PGI GUY

I posted my questions based on an itinerary that I am interested in offered by Windstar , we are regular Viking customers.. I am interested in the opinion of others who may have experience with both cruise lines. I did not think it would be this difficult. .

Thank you to those who so far who have provided answers to some of my questions. To some of the others I know about the sails and size differences between Viking and Windstar,

Anyone have a recent experience to compare Windstar to Viking Ocean.I am interest in your overall experience from booking to food to tours and flight arrangements.

It is a rather long list of excursions, and I am not handy enough to try to copy and paste using a cell phone..sorry. I will try and comment on the tours we take.

The resident astronomer was on deck 9 last night doing the Star watch and it was well attended. It was also the first night of the cruise that was not clouded over.

Have not visited that bar but some of the bartenders have a tendency to short pour. I have in most cases ordered a double depending who the bartender is. Hope this is another cut back. FYI on the Juipter main evening dining are enforcing the no shorts or blue jeans If you have black or special designer jeans maybe, if you show up like you just cut the grass you will probably have a problem. I support the policy.

Sorry I forgot, port talks and lectures are available on your TV.

I would agree with the previous post, however I will attend several more talks before I make a final judgment on their ability and content. I will let you know how our sea conditions are,however sea conditions are based on wind speed and no knows what that will be like. FYI we have a little over 850 passengers on board.

This VO voyage number 10 for us and I will try to answer any questions. The weather has been rain and wind since we left Montevideo, we never got off in Rio due to heavy rain. Those who want on tours had a very wet day. We had dinner the first night at Manfredies and it was the menu w/o osso bucolic, no lasagna or any veal items.I had the bisticca rib eye it was good but very thin. The crew is very friendly and helpful. I will post more later.

The special diet menu delivered to the cabin lists what menu items contain gluten or dairy and other possible food problems. I contacted a restaurant supervisor right after boarding and there is a section on your profile to list diet restrictions.

As I posted earlier the menu #5 will take several months to implement fleet wide. On this and previous cruises the next days dinner menu is dropped off at your cabin. The gluten free items are listed and you can request some items to be prepared gluten free.

Bistecca Fiorentina is the thick cut the other is a very thin cut marinated rib eye. I am not sure I am smart enough to photo the menu and attach to cruise critic. We will probably not be returning to Manfredi's, I can not eat gluten so my menu choices are very limited.

We had dinner last night in Manfredi's at the invitation of the executive chef where they prepared osso bucolic for me and chicken parm for my wife and is was very different from the first dish that was served on the first night. It was very good as was the osso bucolic. Osso buco has yet to appear in the restaurant. If anyone has any questions I will try to answer them.

The comment that they changed from European beef to inferior American beef does sound a little strange. I have never heard that Europe had superior beef to anybody.

I would like to reply to some of the questions and comments from my first post. Last night I had a conversation with the executive chef Joseph on the Viking Star concerning some of the issues I described on Cruise Critic. I did not inform him that I had posted on Cruise Critic about my issues. He was very candid and open on the issues I described to him and did give me some very frank and honest answers. I am not going to tell the readers everything he relayed to me because I do not think it was intended to go beyond our private conversation. Here is what he had to say concerning my issues. The thin ribeye served to me on the first night. The answer was we do not always agree on decisions made by the office in Switzerland. The mushroom powder rubbed rib eye is a thicker cut. The chicken parm served to my wife. Answer, I know what happened here. Many items not on the present menu, ie ossobuco, no veal dishes and no lasagna. Answer. Due to customer comments there is a new Manfred's menu being introduced ahead of time and will include many of the items that were removed from the present menu. The new menu is referred to as Manfredi's number 5 and will take several months to implement fleet wide. He then invited us to dine at Manfredi's tonight where he will prepare the correct chicken parmesan for my wife and ossobuco for me. So it appears that they do have veal shanks on board. In regard to the pool grill burgers, the char grilled burgers have been replaced with smash burgers which are prepared on a flat top grill and need to be defrosted prior to frying. In my case in order to sped up the process due to a large crowd waiting the cooks loaded up the flat top with frozen beef patties which lowered the temperature and the beef did not fry or brown like they were supposed to resulting in a grey thin beef disc. I appreciate that the executive chef took the time to address my concerns. The cruise director is Cornelia David for this cruise, she just came on board in Los Angles. The ship has been very cool in the public areas and I wish I had brought more long sleeve shirts. I still stand by original post when thing are not right it needs to be explained and or corrected. No everyone has the same experience.

