CDNPolar

These people are me and my husband. We are excited and cannot wait for the day to begin. We were in bed asleep by 10pm and up and waiting for the buffet to open an hour before it opened. We have already had coffee and we are talking and planning and discussing what is in store for the day. Sorry that you are looking for a quieter room..... but you had fun the night before and that is all good!

We just came off this cruise a month ago, on the same ship. See my responses in RED BELOW: We're taking our first cruise in Feb/March - Treasures of the Rhine on the Viking Alruna. I've been reading lots of posts here and have read practically everything on Viking's site, but I still have questions. Any answers/insights would be great! 1. I'm confused about how gratuities work: The Viking website says there are two options, but they sound the same to me - I am clearly missing something. Is it typical to tip in addition to the standard that the cruise "charges"? (I know it's in our discretion, but I'm trying to get a sense of what the crew might be expecting.) Since the cruise is in Europe, I assume the crew would prefer Euros? Viking calculate a daily gratuity per person amount that is payable in advance before you cruise or it is added to your account and payable on the ship. There is really no difference between pre-paying or paying on ship, EXCEPT, if you pre-pay you are paying in the currency you booked the cruise in, and if you are paying on the ship you will pay in Euros in your case. Gratuities are a commonly discussed topic on CC and whether to give more is really up to you. The Crew is not expecting more from you. You may choose to reward one or two crew members with a gratuity on the side for exceptional service, but again, Viking Crew are NOT expecting this. Typically you can tip Viking Crew additional in either USD or Euros, just never in coin form as if a crew member is not from a Euro country, coins cannot be exchanged to another currency. Gratuities are encouraged for your tour guides and drivers, and we take enough USD $1's to cover this. We typically give $2 to the driver and $4 to the guide. 2. Do you typically have the same folks helping you the whole cruise, or is it more like a hotel where housekeeping might be done by one person one day, and a different person another day? Typically the same person every day. We have always had the same Cabin Steward, but we were surprised on this cruise that one day we had someone new. Viking Crew on this cruise had one full day off every two weeks and that was the day we had someone different. River Cruise Crew counts are low.... 40's to 50's in crew numbers. You will see the same crew every day in the lounge, the restaurant, and Guest Services. 3. How small are the bathrooms/available "storage" space in the bathrooms? I'm having a hard time telling from the photos. On the Alruna there are two open shelves above the sink and two open shelves below the sink. The area beside the sink is limited. The bathrooms do lack storage space. You kind of have to keep the most used stuff out and perhaps a ziplock bag on the lower shelf with the less used stuff. That is what we do. 4. I've seen some comments about packing magnets, decorations, tape... all kinds of weird stuff. It seems to have to do with the walls being magnetic (??) or something to do with the doors on the cabins? Honestly, i have no idea if this is something I'm supposed to be thinking about. The walls are all metal, and if you take magnets you can "pin" up your daily activities, or map, or calendar. We don't bother with that. I have also seen people who have found incredibly strong magnets that will allow them to hand the ship supplied robes and their coats. Viking Guests don't decorate the doors. In 10 Viking cruises, I have never seen this. This is more of a mass market cruise line thing. Don't worry about this on a Viking ship except and unless you want to somehow decorate your cabin to your taste. 5. What's the one piece of info or advice you'd give someone who's never done a river cruise (or any cruise!) before? I like to know what to expect, so even if it's info I can't really act on, it would be helpful. We love river cruising. 160'ish people on board. Very intimate. You get to know many many people on a river cruise. There is only one dining venue (save for the Aquivit Terrace) and one lounge. There is only one open sitting for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You don't reserve tables, and tables on the Alruna are 6 or more. There are not tables for two. Breakfast is open for 2'ish hours and has a small buffet and omelette station or you can order off the menu. Lunch is open for 2'ish hours and people come and go at different times in the open window because of different times that excursions leave and come back. Dinner is essentially eveyone sitting down at the same time. You go to the lounge for the Port Talk and whoever else is talking which is right before dinner and then everyone "runs" to get their table. You will find some groups sit together every night, and some folks will switch it up each night and sit with others. Sometimes it is who you talked with on excursion that day or who you sat with in the lounge before dinner. Read the Viking Daily every night and know what tomorrow offers and the timing of everything. Take a picture of the Viking Daily front page to know the location of the ship and the ship contact information in case you have to get back to the ship on your own. If you are exploring on your own know the back on board time as the ship will not wait for you. This was an enjoyable cruise for us and we would love to hear your review after. Thank you!!

