CDNPolar

This is directly from the Viking site and I have heard the Chairman speak about this directly on videos too. If this is false then what are we to believe?

For our next two cruises, we have opted to book on our own and not book with Viking. We either book premium economy or business, and now with the airlines, we see that when you are booking these classes, you can make changes for the change in fare, or you can cancel and retain the full value of the fare and rebook for a future date. Because we fully intend to travel the dates we choose we don't see major issue in going on our own. Yes, you have to pay up front when you book, but you have full control of the booking too. We have found also, that unless Viking are offering free air, the prices they are quoting are only within a couple hundred of what we pay on our own and they are not always on the side of the price advantage. In fact, we have opted on one cruise recently to book our own business class seats because we got them over $1800.00 per person cheaper than we were given in price from Air Plus. Oh, and for the record, we have always ignored the 60 day recording and booked and no agent has ever tried to discourage us. We generally will book 250-300 days out. Now, also to be fair - we booked first class tickets for a non Viking cruise about 5 months ago and we have 4 months to go. This itinerary has had about 5 or 6 schedule changes to date, but all are still acceptable changes to us and each time the change happened, the airline (Delta) gave us the opportunity to cancel or change with no fee because of the schedule change. If there is no price advantage, then I will always choose to book my own flights.

I don't think that this is an improvement, BUT every Viking Stateroom has its own HVAC unit and does not share or draw air from other parts of the ship or other Staterooms. This is one thing that makes us feel comfortable in our Viking Stateroom.

On our cruise in May Viking still had the sanitizer - little green bottles - in the staterooms.

One thing that I will do on the next cruise when visiting the buffet is after serving myself, I will return to the hand washing station and wash my hands again before starting to eat. We saw many coughing into their hands walking along the buffet and then picking up the tongs. I do believe that this is a transmission point and it can be mitigated with a simple hand wash.

I have read and studied and read and studied and throughout the pandemic worn N95's and medical grade surgical masks. 2 years of hand hygiene and masking and no covid. One cruise last December masked all through including on excursions. No covid. I traveled to South Africa for work in the spring. N95 never came off my face for 14 days and I returned home with Covid. I did everything according to plan. No one that I worked with was sick. I can only assume that I got it on an aircraft, but more likely in an airport. Heathrow airport was a disaster. No one masked, people sneezing and coughing everywhere. I put it down to you can do all the right things and still get it - and I still do believe that masking and hand hygiene are necessary. My case was mild which I put down to the fact that I am double vaxed and double boosted. I personally think that it is large gatherings of people. Airports especially if they are crowded. We are still booking cruises and still plan to cruise, and we fully recognize the risk.

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Thank you. Thank you. But, there are many threads on CC where people blatantly state that they would not request a test in your situation because they would not want to "lose" the money they spent on the cruise being isolated to their stateroom, or worse disembarked from the ship. I believe - unfortunately - that you are in the minority. I am not saying that others would not volunteer for a test, but I am saying that many would not. As we learn more and more about Covid, it is wrong IMO to just say it is a mild cold or flu. Stats today are that 400 people a day are still dying from Covid in the USA and that is most likely an underreported stat. Many people that had a mild case - and recovered - months ago are coming up with new symptoms and Long Covid is emerging from mild cases. I think that the whole focus of this thread was the selfishness of fellow passengers that were coughing and not being respectful to their fellow passengers by either wearing a mask or properly covering their mouth and nose and then washing their hands. We know that cruise ships are notorious for spread of other things like Norovirus, but I was hoping that this could have been, would have been, a lesson on hand sanitation and basic coughing hygiene that would have stuck with us. Unfortunately not.

Some time ago, I wrote a post called: "If you cough, cover your mouth". We were on a cruise in December where everyone wore masks, but as soon as the lights were down in the Star Theatre, the masks dropped and the coughing began. We were on a cruise in July and we experienced passengers coughing everywhere with no respect for anyone around them. We were so dismayed at the way that passengers were coughing and not covering their mouth. Coughing in their hands and then picking up the tongs at the World Cafe. Who raised these people? I always thought that I would be travelling with people that had a certain respect for their fellow passenger. And as for those that make snide comments to those wearing masks... Keep your comments to yourself. Mask wearing is a personal choice as is not wearing a mask. You have no idea what health issue anyone is dealing with and what level of anxiety the pandemic imparted on them. Think what you want but there is no need to speak.