In reply to the above post this our 9th Viking Cruise and I think by now I know what to expect. Kate is not on this cruise so I can't comment on her merits. In my original I mean to say ossobuco. We have 40 knot plus wind and 30 ft plus waves. Fat fingers on a cell phone Kay board do not always get the desired results. They still have a 4 Oz tuna steak at the pool grill to answer a previous question posted.

Me too. This is not what we have come to expect from Viking. We are disappointed to say the least.

Toasted bun....sheesh!!!

Sorry for some of the sloppy wording,the grill should a flat to grill. I also tried to say the hot dog was not much better. I also meant to say an untrusted bun. Sorry

We are on the Star enroute to Hawaii.We have had some issues, this our 9th VO cruiseand things are not going well.Im writing this on my phone in hvy seas, so please excuse my errors. We had dinner in Manfredies and experienced the "new" menu and not in a good way. There is no veal itms of any kind, no lasagna, no osso bucolic, how can they call it an upscale italian restaurant with out any veal items. I ordered the mushroom powder rubbed rib eye. What I was served was a very thin ribeye that was ordered med rare, it was a grey sad looking piece of meat. My wife ordered chicken parm, it came out looking like it came from the supermarket freezer section. I requested to speak with the wine steward,he appeared with two bottles of house wine, Isaid we had the beverage package and would like a recommendation for a wine. We'll he walked away and returned with the wine list and walked away not saying one word. The next day I went to guest services and spoke to a supervisor who said the head chef would contact me very soon, that was 3 days ago, nothing yet from him. The head of the beverage dept did contact me and wine problem has been resolved. Last night I did speak with a manage at Manfredies who said that the current menu has not been well received and anew menu will be introduced in 1 or 2 months. Remember the thick burgers at the pool grill? They have been replaced with a very thin frozen Patty and are not chargrilled. They are cooked on a flat opener grill and they load up the grill with frozen meat and as it defrost on the grill and starts to cook in excess water the boil on the grill resulting in a grey thin disc which was then served on a cold untrusted bun. The menu has been downsized and the hot isn't much better. Yesterday the sewer backed up in our shower and we had to change cabins. We usually book another Viking Cruise while on board, I think we will not be doing that on this trip and await to see how things play out.

We never had a meal in the main dining room and I have no idea what sweetcorn cake is. Our weather was wind and rain for most of the trip.

I would like to pass along some comments and impressions from this voyage. This was our first Celebrity cruise in a very long time but believed that Celebrity was a bit above the other midlevel cruise lines. We have taken at least 40 cruises on most of the major companies with most being on Princess and Holland America. In the past 3 years we have traveled with Viking Ocean on 9 different cruises and are now our go to cruise company. This trip started off with weather problems in that the ship was going to be delayed getting into Southampton and we would be delayed sailing. The delay time kept changing and we were advised if we wanted to secure a hotel room we would be refunded the cost of the room. The bad news was that not everybody got the word about the delay and the hotel situation. Upon out arrival we were met and transported to the dock at Southampton and dropped off at an empty locked cruise terminal. The bus driver said well here is where I was told to drop you off. He did manage to find someone to unlock the door to the empty terminal building, however bathrooms were not available. No cabs for those of us who had hotel reservations, or any other forms of transportation. One passenger tried to call the Celebrity emergency travel line, but the call went unanswered. We managed to flag down a taxi and went to our hotel. We found out later that a Celebrity representative showed up and got the bathrooms unlocked and dropped off some snacks and water. The people that stayed at the terminal waited from 10am until I heard about 9 or 10pm before they could board the ship. I am sure other have more specific information about the wait at the terminal. I thought that the whole situation was poorly handled. We booked in Aqua class so we could have breakfast and dinner in Blu. The food in Blu was ok, I can say that we never had a meal anywhere on the ship that was outstanding and most were average at best. The thing that really made me unhappy was all the extra up charge menu items. Why do they charge a 20% gratuity on a food item in a restaurant when you are already paying an automatic daily gratuity. We had the basic drink package and were improperly overcharged for drinks every day. The up charge for the optional restaurants was way out of line, a $110 per couple for the Italian restaurant was ridiculous. The staff on the ship was in most cases very good and helpful. We missed the Azores and were late getting into Bermuda and our tour there was cancelled. Celebrity cannot control the weather, however the entire cruise experience was a major disappointment. In our opinion others do it better. .

Thank you for the update.

Thank you.

We received an email yesterday that your arrival back in England will be delayed due to bad weather, can you comment on that situation?