LisaDee

You can see the patio area for some of the Beyond villas starting at the 1:35 mark on this video.

I enjoyed this video with insight into one of the many duties the Captain had during the COVID pause. I hope Kate is on board Beyond in February when we sail!

Your entire review is super disappointing to hear but the above reflects our experience on our Viking Ocean voyage last year. We did all the online pre boarding requirements - inputting vaccine info, credit card, etc but at check in we had to sit in a room with the other embarking passengers (this was Feb 2022 when Omicron was a big concern and Viking was testing daily) and wait for our turn to approach the desk and then wait once more as the employees retyped in all our info.

I agree on purchasing private insurance, not through the cruise line. You have more choices to include the types of coverage you want. See the Insurance board on this site for recommendations.

This is who we used: https://www.onelovecharters.com The boat and captain were great. It was pricey but it was a fantastic day and so nice to have our own private boat.

This must have been due to the covid hampered staffing impact or covid protocols. This was not our experience in pre-covid times when our kiddos were younger. If you’re booking Alaska I assume it’s next summer 2023? I would hope that the kids club is back to normal by then but either way I agree with the above posters that NCL is still a better choice for kids than Regent. There is more for them to do outside the kids club than they would have on Regent. Also look into Royal Caribbean, they are great for kids.

Yes it appears to be location dependent. I’m in the US and didn’t see that promotion. Out of curiosity I changed my location on my VPN to London and now when I pull up the O website the Ultimate O-life offer is prominently displayed on the home page.

Does anyone have any more info (itinerary) on the Aug 2023 TA mentioned above or know when it will be available for booking? I’ve checked my normal online browsing/booking resources including NCL.com and don’t see it. I assume it’s offline while they give the displaced Viva passengers time to decide whether to rebook on Getaway? We love the idea of using an eastbound TA to travel to Europe and avoid overnight flights / jet lag and a late summer time frame works better for our schedule than the normal spring eastern TAs.

I just went through this last week. We are past final payment, but I regularly check our sailing for pricing. I saw that our cabin’s price had dropped by $2K (Haven). I contacted my TA (big box store/call center, not a specific person with whom I have any relationship), she put me on hold and contacted NCL. She came back and said my options were either to upgrade or request FCC. I wasn’t interested in an upgrade because I have a great cabin. NCL told her they had to submit the request to a different department and said I would get a response in about a week. About a week later I got an email from NCL with the amount of the FCC (100% of the amount of the difference at the time I submitted the request). The FCC will become available to use after I complete this upcoming cruise and must be used on a sailing taking place within one year. It’s a one-time gesture, if it drops again I can’t get any more but I’m fine with that because there are only 2 remaining cabins in our category, once they are sold there’s no pricing to compare against. Great move on NCL’s part because although I suggested to my DH that we book a cheap cruise in an inside cabin to use up the FCC, knowing us we’ll end up in the Haven again spending many thousands more than the FCC 🙂

Agreed. It’s the most we’ve ever spent on an excursion for just 2 of us (I think in Alaska our float plane wasn’t even that much) but it was a special one time visit, wonderfully enjoyable and we have terrific photos and memories.

We did a trip to Ladera with another cruise line. It was a bit different than Celebrity’s (we took a boat both ways and just had lunch, no tour of the resort) but the lunch at their restaurant Dasheene was fantastic and the views of the Pitons were incredible. It was a highlight of our cruise.

@kml246 thanks for the heads up!!!!

What really annoys me is the question when pricing an itinerary: “WOULD YOU LIKE FREE AIRFARE INCLUDED IN YOUR BOOKING?” If you reply “Yes” the pricing is one amount, if you reply “No”, it’s a lower amount. I don’t consider something “free” if the price is higher when I choose to include it.

Thanks @euro cruiser for the detailed reply, your posts are so helpful. Our next port is south (Messina). It sounds like we’ll have to skip Amalfi this trip but hopefully there will be another trip in the future.

This is a timely question, I was just looking at setting up a private shore excursion for our cruise that docks in Salerno. We really want to visit Pompeii and Herculaneum but I am worried that we are missing something by not visiting an Amalfi coast town. To package those all together makes a very long day that looks like it would backtrack over the same route. I don’t care about visiting towns for shopping or dining, I’d just like to see the beautiful topography and views. We sail away at 6pm so it should still be light out. Based on the above comment maybe we’re fine to return to the ship after Pompeii/Herculaneum and enjoy Amalfi views from the ship?

