CannotSwim

I just received an e-mail message mentioning the change for my June cruise. I expect everyone will get a message before the date they can select excursions. My cruise is 155 days out (the 1 June transition is 149 days out) and the new furthest advance selection is 147 days prior for the Owner's Suite. I reviewed all of the levels on Viking Homelands -- the stateroom descriptions now list the old and new day counts. The change was to move excursion reservations 40 days earlier for everyone. There were no changes for restaurant and spa reservation dates. I had wondered if they were adding additional levels -- for example letting P1 choose, then PV2, then PV3 -- but that didn't happen.

In our experience the first tenders of the day and the tender for the last scheduled return to the ship tend to be annoyingly packed. We have seen lighter loads in-between, but we see those less often as we tend to spend time ashore.

Some people reacted with a ha-ha, but I can't tell if you are serious or not. Tender ports can be a bit of a pain (and any port can turn into a tender port, or be cancelled, due to bad weather), but we still think cruising to tender ports is the best way to get to those ports. The tender isn't as bad as packing and unpacking for each port, which is the alternative to staying on a cruise ship.

I don't know where you got the "50-75" estimate. On a recent cruise I looked at the official seating chart for the Viking tender boat we were using. The official capacity for tender seating was over 200 and the seating for use as a life boat was higher. And I'm not the only person to give this number. Viking might sometimes hire other boats from the port to help with tendering but I haven't seen it.

With a Tender Port you are transferred to shore in a Tender Boat. Instead of everyone walking down the gangplank onto the shore you wait for boats. A boat pulls up, a couple hundred people load, that boat pulls out and another takes it's place (hopefully immediately). When the boat lands the passengers unload. Returning to the ship you have the same wait for tender boats. The result is it takes much longer to get people on and off the boat, and the time to shore is longer. A related issue is whether you leave the ship at city center or far away. The best case is a dock near the city center. The worst case is a tender boat ride to a dock far from the city so you need to take a shuttle bus into the city. We have seen all four combinations. (Part of the reason we like River cruises better is the boats dock near the city center much more often.)

The documents (and some other e-mail messages from Viking) contain the phone number of the ship. You can call the ship. Also taxi drivers tend to know where the ships are.

We had a pre in Venice, and then a cruise from Venice to Athens. The Venice port of the ship was Chioggia and we returned to Venice on an excursion once the cruise started. I wouldn't do that again -- after the transport there wasn't much time in Venice. In the same situation I would explore Chioggia. (I hope to return to Venice on a to-be-planned Italian land trip.) Venice is a great city, and unusual, but I'd want more time in it than a day trip. Ravenna I would consider as it is somewhere I would like to see, but probably don't want to spend much time in.

I store the documents in a cloud, then on the phone I set them for "offline access". Then I turn off Internet and verify they are actually available off-line. (Part of my "prepare for a trip" checklist.) Note that "offline access" doesn't mean that the phone won't try to fetch them. If my phone has a bad Internet connection it might think it can check for an updated version and not load the version on the phone. There have been times when I needed to turn off Internet on the phone to see the documents.

It's the same security reason as with airlines. They want strong assurance that your bags only get on board if you go on board. They won't get to a perfect connection, but it's much easier to keep track if your bag doesn't get on a bus unless you are getting on the bus.

In addition to the differences in the side for the last two cruises there was an Asian specialties section at the end of World Cafe. When we have a morning excursion I usually have an omelet and waffle in the World Cafe. On sea days I start with an omelet in World Cafe and then have a second breakfast of a Mamsen's waffle. (On the Viking Mississippi Mansen's is just around the corner from the main buffet.)

But it's not high quality. (OK, maybe I'm a littleXXXXXX lot pickier than most.) There are also nice cookies and snacks available around the ship for much of the day.

