CDNPolar

...but no offence... I am a very proud Canadian...

We will tip them too!

Yes. It is possible.

I personally have never heard of this and I know a lot of families that cruise as three and four and have always had to pay for all passengers. They have never had a "free" person. It does not surprise me that the price for a third when they say it is free is jacked up for the two people that you are paying for. The cabin does not cost - in principal - more for three people to live and sleep in other than a bit more water. The food and ship facilities however are impacted and this is where they will experience greater cost and to me this is why the price for two with a third free would be jacked up. Just my thoughts, but ready and waiting for someone to share where this is available so I can spread the word to my friends that cruise with kids.

True this, but we use Google Flights as the starting point to every air search that we do. We also note that some airlines may not fly the route that we are looking for on a particular day of the week, so if you are not happy with the airlines that Google Flights is returning, and you have flexibility with your dates, you can move the dates a day or two and see different airlines. This is also a great way to see the price jump from one airline to another as you go down the list and also the total travel time that you have to deal with. All in all, we see Google Flights like visiting a buffet for the airlines and fares. Your search results let you look at all the options and they are NOT a travel site trying to get you to book. We find our routes and then go to the airline site to book directly. Google does give you options when you select flights on booking, but we have found that when we have started the booking process with options other than direct with the airline there can be new challenges like you cannot select your seats, etc.

I think - and please don't take this the wrong way, because it is not that I don't agree with you - but we in Canada and the USA and some European countries are very lucky with the acceptance and openness that we experience. This is not the case in many global locations. I work with Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, South Africa and the UK. I am in leaning and development with all these countries, and it is shocking how different each of these countries deals with gender queer individuals, trans, and even just a gay man or woman. I had what I thought from previous interactions to be a very worldly Philippines Manager say to me the other day.... "Can you believe that we now have THEY/THEM pronouns here now too". I was kind of shocked. I have written our favourite cruise line a couple of times to no response by the way (when they normally respond to everything) about the use of "Ladies and Gentlemen" 150 times in an address to the guests during the port talks or lectures in the theatre, and they don't seem to get it. I agree that things can be done differently but change is not immediate and certainly not adopted by all cultures at the same rate. I never walk into a training room and say "Ladies and Gentlemen" I say "Hello Everyone - Pleasure to have you all here today". I build all training materials to say "He, She, or They" where I used to only acknowledge He and She... but I am the exception to the rule. I talk with other Learning and Development professionals in large corporations and these considerations are not even on the agenda yet, and this is in Canada and the USA. I am a sis gender gay man. I am not gender queer. As a sis gender gay man, I still don't expect everyone in the world to accept and treat me with the respect that I want and expect that I get for the most part living in Canada and Toronto. I just personally think that we cannot have expectations that high.

Our friends that had the doctor come to the ship paid $100 USD for that. I paid $200 USD in the hotel, but the extra was for the IV and time to sit while the IV was administered. We have good health insurance - great health insurance - but, we are required to call them before anything is done, unless we are incapacitated, and we chose not to. Why? Because they would have sent us to a clinic or a hospital where we would have sat and waited and probably experienced few if anyone that spoke English. We knew the cost and decided to pay it rather than use the medical coverage that we had.

Perhaps it is just that other than one cruise as a couple we have only cruised on Viking, and we know the drill on Viking we are hesitant to book with anyone else. We do take the SS package for convenience and as a preference on how we pay for our alcohol. We also however enjoy that we can have soft drinks, juices, and specialty coffees at any time. We also love to have 4 o'clock Tea (Ocean) at no extra charge. I order tea to my cabin every morning (Ocean) for 5am. No additional charge. We are curious to try other lines, but we get as far as booking the cabin and they seem to want payment and there is not really any definitive listing of what is included and what is going to cost more. We know when we are paying for the cabin with Viking that we add SS and then we are done. We don't want to get on a ship and then find out that we have to pay for this and that and the other thing.

On one cruise we got to know the bartender and one server in the Explorer Lounge very well, and surprisingly after the show in the evening the Lounge was practically empty... the streets can roll up early on some cruises. So, because the lounge was so empty we had a lot of fun with this pair. We have found that many of the Wine Stewards and Bartenders are studying wine and spirits and have quite extensive knowledge. Our bartender was very pleased to be able to share a lot of her knowledge with us and she had a lot of fun doing these tastings with us. We were not advertising around the lounge that this was what was happening, because I am sure that they don't want to do this for everyone... and it might actually be playing with the rules a bit on the crew side, because SS or not, they still have to charge the liquor dispensed to a cabin... But, one of the advantages that we have found is when we find and really like a bartender and/or server, we tip them in the beginning of the cruise and then we see a different level of service from them. Not that they ignore others or that anyone else expects substandard service at all.