We were just on the Sea in February for 10 nights, it was beautiful, clean, it looked brand new to us!

Check out tours to the Chacchoben ruins from Costa Maya. We used Native Choice, highly recommend them.

I returned from a 10-day vacation this week to find 4 (!) Viking brochures in my mailbox: 2 of the skinny folded booklets, one envelope with a detailed Antarctica brochure and one large envelope containing an almost 1/2 inch book with river, ocean and expedition cruise info. The latter mailing included a sheet of paper detailing offer code WOV22 offering $25 deposits, varying airfare & shipboard credit deals depending on the itinerary. When I do a sample booking on the Viking website for several of the listed itineraries and put in the offer code I get the error “The code entered is either invalid or has expired. Please enter a valid offer code.” Per the mailing the offer is valid 7/15 - 8/31/22 and appears to apply to travel years through 2024. Has anyone tried to use this offer code with any luck? I’m going to run it by my TA but I like to do my research ahead of time.

Does this include seating at Syd’s? Your description of the evening entertainment there has me very excited for our October Getaway cruise.

We LOVED the villa on the Edge. When we first walked in I actually started crying because it was so beautiful (and it was our first cruise back after the pandemic pause so I was emotional about missing cruising.) The view from the bed, as mentioned above, is gorgeous. The entire villa is so light and bright with the tall windows. The clothes storage upstairs is incredible. Having two bathrooms a nice treat. I didn’t know the tub on the balcony was heated because I saw it described as a “plunge pool”, so it was a nice surprise that it was heated and I’d also read that the steward would fill it “on request” but ours kept our running 24x7 which was great. It was nice having a proper dining table where you could sit and enjoy the afternoon treats delivered by the butler. The best part for me I think was feeling like the Retreat deck was an extension of our room, it was so close by. I usually wake early on cruises and sit on the balcony to watch us pull into port but from the Villa it was only a few steps from our upstairs door to the front of the Retreat sun deck where you have like a 270 degree view as you pull into port so I’d slip out of bed each morning and sit up there. Divine! (I don’t think this is the same on the Beyond/Ascent, I believe you have to go up another set of stairs on them due to the 2-story retreat layout.) The biggest con for us is the price! What we paid for our Oct 2021 cruise (booked only a month or so before sailing) was less than half of what they’re going for now. Another slight con is with the two floors we’d sometimes find ourselves having to run up- or downstairs to retrieve a keycard or book or whatever before heading out. Not a biggie for us but for those with any mobility issues that would be a major con. Overall it was fantastic and we’d love to sail in a Villa again! Enjoy!!

We loved our one Viking cruise and plan to do more but if I were giving advice to my 20-something sons on which line to honeymoon on I would recommend a suite on either Celebrity Apex or Celebrity Beyond (or Celebrity Ascent which launches next year.) A Sky Suite on one of those ships is similar to the Viking cabins in terms of size and amenities as well as price per day. You have key card access to the exclusive suite lounge, concierge, restaurant and sun deck area for a more intimidate smaller ship feel but you still have access to the larger ship - the various bars, restaurants (some carry an up-charge but the suites usually come with OBC that would cover some specialty dining), the casino, large production shows, pools etc. We found the Celebrity experience to be vibrant and fun but not party central like Carnival. This ship class (“Edge Class”) is newer and absolutely gorgeous. Like I said, we loved our Viking cruise but in my early 50s I was one of the younger cruisers and the ship was definitely very quiet after dinner. There was always something happening on Celebrity until later in the evening which made for a great atmosphere.

Thanks for the clarification, I will book with my TA.

We have FCVs from a cruise we cancelled under the RFG. We’re looking at a sailing we’d like to book using the vouchers but I think I’d prefer to book directly with Viking this time, not through the TA we used for the original cruise. The TA was fine, I’m just more comfortable working directly with the cruise line and not having a go-between. It was especially challenging when booking airfare. (I don’t want to open another TA vs no TA debate.) Does anyone know whether our TA would have received their commission already on the cancelled cruise? If so I won’t feel guilty booking directly with Viking using the vouchers, otherwise I’ll use the TA for the next cruise so they are compensated for the time they spent booking the original cruise.

This is who we used and they were fantastic! https://www.onelovecharters.com

So from looking at the photos...the walking paths runs in front of the villas and cabanas on GSC? That seems like such a poor design. I've rented cabanas before at Half Moon Cay and Roatan and we had direct access to the beach in front of the cabanas. That's alot of $$ to spend to have people walking directly in front of your villa/cabana all day.