I have not had this particular situation, but with Viking, it would seem that sometimes fixing things does require the cancel and rebook. Now that is where you need to ensure a couple of things... sometimes this is "language" with Viking. You may not want to "Cancel" because there are fees, but you would "Modify" your booking, from one side or the other to the same ship. You just want to ensure before you do it that Viking will confirm: * No cancelation fee charged * Same price for same cabin category on the other ship. (It is possible however that this is not available depending on what is available on the ship you are moving to) * Ensure that your bookings are linked as this was probably not done before or you would be on the same ship. (When we book with others, we always provide our booking number and have them give that to Viking so they ensure we are on the same ship. On many River cruises, there are too many boats going back and forth and some departing the same dates it is easy to get the wrong ship.) This may be what you have to do....

Here is an opinion.... I am not one that enjoys sending something back, because if you are at a larger table, and not just with your spouse, it can be seen as rude, or arrogant, or something the like... I know people that would rather leave the restaurant and go to bed without dinner than send something back because it was not acceptable or what they expected. BUT, if you don't send back a medium steak that was ordered medium rare, then the Chef(s) will not realize that they cooked something incorrectly. I agree with you Clay that thin steaks are very hard to cook to a rare or medium rare temperature, but then they should not be cutting them that thin, and there should not be inconsistencies with the thickness of the steak. This is both a quality of the prep and a quality of the cooking issue. If this is not highlighted, then this grill chef is never going to know that they did not meet the guests expectations. Also, the prep cooks that are cutting the steaks need to know where they messed up. Or, if the steaks arrive to the ship already cut, then they have a quality issue with the supplier. I personally think that a Grill Chef is a real skill. They have to be able to know the heat of their grill, the cut of the meat, the time on the grill, the resting time, and the time to your table to get the temperature of the meat exactly right. If there is an issue with the thickness of the steak and the thickness is inconsistent with the same cut, then tit is really difficult to get this right. I think that we must raise attention when something like this is amiss, and I do believe that we can do it quietly and politely and in doing so we are helping Viking and the Chef(s) put out a better product. I know I focused on the steak, but this is for everything that comes out of a Viking kitchen. Just an opinion about Chef's Table... My husband and I LOVE tasting menus and we have been known to spend a lot of money locally at home on blind tasting menus that there is no menu and you are at the mercy of the Chef for each course. We Love this. Chef's Table is a unique product, and do I think that it belongs on Viking? Yes and No. For us we love it, but we also note that on ocean cruises we have been on, there have always been many tables available. This translates to me that many Viking guests either do not like the menu, or the focus of the menu is off for them. We hope the Chef's Table lives on as it is, and although I understand that someone does not like seafood, I would not want to see that focus taken away. Tasting menus are just not everyone's cup of tea. In reality, we don't try to get reservations at Manfredi's as we don't love Italian food, and pretty simply, the Manfredi's menu really does not appeal to us. We like a couple of things, but we would eat at the Chef's Table every night even duplicating menus over eating at Manfredi's. To each their own taste. This is just opinion and not to offend anyone or their tastes.

I believe that Viking has a target net return on every cabin/cruise and however they price the offer, they still get what they want/need. I have taught sales and negotiation for most of my career and I teach sales people to create options for their clients but every creative pricing strategy gets us to the same net revenue in the end. It is all about what will appeal to one vs. another. SSP appeals to one and OBC appeals to another.

We only use a Canadian card anywhere in the world, and if the option comes up at the point of purchase to pay in CAD or local currency, we always choose local currency and let our bank make the conversion.

The insurance companies are going to "make you" buy the CFAR insurance at the point of booking, or usually within 10-14 days of booking because, refundable deposit or not, as you get closer to the departure day, full payment date, and penalties that may kick in after full payment, you may have found a reason that you want to use for cancellation and that is the sole reason you are now purchasing the policy. They want your money for that 6 or 9 months or more before you take the CFAR for any reason option. This insurance is such a game and gamble. CFAR when coming from the Cruise Line, is a voucher for future use, and generally not a refund. CFAR from an insurance company is generally a percentage payout of the full fare, if there is a cash back option and not the full fare. None of us want to have a covered reason that is required by most insurance policies to cancel, because that in most cases is not a good reason. We look at it this way because we often book 12-18 months out for most of our cruises, and we are not paying an insurance company that much that far out as we would likely be paying $1,200.00 for the both of us for the value of each cruise. We can have 2 or 3 cruises booked in the future at any time. That could mean that we are out of pocket 3-4K with money sitting with insurance companies. Just as a note, we don't buy medical, and only cancellation and interruption insurance. We have medical through work. Our typical scenario: * Refundable deposit - great * Full payment due 6 months out * First penalty 4 months or 120 days from sailing This means that 121 days before sailing we can cancel and get all back but $100.00 per person with Viking Cruise lines. This may be different with other cruise lines. What we do is we make a final decision at 121 days out that other than an actual covered reason that qualifies under the insurance policy, we are going. If there is doubt at all, then we would cancel and forfeit the $100 per person. Hope this makes sense. This is why we don't purchase CFAR.

