CDNPolar

Never heard of this...

Yeah - gotta figure out the eUpgrade thing.... never used them before. I think we have 25 credits.

Yeah, we asked about fee waivers for the Privilege card and no go... they want the $599 Because of Apple pay however we share the Privilege in each of our apple pay accounts. You can tap up to $250 with Apple Pay, so we did not get the spousal card. We are rarely not together if the purchase is above a tap limit, so sharing is not an issue and we each have our Infinite cards anyway. We just want the max Aeroplan points from the Privilege card.

We went through this process and that is why we now have 3 TD Infinite Visa cards and 1 TD Infinite Privilege card. 4 cards total. The first year bonus Aeroplan points, other benefits and the Companion Ticket from the Privilege card make it all worth while. We also have banking plans that for the 3 TD Infinite cards, the annual fee of $139.00 is waived for all 3 cards. Sweet.

I may have mis-spoken. They might help you to book flights. I had questions around my airport benefits with the card such as free checked baggage, etc. This they told me I had to call Aeroplan. But, if they are a Concierge for the card, and this is a legit benefit of the card, they should be able to address my questions. But, now I know one thing they cannot do.

The cost is minor against the desire to NOT put a mouthpiece in that we don't know the sterilization methods, but I get you...

I just called the TD Privilege Concierge yesterday for "help with travel bookings" as it states they do... They could not help me because I had a question about booking air and my Aeroplan benefits. To me the Concierge program is for help with booking hotels, and in some cases exclusive restaurants. They can offer better rates at some hotels. Tickets and tours as well. Here is the site for Visa Infinite Privilege Concierge: https://www.visainfinite.ca/privilege/en/concierge.html

British Air carry on is 23kg. But if you are connecting to another partner airline once you get to Heathrow, I don't know what happens.

I had not seen this discussion before, but read through it. I am personally wary of any reseller that is giving such a deal that you cannot pass on it. How are they doing it is my first question. I do know for a fact because Air Canada advertise this that the lowest air fare they have is always on their website and you cannot get that on Expedia or any other supposed discount site. If Expedia is offering an AC flight at $1000 you can find it on the official AC website for $850. (Numbers pulled out of the air) I have found a couple of times on GoogleFlights that there is a great offer and then at the bottom is shows you multiple ways to purchase, and I have been directed to sites that I did not know that were not the airline sites that were offering the flights and I just exited and went back to the airlines directly.

I would say more common on river than ocean, but not that they don't show up on ocean too. My only beef with jeans is the ones that look like gardening jeans. I have NO issue with full black non-faded or other dressy jeans.

It all comes down to the voucher "rules" and there are many. If your cruise was particularly expensive and then you have a 10% or sometimes 25% boost, you have to spend that voucher (typically) on one cruise in the future or lose the value if you don't spend it. Vouchers are hard to insure for medical, cancelation and interruption. Not all insurance companies insure vouchers, so if the worst happens, you may lose the voucher if you have to cancel as they are not transferrable once applied to a cruise.

Thank you for your review and for the most part it sounds like this was a positive experience. One thing of note, when you talk about private tours and being back on time, you mentioned that Viking often would leave even earlier than stated in the Viking Daily... That would be because they knew that all passengers were back on board from the scanning of your key card. We have experienced this and this is a good thing for Viking if everyone is back on board and they can leave early, and if early enough, that could mean sailing at a slower speed to the next port and saving on fuel.

The only reason I suggested I don't want to travel on ships of 3000+ is that these are the ships that typically have the bigger shows and higher end entertainment. Viking has never marketed themselves as having BIG shows and entertainment. They have this now and in the past to give us something to do after dinner and I don't see it as more than that. We have grown tired of some of the shows because we have seen them too many times, but we still go with the hope that something will have changed. (ABBA and The Beatles) We are doing our first TA cruise this October and so I am anxiously awaiting what the entertainment will be like on those 6 nights.

Surveys are often built to give falsely positive resutls. As a Learning and Development professional I have taken a number of courses on how to build surveys. Most don't build surveys well, from my perspective and what I have learned about how to build them. On surveys that are 1-10, where 5 may be considered neutral, often any number from 6-10 is grouped together to be a "positive" result. You may see that "Overwhelmingly our customers have ranked our services positively" but this may include many 6's and 7's which are not high ratings. I am a person that rarely gives a 10 in these ranking scales because something has to go far and above and greatly exceed my expectations to get a 10. To me a really good score is giving an 8 and many things get a 6 or a 7 and I am still okay with them, but not a raving fan. The above thinking is true for many people responding to surveys making 1-10 scales very subjective. The 6-10 range will mean something different for everyone. We have seen here on CC how subjective reviews of the food are on Viking Ocean ships. We love the Chef's Table and others dislike it and for many reasons. How do you assign a proper number to your experience with the Chef's Table with a range of 10 numbers that are not defined. Most surveys I make if they are on a scale, are done with a 4 scale but have a definition beside each. 1 = Does not meet expectations 2 = Somewhat meets expectations 3 = Meets expectations 4 = Exceeds expectations When I am assessing the results, I would give separate reports for 3's and 4's but also group them to see what is the total of positive responses. 3 and 4 are clearly positive, and if your expectations are not met, then you choose 2 and that is easier for someone to choose because it is not a complete slam of the service or product. But back to the survey... I was astounded the first time, and I have heard this several times now, that we should choose the highest rating on the survey. This is a fail on the side of Viking that if they know their crew are instructing people this way, they should put a stop to it, and if they don't know, they should be informed.