It was our experience that if you are paying by CC then the server hands the machine to you and there is no option to add a tip as we have in North America. They simply process the total of the bill - which as stated can have a service charge included. This may or may not be Spain, but we have certainly experienced this in Europe many times and also in South America... You may see a "place setting" charge on your bill and sometimes the bread comes after a question - "Do you want bread" or it just comes, and you will see a charge for bread. It is nominal, but a charge none the less. It is wise to check your bill carefully and question charges that you don't immediately know are taxes or food.

If someone is willing to try, please let us know how it goes. I would try it if I was not concerned about losing the cabin or the dates that I had already. I would first research available dates and cabins available on other sailings to ensure that after cancelling I could book something that I wanted for the new price. There would definitely be a time frame for your deposit paid to be returned back to your CC and so you would have to pay an additional deposit. Additionally, cabin inventory may not be returned to the ship as available immediately after cancelling. It may sit in limbo for a while making it not necessarily immediately available to book again. Also, if that cabin does return to inventory immediately, someone else could be snagging it away from you.

Don't worry - there are LOTS of choices other than seafood. Don't think that the menu is seafood centric - it is not.

No need for a TA for that. We have done that before a couple of times. It is easy to move a deposit from one itinerary to another. This was about getting a price deal. Not the same thing.

This was an escalation to Supervisor to make this happen and as much as we begged (unfortunate overplay of the situation) for the same dates, we were told it was not possible. We could not have the free air automatically because the promo stated that it was for bookings between a set of dates and our original booking was not in that set of dates. It also apparently would need to be for a new booking - which we were willing to cancel and rebook - but again without any solid reason why, we could not have the same cabin on the same booking even after a complete cancel and new booking. Just another example however of how there is often a different story, information, or explanation for something Viking does or does not do depending on who you talk to. We enjoyed our cruise anyway...

We have had to ask to move cabins before because when we booked we were too far forward. Fortunately for us the ship was not full as it was just post covid. We were in rough seas and the motion in the front was too much for us. As soon as we relocated to mid-ship we were fine. As the above statement suggests, I would even ask if the Viking agent has ever sailed on an Ocean ship? I have had discussions with a few that have never been on a cruise ship before - Viking or otherwise.

We have only booked deck 3 and we typically get as mid-ship as possible. We have been above the lifeboats often and never experienced any obstruction of view. Now, let me clarify - view directly out to the horizon no obstruction. If you are right above and want to look down to the side of the ship and the water line, you will have an obstruction. With this in mind you might miss seeing the goings on of the forklifts in ports as they are loading supplies, or passengers returning from their excursions that might be immediately below you.

Mai Tai? How about a Rusty Nail? Recently on Viking River our newly met travel friend ordered a Rusty Nail. She was disgusted with what she received. She tried to tell the server what was wrong, but then gave up. I think that the server was fairly new to Viking and bar service. Later we noticed that the "Rusty Nail" was on the Viking cocktail list as a featured cocktail. The recipe that was under it was exactly how she received it, but not how she expected it. Regional differences? Viking's own concoction? Regardless, we had to go to the bar each day and ask for ONLY scotch and drambuie and we entirely lost the name Rusty Nail from our vocabulary because when we did ask for that, even with coaching, it came not as anticipated.

We have used the Silver Spirits package to do our own "tastings" with various liquors. We did a gin tasting one evening, asking the bartender to just pour a quarter of an ounce to each of our glasses as we sampled various gins. This was on Ocean in the Explorers Lounge where we got to know the crew well, but I suppose it could happen on River as well.

It is great to come here to CC and ask questions, but especially for a situation like this, where there could be serious health issues, reaching out directly to the ship or Hurtigruten is key. I am certain that Hurtigruten can work with serious food allergies, but I am sure that your travelling companions know that if at a buffet there could be a fish dish beside a beef dish and someone in the lineup may have used the spoon or tongs that were with the beef to serve some fish...

Interesting that you could do that. We cancelled because the cruise all of a sudden had free air which in the end saved us over $3,000.00 for both of us, but Viking would not rebook the same dates - we had to change dates and that ended up giving us a departure date about 3 weeks earlier. They absolutely would not give us the same dates.

Very true... but at least you are consistent. As soon as I saw the drink Mai Tai mentioned, I knew you would respond...

This does not happen on flights that I am on - either international or domestic - where you check at the gate? You wait for your bag at the luggage carousel with everyone else???

We are doing our first land based tour where we are 1 night, 3 nights, 2 nights, etc., for a 15 day period. Although there are busses, there are also 4 internal flights before we leave for good to go home. This is Cambodia and Vietnam. We have purchased very specific clothing for this trip that we can wash and dry in the hotel room in a matter of hours that does not wrinkle and drys in about 4-6 hours. This will allow us to do a small carryon and backpack that meets the personal item measurements and this will be all we need and then we don't have to lug bigger pieces around and stand in waiting for our bags.

Gotcha! Thanks for the update

This should be something that you report higher up the ranks. I thought that it was unacceptable to check laptops or lithium batteries... not that some don't get into the hold innocently or on purpose, but to my knowledge a crew member should not be knowingly allowing this to happen? Also with medications, they should not as well...