This is specifically a question to see if anyone knows whether in Canada, we can claim a cancellation or interruption through both a purchased insurance policy from someone like Manulife, AND then any residual through the Credit Card, which in this case is a TD Infinite Privilege Visa? Why we are asking this is that when we have 2+ trips in a year, it is significantly cheaper to purchase cancellation / interruption insurance on an annual plan. Our challenge is that we are hedging our bets here because most of the annual plans available to us only pay max $5,000.00 CDN per person. Our trips are often significantly higher or even double that per person. We recently just got a new Credit Card that offers $2,500.00 per person and in the process of applying, we asked our banking person, if we can do this and her response was that we MUST submit the cancel/interruption claim to the Credit Card FIRST, and then anything they don't pay to the insurance company after. She said that if we submit to the insurance company first, the credit card will not accept a claim for the residual amount. Anyone know anything about this? Our first experience with cancelling was just a month ago where we had to cancel a complete trip for a covered reason and it was a smooth experience, but the one policy covered the entire amount paid out.

If Viking do or did offer a credit, I have never been aware of this. @Squawkman confirmed that Viking don't offer a rebate/discount in the US if you don't take the free air. I have a cruise on the books now for later this year with Viking that is free air. I am going to ask if that discount is available. Being in Canada, it may be different.

Thank you.

Interesting... demand or dynamic pricing is certainly a possibility. What I said previously about reputable companies NOT doing this was based on some articles that I read just recently on the subject. I was actually researching this "lightly" for my interest. Unfortunately I did not keep the URL's of the articles to share here.

This is entirely possible. There are however a lot of theories about dynamic pricing including returning repeatedly to the same website (Viking for instance) and looking at a particular cruise. The theory being that Viking monitor how often you return and look and the price may increase slightly with each return, so that you will be more encouraged to buy before it goes up again... I have played games with this theory and visited Viking (and other sites like airlines) using my uncloaked browser, then used a private browsing window, and even a VPN, and I have never found differences in what price is offered. There is also a lot of discussion and opinion that the most reputable of companies do NOT do this. You would have to have a Viking insider confirm or deny this. However, the price on the website today is the price, unless it is advertised on a promo email at a particular price... I believe however that Viking don't advertise the cabin price, but rather offer OBC, Air Discount, Free Air, SSBP, or something like this. This allows the cabin price to be fluid regardless of the promo.

No, really? Come on... Now that I have completed my 100th cruise and 5 world cruises, I find that hard to believe!

...and I don't think that this has been mentioned yet, but if you do decide to talk about your past cruises and travels, it can quickly become a situation where you must "one up" their last travel story, because they just "one up'd" your last travel story. This is almost like sharing your air travel nightmares.

Don't think that it was mentioned here, but just to be sure that everyone knows, hand sanitizer does not kill the Norovirus. You must wash your hands, and for that recommended 20 seconds or more. The CDC website will confirm this for those that are trusting hand sanitizer as protection from Norovirus. And, if you look at what is the cause of spread of Norovirus, this will only tell you that people on cruise ships do NOT properly wash their hands after using the toilets. We were recently on a river cruise. On embarkation a few people were coughing on the first few days. By the end of the 10 day cruise more than 1/3 of the ship was sick including myself. I immediately started masking as soon as I felt symptoms, but many did not and I don't believe in the larger population that we learned any lessons from Covid. The number of people that were in the dining room in the morning coughing into their hands, and then up at the buffet and using the tongs... YUCK! People were walking through the dining room and lounge openly coughing without even attempting to cover their mouths. Disgusting. We can be so disrespectful of our fellow humans and again, Covid apparently left now lessons. We are sitting ducks for the next pandemic.

