our airline and class, and we would not do Antarctica if we could not pick our cabin solely because of the Drake Strait. Because of the potential for extremely rough seas for 2 days each way, I would only book a mid-ship cabin and would not want to risk being forward or aft.

Thanks for your responses, but I am only thinking about purchasing cancellation and interruption insurance with NO medical attached. I have medical through work that is a very good plan. More so, my question is does anyone have experience with a claim to Blue Cross? Especially interruption or cancellation? My insurance broker tells me that they have a very poor claims payout timeframe and high frustration level for claimants. Under the annual interruption and cancellation plan, you can have a year of coverage for unlimited trips up to 31 days for about $1000.00 (for the two of us based on age) but it only compensates up to $5,000.00 per person regardless the cost of the trip. We are considering doing some land based tours over cruising in the next couple of years and we could do multiple that are under the 5K limit in a year. This would be a considerable saving on cancellation and interruption insurance, but is the saving worth the hassle? Our broker wants us to buy single trip cancel / interruption insurance through Manulife instead.

Only asking about Trip Interruption and Cancellation. NO medical in the plan.

I am not asking about Medical. I am only asking about trip interruption and cancellation. I have more than sufficient medical coverage for travel through my job.

Hello, Anyone with experience with the Blue Cross Trip Interruption / Cancellation plan? This plan allows for multiple trips per year but only compensates to a max of $5,000.00 per person per trip. Anyone with experience with a claim payout? My Insurance broker is advising against going with Blue Cross.

I have never given mis-information. I know that anyone on the ship has access to every wine, spirit and beer. This is not in question and never has been. This is a personal preference of ours to buy SS. We are known to the crew as having SS and there is no issue with ordering anything that we want. There are no "bills" to settle at the end of the cruise. I am not oblivious to the fact that I can get what I want without the SS package. My goodness, people just want to fight any small point here. We all have our own ways and opinions. We prefer to buy the SS because we feel comfortable doing so. Enough said.

It is our money and we spend it the way we please. We personally think that anyone that books a cabin above a V1 or V2 is wasting their money - DON'T Hate on me for this statement - because we spend as precious little time in our cabin as possible. We don't do room service breakfast, we don't sit on the balcony, we are there to sleep only. We don't care about the coffee maker, we don't care about advance bookings for excursions or restaurants. We don't care about the extra space in some cabins. We buy the SS package and we admit that sometimes we may not get our money out of it, but that is what we do.

Is the included wine "just fine"? For us, no. As wine enthusiasts we have grapes and regions that we prefer and the included wines offered daily will never meet our taste. One day we may feel like drinking Pinot Noir vs. the next a Rioja. The SS package gives us this flexibility. To us - no offence to anyone else - the expanded selection is key for us and we probably don't even drink enough to pay for the package! We buy it solely for the selection.

Not a good sign... We are cruising in December and starting to wonder if this is a good thing. We cruised during the pandemic twice with Viking and felt "safe" with the mandates in place, but now, not sure. We don't feel that people are taking covid seriously now. I WILL submit for testing if I am not feeling well, and I will do my required isolation if I must, but I don't want to be in this position when my next cruise is Antarctica. Imagine spending all that money and then being isolated?

Purely out of curiosity, what is the demographic of the guests on board? What countries are people from and is there one country that has a majority? This is one of the things about cruising that I love - meeting people from around the globe.

Any update on Covid count? Just curious on how Hurtigruten is handling this overall. We have sailed Viking during Covid and they have PCR labs on the ocean ships and test all crew and passengers daily. Viking were successful in preventing outbreaks like just happened on the Majestic Princess in Australia.