We last minute booked a river cruise in December last year - 2 or 3 weeks before departure. The ship was changed last minute. When we arrived at the airport we were not on the manifest and when we arrived at the ship they did not have our reservation. (But, on a manual list in the office they knew we were to be there...) They said a combination of our last minute booking and the change of ship... Our excursions were not recorded - the optional ones that we paid for. This was a bit of a cluster&$*@ but they worked it out.

This to me seems like a new phenomena.

We have been on 12 cruises now and done countless ship arranged excursions - probably over 100 - and only ever experienced this kickback and feeling that we were herded into a shop to buy in Egypt. This cruise was with Uniworld. Never in all our cruises with Viking have we ever been taken to or felt that there was any expectation to buy something on an excursion. For us, we don't avoid ship's excursions but will be wary of Uniworld in the future if we sail them again. Viking has never put us in that situation.

I get you because it is my home airport also, but the whole Nexus thing gets us through so fast and then you realize that it did not save you any time at all. Re the carryon thing? For a land based tour in warm climate, yes. For a cruise no. Could not do it.

I personally believe that packing is an "art" and we have refined our art of packing over the years. We have never yet traveled with any overweight checked luggage (23kg) or any overstuffed carryon and we have everything that we ever need, and often more. We take a lesson - still - from every cruise and vacation that we go on and that has helped us to refine how we pack. I think that the main lesson we learned is that we always - each - have 2 changes in our carryon.

Yes, we do the same - direct with the restaurant. We have never done dining reservations at Guest Services.

I personally am of the opinion, that you tip if you want to tip, and you don't tip if you don't want to tip. I don't think that we need to care if the country we are in has a tipping culture or not. Getting off a bus tour, I see more people not tipping the driver and guide than passing a tip. We "North Americans" have such an expected tipping culture that we think we have to tip everywhere.

Now, a comment on the surveys that Viking ask us to fill out at the end of a cruise. This I fully support you @Mike07 I have never on an Ocean ship been persuaded to fill this out at any level of satisfaction, BUT have on a River Cruise been told more than once and on more than one cruise that if we don't give the highest mark possible (forget what that is, but probably exceeds expectations) that the crew will not get a bonus or something. I personally found that to be deplorable that we were being "instructed" on how to answer and in fact made to feel guilty that there would be consequences for the crew if we did not give the highest rating.

Thank you for this explanation. We have just never experienced the music in the Living Room or the Explorer Lounge to be that loud that it interfered with our conversation with friends. This seems to me to be not typical. I could understand this if you were sitting in the Living Room close to the piano at the bottom of the staircase, but if you were sitting further back nearer the shop on the Starboard side, would it still be too loud? I am just sorry to hear this, and we are not sailing again until October, but we will certainly see if perhaps it is common now for the volume to be turned up. As for your response from emailing, this shocks me. Perhaps there is a difference in how the Customer Service is handled in the UK vs. Canada? When I email tellus@vikingcruises.com I can count on a phone call from Viking Customer Service to discuss the issue and usually within 48 hours. I cannot accept that they are emailing you back with a cut/paste reply. This is not what I would have expected. I cannot say that Viking implement changes from what we have submitted to email in the past, but they have at least graced me with a phone call and the response that my concern has been forwarded to the respective department and will be considered.

To anyone that is impacted by this please consider very carefully before you take a voucher option. Typically any percent added to your current cruise total is on a voucher. IMO the best option is CASH back. Vouchers and added spend as you put it, are potentially a trap for challenges later. Vouchers have lots of conditions and rules and many people have been dissatisfied after taking a voucher. There are many other discussion threads about voucher vs. cash back. Vouchers are the best option for Viking because they retain your money and then you are subject to their rules on how the vouchers are redeemed. Take the full refund to cash back or back to your credit card.

Again, sorry for this. Write tellus@vikingcruises.com and let them know your experience. You can eat at Chef's Table or Manfredi's as often as you can get reservations. I have noted that when they link us with friends, one of the other of us don't show the reservation on the TV system.... Don't know if this was the case. You sound like you got a newer GS Crew and perhaps not as skilled as we have experienced. Definitely write tellus@vikingcruises.com