CDNPolar

I hear you with this. We "made friends" with two female friends travelling together on the first day in the hotel (part of the cruise itinerary) and their luggage was delayed. They seemed lots of fun and very jovial. They found us at lunch and dinner each day and for the first couple of days, they were fun to eat with, but the stranger side of their personalities came out and it was a challenge to sit with them. We tried to move tables, but they 98% of the time would either flag us as we walked into the dining room, or would find us and sit with us. It can work both ways. You can find those that you have common ground and enjoy and then you can also find those that you want to distance from. On this same cruise we saw what we think was a "tactic" by one couple. We had sat with them a couple of times in the dining room, and in the lounge. After the port talk, when most are running to the dining room to nab the table that they take every night, this couple would hang back. We would see them enter the dining room when the major crowd had already seated. Our table was full, and they would say hi as they walked by, but then they would find a table with two seats open and sit there. We saw them sit with different people almost every meal. This couple was very pleasant to talk to and had a very welcoming aura around them, but they chose to sit with different people every day. I think that we may take that approach on our next river cruise.

Not to get picky but VIking's tables are Oval and Rectangular. The Ovals are for 6 people, and the Rectangular tables are for 6, 8, or 10. I do not believe that the Viking rectangular tables can be separated. I believe that they are one table, not 3 or 4 pushed together. On Viking Douro River there were 2 tops - 3 or 4 of them, but on all other Viking Longships I have never seen 2 tops. All tables are 6, 8, or 10. I concur with an above statement, that River Cruising is not for you if you are not a social being.

There are two ways to purchase your air through Viking. 1) Viking Air With the first choice - Viking Air - you are paying whatever price Viking have quoted on your invoice, and Viking load an air itinerary in your MyVikingJourney (MVJ) account about 150 days from sailing. You can then go into MVJ and you have other flight options that you can yourself move to if you don't like what Viking have chosen. Some of these may have premium prices on top per person to choose. This is kind of like a self serve option to make changes to your flights, and you can also execute an upgrade in cabin class - if available - and you can choose seats. Flights show up about 150 days and Viking ticket about 75 days out. You must make all or any changes before ticketing or you will then pay a change fee. NOTE: YES, Viking can change your flights here up until the time of ticketing. On an upcoming Viking Ocean TA cruise, we had great flights to start, we picked our seats and we were happy with the selection. Then we got notice that the return flights were changed. Airline changed, departure times changed. We were originally to arrive home about 2pm, now we arrive home at midnight. The original flights that we were assigned are available in the mix on MVJ, BUT they now carry a premium of $349.00 pp. 2) Viking Air Plus With option #2, Viking Air Plus, YOU can call the Viking Air Department as much as 300-310 days before sailing with your flight choices. You can search your preferred airlines and routes and schedules, and give them to Viking and they will book what you want. NOW, understand, that if the flights you want do not fall inside Viking's contract rates, there will be a premium that you have to pay per person. We typically use this option and because we fly out of Canada's main gateway, Viking generally have contracts with the airlines we want, and we have generally always gotten what we wanted inside contract rates. With this option - Viking Air Plus - I may be wrong here but I don't believe that Viking will change your flights without contacting you first. This is the value of Viking Air Plus is you get to choose and you are locking in flights and your schedule. Airlines can however make changes to schedule and equipment that is out of Viking's control. When we do this we also ask for the flights to be ticketed very soon after. When you do this you must at least pay for the flight portion of your invoice regardless of when full payment is due. Once ticketed then you are dealing with airline changes - schedule changes, equipment changes, etc. These are your two options with Viking Air. Hope this helps.

To us it is a cruise by cruise situation. Sometimes Viking Air is cheaper and sometimes the airlines are cheaper. We have found Viking cheaper for Premium Economy than the airline and the other way around. We have never booked Business with Viking, we tend to book that ourselves with points.

The thing of it is that my favourite food is Asian. My husband is also Chinese so I know pretty well my Asian food and what is authentic vs. the North American version. BUT, if I were to order a stir fry on a Viking ship, or even the Dan Dan Noodles that everyone talks about... I am not expecting it to be the same as the Dan Dan Noodles that we ate in Sichuan province in China. I will try it and if it does not meet my expectations then I won't have it again... but I also don't expect it to be truly authentic... I won't however tell you that it did not meet my expectations because mine are very different from most when it comes to Asian food.

I hear you on this. What I hope EVERYONE is doing is emailing tellus@vikingcruises.com with their feedback about dress code. We cannot have any impact talking about it here, we need to also email Viking. We know that Viking read CC, but often these threads go off topic or rehash the obvious. It needs to hit their customer service division hard for them to do something about it, or it is just us bending an ear on CC. Everyone email tellus@vikingcruises.com to show concern with dress code and that ship crew do not enforce it.