RR, this remains a mystery, but on some digging and discussions in forums like Trip Advisor, below I have pasted an apparent response from Hurtigruten: Return flights from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires are confirmed a couple days prior; guests will be notified of the return time on board the ship. Due to late notice about the return charter flight times, and the changing of airports, we strongly recommend planning a 10 p.m. or later flight, or an overnight stay in Buenos Aires at the end of your cruise. We are unable to accept responsibility if you miss your booked return flight in the event of a delay of the flight between Buenos Aires and Ushuaia.“ From the above and other discussions I have read, it would seem that not all the charter flights necessarily depart and arrive at EZE which is where I assume that you are flying from? You could be landing back in BA at a smaller regional airport and have to arrange transport to EZE. Because we could not get absolute information from our TA on this, we decided to extend our stay in BA for a few days, thus eliminating the fear or concern of making a flight the same day as the return from Ushuaia. I find it interesting that they don't tell you - and perhaps Patrick can confirm this fact - when your flight time is until "a couple days prior". How is one to plan for this? Also in this apparent response from Hurtigruten, they are denying any responsibility for a missed flight out of BA based on your return after the cruise. I suppose the question is, IF you booked your air through Hurtigruten, when would they book your flight home? We could not book flights through Hurtigruten as they have no contract rates for Canadian travellers. We had to book our own air. Interesting to see this play out. This is our first experience with Hurtigruten and there are bits and pieces that we find frustrating - this being one of them.

Part of the problem that I see with all of this is that so many are passing this off as a mild cold and nothing to worry about. More and more evidence is coming out now about people who have had 2 or more mild cases are having long covid issues, and other heart and lung issues. Some are popping up 2-3 months later. I personally know too many people that are not concerned any longer, and I get after 3 years of lockdowns and masking that no one wants more. Heck, I don't want more, but I also don't want lingering or worse health issues later. I am approaching retirement and want to enjoy life and travel and not be held down by illness because others are careless or misinformed.

How did this discussion about 800 Covid cases on the Majestic Princess become a debate on Ontario's health care system and the use, or misuse of the same?

Thank you for this update! Great tip on the waterproof pants... we don't have those yet and I don't remember them being recommended? Can you comment please on the temperatures when you are landing?

Interesting that they are announcing the covid counts. I guess with the Majestic Princess in Sydney and 800 covid cases they are being very transparent. Also interesting that all the PCR tests missed these cases. Do you feel "covid safe" on this ship and the way that the crew are handling it? We have never sailed Hurtigruten before. We have sailed Viking Ocean many times and they have daily PCR testing and PCR labs installed on every ocean ship. In the past they used electronic trackers that everyone wore as well so that they could assess proximity to anyone that did test positive.

Transferring the risk and cost to the insurance companies won't last long. Insurance is different in every country, but in Canada in the beginning of the pandemic, no insurance gave any coverage for Covid. Did not matter what the cause or result was. Things have changed a bit now. We have coverage for a December cruise and a March cruise. Both with different insurance companies, but similar. IF we test positive prior to leaving we can cancel and be covered. IF we test positive during, our interruption is covered. The only condition now is that if we catch covid during the cruise and we traveled against a no travel or no non-essential travel issued by the Canadian government then we are not covered. Currently there is no travel advisory... Insurance companies will turn this off quickly if they are getting beaten up by claims, and / or the government will issue a no travel cruise warning and essentially take away our coverage. We ONLY have $700 per person hotel and food cost if we were forced to isolate in a hotel in any city regardless of any of the above.

This has been a major discussion in other forums on CC. It is well established that many with mild symptoms will NOT step up for voluntary testing because they are afraid of being isolated and losing their freedom. This is pure selfishness and disregard for their fellow human being. We sail on December 29th and start our travels on December 26th. We will be PCR tested before leaving home - required or not - and we will be masked except when in our cabin. This is not the time to trust anyone that they will do the right thing.

We are concerned about this "upgrade" - did you have any say over the upgrade? We carefully selected our cabin based on research we did and we have a mid-ship cabin that we would be really upset if they move us to forward or aft. We want mid-ship. Can you guide us more on this upgrade?

Thank you for sharing. Some questions: Were you PCR tested at the hotel? Hurtigruten now suggests on their website that we will be tested in Buenos Aries and if positive we will not be able to board the ship the next morning. Was this your experience? Was the transfer from airport to hotel not included in the cruise fare? Was this not provided by Hurtigruten? How is the Emperador in general? We come in one day early and have two nights there. Very curious how the Drake Strait is for you!