SantaFe1

We are on this cruise on Feb 14. Hope for a good Valentine’s Day sailing.

Oh, I love this! You have the better story, being from Spain. But yes, we are from California, and this is one of the dishes I’m talking about!

And any time they mark a dish as California something, we run the other way!

We have four upcoming bookings with Viking and I get Viking promo emails all the time.

This happened to us also. They simply would not let us in one night. Period. I really think Viking needs to manage this better. Pick a policy, announce it, and stick to it.

When I did my calculations, I was very careful to compare list price vs. list price. We all have all kinds of other credits, vouchers, etc. that can change. It is just a lot more expensive right now. But, my other two cruises have remained the same. So, go figure, although I booked them more recently, and one is a River cruise.

You are right to put the increase in terms of a percentage. And if I were mathematically inclined I would do so also. (it was all I could do to subtract the old price from the new). And I guess the increase I noted might be a very small percentage if we were in the Owner’s suite. But we are not. Just a regular PV 1.

Wow! Price increase indeed. Our Hawaii cruise in Feb. has gone up $2500 pp and our BIE cruise in May $1500 pp.

Oh, we are such cruisers! I spent some time this morning looking for places to rent in Lisbon next fall. I finally gave up and booked Viking Rivers Douro cruise with a pre-cruise extension in Lisbon for fall 2024. They only had a suite left, so I just grabbed it. $25 down and I won’t look back.

This is an excellent idea! I have been thinking we might just go someplace, take a house, and stay for a week or two. Last year we did the Italian Lakes and had a great time. But, if your flight is canceled, your luggage lost, and your husband’s after shaves explodes in his carry on so he has NO clean clothes, then…well, at least he knows where to go to buy new clothes in Lisbon!

So sorry to hear this. We do BIE in May, and hope to skirt the curse. But I guess if you travel a lot, you have a horror story, although yours seems over the top! We had a similar story going to a Lisbon. Just terrible. And then Lisbon was canceled twice during the pandemic. I don’t think we will ever get to spend quality time there.

Well, the Tower of London is just right up the river…

We get on Neptune as you get off, I believe. We were discussing this yesterday on our Roll Call. I am sure Viking will be all over it. What I’m not sure of is what happens if you arrive in a Country using ETIAS from a ship rather than an airport. On our BIA cruise the only country implicated is Norway.

Another interesting article. The two programs might be uncoupled, and the EES might not start until after the Paris Olympics next summer. Just hoping nothing before our BIE cruise on May 9. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2023/07/19/new-changes-to-europe-travel-border-plans-etias-and-ees/?sh=2d81bad1c8aa

Yes! That’s it . I guess I will have to go back to Iceland— in a heartbeat!!

Here is my photo of said gloves:

What I recall from doing this excursion on our Iceland trip two years ago, was that the fishermen had gloves with six fingers, so that if one glove finger got a hole in it, they could just move over to the extra glove finger.

Don’t look on MVJ, they won’t be up yet. Go to the Viking website and pull up the cruise you are interested in. Then hit the itinerary tab on the left, and scroll down day be day to see a description of what might be offered.

We have also started sitting in the single aisle seats front and back from each other on 1-2-1 configured flights. That way my husband can help me get my carry on in the bin above, and also lets us exit together. We had a problem with that a few months ago, when a medical team came up my aisle and we all had to wait, but his aisle got to deplane. We got separated and it took awhile to hook up. We are also having a bit of trouble with our KLM flight from Bergen to AMS. We connect to a Delta flight in AMS to SLC and Delta shows us on the KLM flight , but KLM says we have no flights. I have seat assignments on KLM, but they are in row one and I want to change them. MVJ says to go to KLM site and do so, but I can’t get into my flight. Perhaps once it is ticketed it will show up.

Agreed. Pre-Covid we used to enjoy the cheeses. And Manfredis had a dessert cheese plate which was a favorite. On our two cruises this year, no dessert cheese plate any longer, and horrible cheese in the WC— what my husband calls rat cheese. Oh, I would love a piece of Vermont cheddar!

Perhaps that’s it. From Santa Fe we cannot fly non stop to any place in Europe, we have to go through a gateway city. So if Viking wants our business they have to fly us to and through Denver, SLC, Dallas, Atlanta, or Chicago. But even so, once to those cities, we can usually get a non-stop to Europe. Athens was the exception, where we had to go Atlanta-AMS-Athens. And Bergen will be an exception next year. We have to fly to AMS and then on to SLC, then home

Nope. Just booked Viking air for our BIE cruise next May. Our TA Called Air+, gave them our preferred flights, they said fine no extra charge. And, we had a $400 pp flight credit too. So we did quite well. We saved about 28% off business class tix over what I could have done myself. I will say, that I have had to pay the extra fee once before, but still ended up saving by going through Viking Air +.

We used Viking Air + and flew Lufthansa and United from Barcelona in March. We had all our seats assigned, no problem, but we were in business class. I was worried about going through Frankfurt, as there were strikes, but it was fine.

Bergen is difficult. Just not that many flights. We will have a 6:05am flight next May, meaning Viking will have us in the Atrium at 3 am! And then we will have 2 stops. Always a 24+ hour day for us when flying abroad.

Well, that’s why Linda called her the infamous Heather Clancy. Many loved her and many hated her. There was no middle ground as you say.