Hope you are going to love Viking Ocean. Our first Viking was Ocean, then we immediately went to River so we had an example of both right up front. We have done more ocean but we love them both for very different reasons. River you tend to see more of one country, and ocean you tend to see more countries. The only thing that I wish Viking would do on Ocean is stay in port to later in the evening or even more overnights. Sometimes I feel the port experience is too short. The nice thing for me with Ocean is I feel that the ships are built for 1200-1300 passengers, but they only carry 930 passengers, so there is always a spot that you can find to sit or hide away... you don't feel crowded at all. Just how I/we feel about Viking Ocean.

Agree with all you say.

I have done some digging on this. TA's are actually "gifting" the OBC to you as their client. They go through a process of paying for and applying a gift to your account, and Viking have limits on how much they can give depending on the length of the cruise. The TA can choose to have it show on your invoice and be used prior to sailing, but as "gifts" often do, they don't show until you board the ship and show on your account then. The standard - I believe - is that it shows when you board, and the TA has to ask for it to be on the invoice as a SBC and to be used in advance. I think however in Clay's situation, it was there, so Viking applied it once everything flowed through their financial system. Often TA's will not apply until close to sailing, because this is a payment that they have to make when they attach it to your account. So, if you book 18 months out, for it to show on your invoice from the beginning they have to pay for that 18 months out. This is why often a TA's OBC may not show until closer to sailing because they don't want to be out of pocket for months at a time.

This is my understanding. You may have to pay for your flights - and Viking Air Plus fee - at the time that you are doing final payment for your cruise. In fact I am sure that they will want the full amount. My understanding is that until flights are actually "ticketed" you can remove them from your invoice and be issued a refund for the amount of the flights. I am not sure that you can get the refund for Viking Air Plus. Same with deviation fees - if you are removing the air - you can claim the refund for deviation fees. Oh, and you will have to ASK for the payment terms. Many of the agents will not just automatically give you this. I think you mentioned your TA - you may need to coach them on this. We had to coach ours. Once flights are ticketed then Viking is liable for the cost to the airline, but until that time, they are only future bookings in their contract with the airline. Suggestion: Viking assign a 6 month payment term to Canadian and US customers if they have a future booking with Viking. Because Viking have so many cruises that are only $25pp deposit (Again, CAD and USA) you can book a late 2026 cruise, that you might want to go on, pay the deposit, and then you ask for 6 month terms on your current and your future cruise. This is doable. We have done it, and others have. As the date moves closer to your placeholder booking in 2026, you might choose to move the deposit to another cruise, or you might want to take that one.... but in the mean time you will book ANOTHER cruise so that you always have one in the future to give you the 6 month payment terms. Yes, we are heading to our 14th Viking cruise, but we have done this for the last number of years, because if you disembark a cruise without a future one booked, you go back to the one year payment terms. Many times we have moved or modified a future booking, but we have always had at least one future booking.

Yeah, all very sketchy to me. If you go to the site that seems to be their official site, there are only Sympatico and Gmail addresses.

I have found and learned as I have aged, that you can go into anything with expectations that are way above what you should actually expect. I have slowly over time learned to temper expectations with reality. Stuff can go wrong. A Server can make a mistake. The Galley can be overwhelmed for whatever reason. A port can be missed. A cabin can creak and squeak. Service may be slower than expected. The excursion may not be as expected. Just recently there was a really scathing bad review of a Viking River cruise, but everything the OP was complaining about was just what river cruising is all about. My only thought reading this review was that they had expectations that were far and above what could be delivered by the product on almost any river cruise line, not just Viking. I got angry at one friend that we travelled with because every dish that came out of the kitchen on this cruise had something wrong with it, but it all boiled down to it was it was not cooked the way they would, or it had an ingredient on the plate that they would not put. The common statement was, "This is not how I expected this to be" When asked if it tasted good regardless, the answer was yes, but every dish was not as "expected" and I just got tired of hearing this. I finally said, "If you want everything like home and how you cook it, you should stay home". That stopped her cold.

Well, as the title says, "lots of views but few replies"... People are looking and perhaps reading, but I guess they don't have an opinion...

Feels like a very honest review of Viking. Thank you for this. This is how we feel about Viking. There are always "haters" around that will criticize everything, and it is true that occasionally Viking do miss the mark slightly on some things, but we as a couple cruising are not looking at individual misses but the overall experience. This is why we are approaching our 14th cruise with Viking.