I might have missed something, but I don't think this was answered. With two weeks before you can get lucky, but you will likely find a shortage of seats you want on flights you want -- Viking Air the same as booking direct. They will try to be helpful, but they can't strap more seats on a plane. (And per the later discussion, you can now arrange flight changes on My Viking Journey without Air Plus in some case.) As far as the price difference: Some people have reported getting better deals on their own. But it depends how good you are and how much effort you put into it. And it also depends how far in advance you book and how picky you are on seats and flights. And it depends how reliable a carrier you choose. If you go with Viking flights then Viking will make more of an effort to get you on the cruise than if you schedule your own flights.

I've had the Change Flight button appear for me, I've also had it not appear. I haven't taken enough Viking cruises to figure out the pattern. When it appeared it was very useful -- nicer than calling Viking Air. It's not that I hate talking to people, but seeing prices and times in front of me is nicer than having them all read over the phone. I get Viking Air only if I get bad flights and I know there are better -- and the new Change Flights prevented a call to Viking Air. The costs seemed reasonable after I checked prices on some ticket web sites. I don't know if it is cheaper or more expensive than Viking Air, but I expect cheaper since they don't have a person sitting on the phone with you for an hour trying different options.

It's good to have multiple credit/debit cards, sometimes one gets rejected (even if you notify then of travel) or is hard to use for some transactions. But for all the cards check whether there is a foreign transaction fee. We got a new card when we started traveling abroad often. Since I'm talking cards I'll drop in my standard announcement: If an ATM or credit/debit card transaction offers to let you convert to dollars just deny the offer and take the charge in local currency. The credit card network will give you a better rate. (One European ATM transaction cost me $207 total on my bank statement. The conversion offer I rejected was $237 plus a bank fee.)

I'm a vegetarian -- I don't eat any meat or seafood -- and I drag my spouse to Chef's Table. They are willing to accommodate me, often with items that look very much like the standard items, and I enjoy the style of dining at CT. My spouse gets occasional substitutions as well.

They sat you need to have it picked up by 9:00, but that doesn't usually matter for standard (next day service). Same day service is usually 50% more expensive (and you need to pay the surcharge if you have included laundry), and making the 9:00 is probably required.

Any menu can be adapted for vegetarians who don't eat fish, so pescatarian would be easier. (Sometimes I have substitutions for three of the five courses.)

The menus used to be available on My Viking Journey (after you book), but since the pandemic I haven't seen any way to know the menu until you board. (I suspect the change was made because of worries about pandemic supply change issues, but kept it because there wasn't a large push-back.) They seem to start a new three day stretch of a menu at the start of a cruise, but there probably isn't a consistent first menu. We are happy reserving Chef's Table without knowing the menu, and would encourage someone who likes that type of meal to do that. The restaurant will create substitutes for anything on the menu if you ask. I'm a vegetarian so I sometimes have three substitutions in the five courses. My wife has nothing she can't eat, but about half the time she has a substitution as she prefers not to eat duck or lamb. We make as many reservations as we can before the cruise, and on the first day try make more to hit other menus -- with no care about what is actually on the menu.

The one advantage to a combined machine is not needing to return after washing, find an available dryer, and move the laundry. Just put it in and come back when the laundry is finished. Hopefully they give a good idea of when the drying will be finished so the machine can be emptied and not sit full waiting for someone to show up

I expect the problem is not figuring out the options, but presenting it to the user in a way that isn't confusing. The agent can help ensure the customer knows the differences between the rooms for each leg. If someone hears "free laundry" and ends up not having free laundry at the point in the trip they need it then there's an unsatisfied customer.

It looks identical to the previously mentioned. Same benefit, same cruises, same expiration time. Different code, different phone number, and three of the cruises in the list are in a different order. (I booked Holland & Belgium from VHT22. The low end cabin prices make for a much less expensive cruise.)

Thank you for the information.

Our package for an upcoming cruise includes "150 minutes". On the web site I see: Internet Package (150 Minutes) 150 minutes of internet connectivity QTY: 2 This seems like we get 150 minutes each. How does this work? Do we each create accounts on board for the Internet, or create accounts ahead of time? How do we start and stop using the minutes?