I think that this is a very controversial topic and will vary with each cruise line and each travel insurer. This is one reason why you must ask a LOT of questions when purchasing insurance. This is perhaps an extreme situation, but if you were taking an Antarctica Cruise, and your flight was late and the ship departed, there is no way to get you to the next port because there is not "next port". You are out of luck and missed the cruise in its entirety. My brother recently missed the sailing of his Panama Canal cruise where the start of the cruise was a partial crossing of the canal. The ship left without 46 people delayed on the same flight. This was the main reason for booking this cruise was to experience the Panama lock system. They got on the ship 24 hours later when the ship emerged from the canal, but they are still waiting for anyone - the airline or the cruise ship - to give any kind of compensation and they are not sure they will get anything. They may be entitled to airline delay payout because the delay was mechanical, but that won't replace missing the transit of the locks. With any insurance, medical, or cancel / interruption, you must read the policy in its entirety and then phone the provider and ask questions. You must ask very specific questions and include flight delay because of mechanical, vs. weather, etc. We know that our favourite cruise line, if we booked the air through them would do their best to assist, but I don't believe in the passenger contract that they have any obligation to do so. To this point, I have not had to test interruption insurance for this reason.

We have often looked at the Viking Air price on the booking page, and knowing that typically the upgrade to PE is now $1,200.00 for a flight to Europe from Canada, we will price the air on our own. In most cases - most - Viking's air price is very comparable to the airlines that we would choose to fly PE on, and in some cases, Viking is slightly cheaper. I think it really depends on whether you WANT to fly PE over economy, and then the cost is somewhat irrelevant in my way of thinking.

It will all be about open hours of the World Cafe or the Living Room Bar, and how early you want to get something, but yes, there are always - as carolinetodd said - the paper take out cups for coffee. If you are carrying any food in a bag, I would not expect anyone to stop you with fruit or any food, as on 10 Viking cruises, I have never experienced or heard of any restrictions, but not that they could not exist somewhere. The other thing to consider, is you can order room service breakfast and write on the menu that you want your coffee in paper cups with lids, etc. Room service is open 24 hours. I have coffee / tea delivered every morning for 5am as the coffee maker in the room is too noisy for that hour and will wake my husband, and when walking to the World Cafe at that hour often the coffee machines are in cleaning mode at that hour. Just to note, I also specify on the room service menu to knock once only and leave the tray outside the door.

To my knowledge and experience with Viking, there is no credit given if you make flight arrangements on your own. Air is a totally voluntary add on. Now, someone might know this: If Viking are offering free air, is there any credit if you don't go with that offer? There is obviously still a cost to Viking for that air. When there is free air offered, we always go with it and have never asked otherwise.

If it was food poisoning, I do hope that there was some kind of apology or compensation from Viking? That is a scary thought that food poisoning is coming out of the kitchen, because the kitchens for all three main restaurants are connected. For the Chef's Table, they generally change the menu every three days and it is on the menu boards in advance of the meal. We are two that love tasting menus and will eat anything because we don't have restrictions or allergies, but if you do have restrictions or allergies, the Chef's Table is probably not for you. For instance, if you are vegetarian or vegan, the entire menu from starter to the main could be fish or meat. Changing up a tasting menu to appease allergies may even not be possible without giving you completely different food than the rest are getting. Then the theme is gone. We have a friend we travel with that is allergic to oysters, and often the Chef's Table has Asian inspired dishes that are commonly cooked with Oyster Sauce. The Chef's Table will whip up the same dish, but the sauce will use only Soy Sauce or some substitute.

To take you completely literally, there would be more than a "few". For certain. Haha..... With the Fail videos that you can catch online, there are more than a few that involve cruise ships, and the idiocy of some things people do is outlandish.

The ships that I have been on, there was no mechanism that was apparent to either manually or automatically lock the balcony doors. Assuming that you are suggesting that would override you being able to open it yourself.... I would hope in seas that are rough enough to beg danger being on the balcony, that folks would just stay inside.

I guess the best advice is to not be concerned with how far the all aboard time is from actual departure and just be back on board when the cruise line suggests. Don't test the limit - not that you were suggesting that... Just say'n.

Thanks Fran - I am going to look into this. Why do you mention that we may not qualify? My husband works for a division that separated from Ontario Hydro, so wonder if that qualifies us? The 8K is better than Blue Cross Annual which is only 5K. Cruises that we do are rarely 5K or under per person....

We ONLY use the airline site to monitor our air travel. If we have not flown the particular airline before, we download their App, and if it is a common airline that we fly we have their App. We add alerts to every flight, track status, look at the inbound aircraft that is going to be our outbound aircraft etc. This is the best way to go. I also utilize the TripIt App - Paid Version - and often it alerts us to changes at the airport especially with gate assignments before the changes appear on the monitors at the airport. If you have a long'ish layover often you can be at LHR and not know where your next flight is going to depart from... TripIt in my experience shows the terminal and gate first. I rely totally on the Airline App notifications then you don't have to check all the time.