I think I have some menu pics that I can find. We always buy Silver Spirits because we want access to the full wine list all day, not just the wines that they choose as house which is usually one red and one white. Yes, both or all in the cabin must subscribe to the SS package. On the full wine list, the typical price for a glass of wine is $6.00 (USD on the menu I am quoting). Remember that you do get beer and wine included with lunch and dinner and you can ask for a fresh beer or top the wine up as you are leaving the dining room. We often see people carrying a full glass of wine when they leave the dining room. To us, the cost has always been worth it.

We met life-long friends on our first Viking ocean cruise, and they have met us on three cruises since. Each cruise, we meet great people and learn so much about the countries we are in. We are seeing an increasing number of LGBT couples on Viking cruises, and hope to see more and more in the future. We are far beyond the party phase of our lives - not that anyone who wants to party should not - and Viking fits our style completely.

...and a great thing of the booking system with Shoppers, is if you want to change or cancel, there is no fee for either.

Met my husband 9 years ago and we have been married for 7 years now. When I met my husband, he had never been on a cruise before. I had been on large ships and was not crazy about my experience on a large ship. We watched a lot of PBS shows and especially during Downton Abbey we would see Viking advertisements. The ads were appealing to us and our tastes - or so we thought. We were excited to do our first cruise and it was an Ocean cruise. Our second was River. We have now done 5 Viking cruises, which would have been 7 or 8 by now if the pandemic did not get in our way. Viking does attract an older demographic, and Viking does not have the nightclubs and casinos, but this is more our style anyway. Quiet enjoyment of the culture and the food where you are travelling. If you are looking for a great vacation, with great food, great service, great crew, then you should consider Viking. Ocean ships are 930 guests and River ships depend on the river, but range from 60'ish to 180'ish guests.

With this cruise line do they give you the opportunity to do an e-cash transfer, like a debit transfer? Viking cruises does e-transfers and you save 3.3% over paying with a credit card. I know that most want the points, but for us, the 3.3% cash saving is more than the point value on the card. Almost double actually, and for the value of the OP's cruise that could be substantial.

Know that a "Chargeback" will only be given by the bank if they can get the money back from the cruise line. If the cruise line is bankrupt, there won't be any chargeback.

Gotcha - thanks. All of us likely have different experiences with different lines so we are not comparing apples to apples.

We were on the Star in December - this past - and we did not notice any detectable wear that was in need of repair. Our cabin was in perfectly good shape, as were the dining rooms and all the common areas. I feel like I was on a different ship to the reply above. Perhaps they were unlucky with a badly abused stateroom.

The other thing that you can do, especially if this is morning, is just schedule Room Service to bring tea, or the hot water and the tea bag on the side. One thing that you are not allowed to do is bring your own portable tea kettle - they consider these appliances a fire risk.

To answer my own question, we had discussions with insurance brokers and insurance companies and their advice is that until there is a penalty, don't buy the insurance. So, moving forward, we will make our full payment six months before sailing, but we won't buy the insurance until 2 months later when the first penalty kicks in.

Let me ask you this - how can there be a penalty a month before you pay? Unless you are paying in instalments or you lose your deposit?

Both Viking and Uniworld cruise lines have full payment at 6 months out - longer for some depending on whether it is your first booking, but the first penalty is at 119 days from the sailing. Basically you are paying in full but can cancel and receive full refund over the first 60 days before a penalty kicks in.

We always debate when to actually purchase cancellation and interruption insurance. Currently our thought is this: As an example: If full payment of cruise due September 1st, but the first cancelation penalty by the cruise line if you cancel is not until November 1st, why would you buy insurance for cancel/interruption before November 1st? Can anyone comment on this? (We don't purchase medical insurance for travelling because we have coverage.)

Great to hear, and hopefully this won't have to be your final trip!

I don't need the 50 bucks that I paid, but for some reason, I feel that they should refund that fee until they actually process my renewal.

We had issues with a TA and it was before full payment. My understanding is that the TA is not paid until full payment comes through. We did contact Viking and had to contact the TA, have the TA write a letter saying they would release the booking, we got it back with Viking and we worked directly with Viking. I would assume through all this that the TA was NOT paid any commission, but I don't know that 100% We are up and down with the use of TA's. We originally did all our Viking bookings and then moved to TA's for potential value in discounts and OBC's, but sometimes I swear, it is not worth anything that we have gotten to date from a TA.