millybess

Do you mean the reservation for the excursion? We never prepay gratuities. In our case, we never know what we’ll get up to on board to generate Viking OBC which would pay for the gratuities. It would be helpful if you posted a link to where you got these recommendations. They are very different from our experience.

I’m not sure what this means. We have never had to pay for excursions upfront to “secure the booking”. Gratuities.

There are a lot of cabins available on our March 15 cruise too. That’s why we were surprised they didn’t take our offer.

I’m interested in this question also, but from a slightly different perspective. On our cruise next month they swapped our cabin because of a “maintenance issue”. We said we would pay for an upgrade, but not the full price. They naysayed it because they didn’t want to set a precedent. I see the cabin is still available 😊

We always travel forward because we enjoy the Explorers Lounge. I have had terrible motion sickness all of my life. For that reason we put off cruising for many years. Then I gave Meclizine a try. I start taking it 2 days before we travel and it really works for me and we’ve cruised in some fairly rough seas. Next month we are cruising transAtlantic with Viking and that’s something I never thought I’d do. I take along sea bands, but have never used them. I also take eucalyptus oil with me to dab behind my ears, which I’ve used seldomly. In regards to aft suites, we haven’t cruised in one yet, but have one booked for 2025 Auckland to Bangkok. I’m looking forward to trying that out too. Enjoy your cruise 🙂

On the ship or on an excursion?

We've never been to Hong Kong. The Far East & Alaska cruise offers 1 night in HK. We will probably travel there a couple of days earlier to get acclimated. However, I think there are a lot of stops in Japan: Nagasaki Kagoshima Beppu Hiroshima overnighr Osaka Shimizu overnight Tokyo 2 overnights Sapporo overnight

There were 4 available this morning. It’s now sold out again.

That could be the problem. I usually find one I like taken around 20 years ago. 😇

We did the "comfort check in" this week too. You are right, it is very easy, but we've done it before and still had to have our photos taken, etc. once we boarded. This time, they sent us boarding passes. We'll see if that makes a difference. But usually we're pretty excited to be there and to chat with our fellow passengers while we wait, so it doesn't really matter.

I noticed this morning that rooms are starting to become available.

Unfortunately I think you're in the Med this year just before us, but Japan might be an option!!

May question is what's the difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke, if there is one?

If you’re interested in April 2024 it’s part of a much longer cruise and final payment is coming due for a lot of those folks. You might want to keep checking.

Nice winter getaway! Although it was a balmy 14C here today. Enjoy!

And were you able to get the discount over the phone?

I wonder if it’s a TA specific thing. We used to have to pay through our TA’s agency. We wanted the e-check option. We have the same TA but now pay by e-check.

We use a TA. We pay by e-check through MVJ. We have several cruises booked. Two of them are longer than 30 days. Final payments on all of our cruises are due 6 months out. We also use e-check through MVJ to pay for our excursions.

On our excursions, the included tour "Venice On Your Own" states after the cruise you will be dropped off at Palazzo Cornoldi and will also be picked up there to go back to the ship.

It seems you might know Chioggia well. We will be spending our anniversary there and will be looking for a nice restaurant. Any suggestions? Also, we are going to do a 7 hour excursion that involves a cruise to Murano and Burano from Chioggia. Do you know anything about it? For example, how long does it take to get to the islands from Chioggia? What sort of boat is it? Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

I think Chioggia does have a lot to off from what I’ve read, including the article above. We’ve spent a lot of time in Venice is the past so we are happy to give it a miss on our B2B in May when we’ll be docked for an overnight. There are also trains from/to Chioggia-Venice. It takes a couple of hours with a change, and it’s very inexpensive. I’m sure it’s a scenic journey.

LOL. Lovely. Thanks.

I think so too. Just wondering why you were so sure given @miami mamainfo. I thought you might have a link to the port schedule.

BTW, I still think the port will be Chioggia. We book our excursions next week for May and there are many in Chioggia, or from Chioggia to Murano, Burano, etc.

Yes, on the schedule of the actual port, but sometimes these are difficult to find and when you can find them they haven't been updated for some time.