We have seen both. We have taken advantage of free air and that really was a savings. We are leaving on a TA Viking cruise in October and we could have saved about $200pp if we booked on our own, but then we would have also had to arrange the transfers and pay for those. We opted to stick with Viking Air. We are booked on British Isles Explorer in April of 2026 and we thought that the air was way too high so we dropped it from the booking. We will watch the cost, but are pretty sure that we can beat the price they were asking. Don't have the answer for this directly other than what @SantaFe1 said - depends on when, where, etc.

Agree with everything that you are saying, but I have always only relied on my own research to determine what I need for any country. It can be arduous at times, but I search for and try to find the actual verifiable government sites for the country. The most frustrating search that I have had in my travel history is this Egypt Visa. Egyptian Consulate and Embassy do not answer or return calls, they do not reply to emails either. Not that I would send anything to an email as they all seem to be Gmail or Rogers or something like that.

I think that we have to remember that it is not the cruise lines responsibility to tell us exactly what we need. They only have to tell you that you must be aware of the Visa needed to enter. It really boils down to the fact that we as travellers have the full responsibility to know what is required to enter a country. Cruise lines generally offer general information, and they also will have a "responsibility disclaimer" in their terms or cruise contract detailing that it is your responsibility. Cruise lines will also encourage you to verify these needs with official sites and governments.

You are lucky! Buy a lotto ticket!

Airlines generally do not have their own policies regarding passport validity. Airlines generally follow the validity requirement of the destination you are flying to - both the transit country and final destination. It is not uncommon for an airline to warn you that you may need 6 months of passport validity but they are responsible to enforce the country rule, and 6 months is generally the max required. Also, often it would be 6 months from the return date, not the departure date. Don't try to slide a few days in, because even if the airline missed it you could and would be stopped by immigration at your destination and you could be denied entry. That would be your cost to get home.

We talk about it but have not yet because there are so many new places to go. If we did, it would be the Douro River cruise.

You should also receive an email the day before - today - with the time. We are on EDT and ours always seem to be 12:00pm PDT which is 3:00pm for us. Ours opened today for our cruise in October and we found them open at 2:30pm.

First, you must read your specific policy language. There is not one size fits all insurance. If you have cancellation / interruption insurance, then you should have coverage if there is a delay or cancelation that fits the covered reasons in your policy. All will depend on the reason for the cancel or delay of the air. In policies that I buy, this would constitute Trip Interruption insurance as that typically starts on the day of departure. Before that is cancellation. Look at the language of your policy - it will clearly state in the Trip Interruption policy section what is covered. Only your policy language can answer this question for you.

Sorry - no quick and easy answer to that. Depends on: 1) Age 2) Type of condition 3) Stability of condition which includes new meds, change in meds, stoping meds, tests recommended, test results outstanding, and other things. 4) Whether you have to go through underwriting and do a medical questionnaire. Most pre-existing (most) have requirements that the condition be stable for 3 months prior to departure for cancellation, and 6 months prior to departure if you are going to potentially rely on the medical portion while travelling. Manulife has a plan called the "Premium Protection Plan" that basically covers everything and anything, but you MUST purchase within 72 hours of booking and paying any deposit. Even if you only paid $50 bucks in deposit but that was more than 72 hours ago, then you cannot buy this policy. Manulife have other packages that cover pre-existing but you will have to call them and go through the process to find out what it will cost. The pre-existing condition policies are not cheap, but in the grand scheme of things, if there is possibility of something happening, you don't want to be caught without proper coverage OR find out that it is not covered. Also, note that not every policy will pay every hospital/doctor/clinic directly. You may have to pay out of pocket and be reimbursed.

You have to read your policy. Some - perhaps all - Manulife policies do cover this under "Misconnection" insurance, but the policy must have been purchased before the strike was announced. Some may suggest that it must have been purchased before there was even talk of a strike. (That is a date that would be difficult for anyone to tie down.) 28. ‡ You miss a connection or must interrupt your trip because of the delay of your connecting common carrier, when the delay is caused by the mechanical failure of your connecting common carrier, a traffc accident, an emergency police-directed road closure, weather conditions, an unannounced strike, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. The common carrier must have been scheduled to arrive at your point of boarding in time to comply with the travel supplier’s check-in procedure. My suggestion is to call your insurance company immediately and ask if this is covered. They are not going to let you cancel in advance on speculation that a strike will happen, so you have two options: 1) Cancel your flights now, take the hit and rebook with another airline, OR 2) Wait until the strike happens (hope not) but have your options researched in advance.

Viking typically does not run last minute promos. If you wait, you risk losing lower priced cabins as they typically book out first. We have always booked Viking 12 + months out so I have no knowledge of deals last minute or closer to sailing, but my knowledge and experience is that this is not the norm for Viking and I would not expect it.