OnTheJourney

...which you referred to recently. Interesting. We thought the food and service was up to usual Viking standards on the Mississippi. Have not been with them since that.

Worth exploring anyway.

I ran it by my advisor. He's going to send the prospectus and look into getting shares as they become available. Can't see how it'd be a bad investment. Definitely on the aggressive growth side of the spectrum. Probably a good idea to give it some time and see where the price range winds up, as you already referred to. It would be good to see some appreciation from the share price. Doubt it'll be a dividend paying stock, at least not initially.

Worth grabbing some shares? If even available. Might only be for the larger institutional investors. Certain mutual funds already have holdings in Viking, I think anyway. I'll have to discuss with my advisor.

I'd think so too, especially with constantly building new ships. Given that they already offer pre and post extensions, which has them engaging at least partially in the land tour side of the travel industry, is there really a need to delve further into all that? There are enough land tour companies around that they likely wouldn't compete with anyway. But that's a purely uneducated observation on the matter. Perhaps concentrate on doing what they do best, with a goal of constantly try to improve on it. Spreading too thin could maybe start to dilute the quality of current offerings.

That's what I sort of assumed. Yep...great idea! My list, I know now, will only be partially realized at best. Waited too long for certain farther away destinations. DW and I are retired as well, and have been enjoying traveling until some health issues intervened for her last year. Not sure yet how it's all going to play out, but I don't anticipate much, if any, foreign travel anymore. I would, but doubt she'll want to at this point.

Sandebeach: I'm curious about your upcoming cruise list. If you're sailing every month, how long would you say you're actually at home relative to days at sea !?! Unless some of them are shorter 1-2 week cruises, I don't see that you're home all that much. Incredibly busy travel schedule! I couldn't do it.

CK info aside, I simply can't imagine being on a ship of that size, although several people have told me that since the ship is so big, it actually doesn't feel as crowded as I might anticipate. There is a certain logic to the size of the ship and number of pax as being relative in terms of it feeling more or less congested; however, I do know that having been on Viking with only 930 guests, I've been spoiled. It just feels so quiet all around the ship. The music is always very low-key, even in the dining areas, and lots of neat places to just sit and read. Largest ship I've ever been on is the RCL Adventure, so I guess at some point should at least try something bigger - if it comes into Baltimore or Bayonne. No interest in flying anywhere to do it.

I haven't either since we've never been on a class of ships that has it, but my sister-in-law has always said it's their favorite restaurant on any cruise. She said the food is consistently very good.

I don't think it was anything you did or didn't do. Based on this it seems 11:30 is pretty much the earliest embarkation time - probably for RCL also. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2819754-is-1130-the-earliest-check-in-time/

Yeah we probably won't do the GL until '26 also. There is an early October date I like that is offered. 3042 looks to be a good choice.

Totally different reaction here. Despite our cruise being the northbound that resulted in only being able to stop at a few ports (the rest of the cruise all sea days), we found everything to be typical Viking high quality, including the food and service. The dining room was fine, but we decided for several reasons to spend the latter part of the cruise in the cafe and found it most enjoyable. Sorry that you had a less than good experience overall. That simply didn't happen on our cruise. Service was prompt and friendly, as I would have expected. Which was our last excursion of the entire northbound journey. About half the pax got off for a 4-night shore stay - two nights in Memphis and two in St. Louis, and then rejoined the ship in Alton after that, although once we were told that from that point we'd have to sail straight through to St. Paul with no stops, some people bagged out and flew home. We had opted to stay on the ship the entire voyage. I paid to see the river, and despite not having our planned excursions, we greatly enjoyed the very relaxing sea days - about 9 of them if I recall correctly. Never got to read so much on a cruise before!

No they don't. As was mentioned, our experience was also one of often being tied up to a tree along a shoreline. Crew worked hard to tie and untie those long ropes.

3020 is pretty far forward, so greater experience of motion during pitching. I don't consider that cabin to be midship. 3040 would be better. 3042 or 3043 better yet, but if you're really concerned about it and are sensitive to motion sickness, I'd advise deck 2 for lower center of gravity. 2036 and 2037 might likely experience the least amount of motion out of any room on the ship. Or, exact midships on deck 4 with a jr. suite would probably work well also. That's the category I'm hoping to get for a Great Lakes cruise. I assume you're doing Antarctica? With any luck you'll get the "lake" instead of the "rake". Take along wrist ("sea") bands along with some ginger pills and you'll be fine. I'm a believer in the wrist bands and would never be without them on a ship.

You can keep it. We weren't impressed. Give me the (former) Barefoot Beach Club buffet anytime over the stuff they put out on CC. 😉

Oh my. With all due respect, I'll stick to sailing with Viking, RCL, and X. Not into any sort of formal dressing for cruises anymore.

Yes. IF there's something there to see, I can see it, but of late I've been corresponding with someone who turns out to have a signature that I otherwise would have never known about. There's simply nothing there on my end. Weird.

Yes...have that turned on. I can see some, but apparently not all.

Not mine. Tried it again this morning.

In conversing with someone who is a member it became apparent that I can’t see her signature which lists pasts and future cruises. Why is that? I get the same result whether using my iPhone or MacBook.

Another reply on Trip Advisor: "A cruise ship will be fairly constrained by its port schedule, and it can't, on a whim, just sail from the Westfjords to, say, the Reykjanes peninsula on short notice. Where we were -- in Hamilton, Ontario, people hopped in their cars and drove to where the radar predicted the clearest skies."

Interesting. The recent one was 115 wide. 186 is a large area for sure. Well, with any luck. A longer-range trip to look forward to and get excited about anyway. Always seems, when first booking a few years out, that it's so far away, and then as it approaches I always find I'm not quite ready for it.

Latest response to my inquiry on Trip Advisor - this first one from a destination expert in Iceland: "I cannot imagine trying to see anything from Isafjordur. When we were there last summer, our kayaking guide said flights in/out of there are cancelled all the time due to weather. So for this summer, I made sure to have several days buffer for the trip for this reason alone, to give you an idea. I agree with the others that a cruise for Iceland is the worst way to see the country." And the other one.... "When the onland tour companies take people out to chase the Northern Lights, they are in contact with each other and can fairly get to a new location. For the eclipse, I am sure that they will have the latest sky conditions when they leave Reykjavik and know if there are clear areas. I simply do not believe that a huge cruise ship can move faster than a vehicle." So, my final word on it (from where I sit anyway), if I wanted to do this just for the cruise - which is surely attractive - I'd go (and might if it wasn't in summer), but I've ruled it out as an eclipse chase. The idea was exciting for awhile at least. That said, there's always a chance. Mother Nature ultimately rules.

That's the way to do it - really drive to wherever the weather sounds the best. I didn't have the time nor the inclination to invest that much in it, and actually hadn't thought much about the eclipse until just a few weeks ago. Too many other things happened between Christmastime and over the winter that needed full attention. Then, however, when my daughter started talking about her driving from CA to AR to see it, that got me thinking that I should make at least some sort of marginal attempt. We did, I and feel it was a worthy one with it being only 300 miles to a location either right outside or else right inside the path. We got what we got. I'll always remember it. The best way was to remain flexible with the travel plans. I saw people interviewed on the news who live in FL and decided, almost on the spur of the moment, to drive to ME since it started to look like (and turned out to be) some of the best weather in the east.

Maybe they will yet. Call 'em up. That was actually my original intention in starting the thread, thinking more along the lines of something in the Med for viewing in Spain.