Mich3554

This! We booked British Isles explorer and Viking Homelands together as a back to back while onboard. This was supposed to be on the Neptune, after the WC. We got notified that Viking had pulled the Neptune from Viking Homelands, but had canceled the whole cruise, not just the Homelands part. We lost all the perks that we had been given from booking while on the cruise. I was not happy about that, and my Viking agent went to bat for me with this manager. As a result, we did manage to get most of the discounts back and what we didn’t get back we got a good sized chunk of OBC. Then, since it was a new booking, were also able to use some of the coupons we bought on the river cruise so we were pretty much made whole.

Special Booking discount $300 Past guest level one discount $400 Onboard booking savings $800 Voucher discount $646 We also got $2750 business class fare Directly off my invoice. I KNOW that $1100 was just for booking on board as it was on the promotions. Viking allows you to only use one of those coupons per person, per cruise. We did not have any when we booked this cruise. However, the discounts we received far exceeded any coupon.

The OBC you receive is non refundable, if you don’t spend it before the end of the cruise, you don’t get the balance. So it might be important to book early so you have the time while on the cruise to use it up. I have to disagree with you on what the consultant can do. For us, she went to bat for us about allowing the OBC to remain on our account until the end of our back to back to back. We received so much OBC from missed ports that at one time we had nearly $5000 of OBC between the ports and the 2 cruises we booked.

As I remember it, we got $400 each of OBC AND $1100 off the price of the cruise too (I had to go back and look at the invoice). I think with our past guest discount, the grand total off was $1500 off the cruise.

This too.

There might be OBC offered as a perk for booking additional cruises, and this OBC is applied to your current cruise. You have more time to spend it if you book it early, because it is non refundable OBC.

Any purchases, try to pay in US$. When we were there last year, I bought a pair of handmade shoes. I paid $100, but had I charged them to my credit card, it would have hit my account at around $250. I just used crisp $20.

Some people do spend that kind of money. I did see some sales, so something was made. The earrings really were gorgeous, and nothing like I have ever seen, but wasn’t going to do it.

I know, plus there was no way I’d pay that for a pair of earrings. $20k is another cruise!

Spend a couple days and go see Iguazu falls. Make the effort to see both the Argentinian and Brazilian side, both are gorgeous. We went on our own after we got off the cruise, then flew back to BA and spent another couple days sightseeing before. We did the HOHO bus routes.

On the 54 day back to back we were on last year, at one time we had 4 figures of OBC in our account. As the days wound down, after gratuities and our bar tab was done, we had about $800 left of non refundable OBC. The store was incredibly depleted, but I managed to snag 2 down jackets and a few other things to get the balance down. Thinking back, I should have snagged another of those blankets at the foot of the bed instead. We also let Viking pay for our private transport from Valparaiso to our hotel in Santiago. We left $12 in the account. I’m surprised that there were no waterproof Viking Helly Hansen jackets on your cruise. I was considering them, but they were not in our sizes. ETA: There was a gorgeous pair of emerald earrings in the jewelry shop I coveted. DH pointed them out as he really liked them too. The price on them was only $20k. When I went shopping, I had visions of killing out OBC with those, and putting the $19,200 balance on the credit card. I couldn’t do that, but was tempted!

We have traveled several cruises on Viking post pandemic and found that for the most part, these people tend to be the exception than the rule. Our last ocean, one woman was FaceTiming someone back home from the Explorers Lounge. I could have gone on with my life without hearing her, but tuned her out. I never saw anyone in WC in a swimsuit, but I guess I’m guilty as I go dressed to work out after breakfast on sea days. The only robes I have seen outside of cabins is people coming back from the spa. Pre pandemic these things happened too. Maybe it has been so long that people have forgotten? Personally, I remember rude people on those cruises too. Some DH called out (like when they were mean to Viking staff. But they DID exist.

Is this something new? I booked Fiji Air flights and flew them in Sept to Fiji. I would consider flying Fiji Air to get to Australia, but NAN as a connection isn’t really a great way to see Fiji. I can tell you that Fiji Air does have one of the better business class lounges in NAN, better than Emirates and head and shoulders above any US carrier’s lounge.

I bought mine on our first cruise. They’re about $200, or they were in 2018.

I know that the atmosphere is different, but ironically there were several people on this cruise that are going to be on our WC. DH was mainly concerned about being on the ship for so long. We get on the WC in Dec. It’s hard to believe that when we booked it, it was over 700 days. Now it’s 50ish.

We did the reverse, starting in Athens and winding up in Santiago last fall. Our original trip was supposed to end in Buenos Aires, but we had another cruise cancel plus DH was laid off. So we tacked South America onto this cruise, taking it to 54 days. We lost a lot of ports, especially on the Barcelona to Santiago leg, but managed to pick up Madeira and Cape Verde. This was our ‘warm up’ for the WC, to see that we wouldn’t get stir crazy being on a ship that long. They had to drag us off the Jupiter, kicking and screaming. I think we are good! I do want to repeat it though, with the ports we missed.

You’d think, but last year we had 9 sea days in a row where we were tested daily (no positives). We got into Uruguay and were tested twice again before 9 am. Argentina STILL would not allow us to dock for 14 days. Countries still make the rules, and Viking still has to comply.

Many, myself included, cruise and think ‘yep, gotta come back here again’, and go for a land trip. I had a taste, I would like to see more. A little something is better than nothing. In addition, when we left out of Bergen, we spent 3 days there before we boarded….hotels, shopping and restaurants. We try to do this from of most cities we embark or disembark a ship in. Dissing the cruise is incredibly short sighted.

We just got back from Fiji a few weeks ago. We had to show our vaccine card several times, once to get onto the flight, to go through immigrations in Fiji and the dive resort we were in requested a copy. In addition, we had to show proof of medical coverage, especially if infected with Covid.

I used Rail Ninja when I booked our Budapest to Prague trip. I also paid extra for comfort class. The web site was pretty self explanatory, the only thing I really didn’t like was that after I ordered the tickets, it was a few weeks before we were actually ticketed. I printed them out, there were no issues.

I live in Bellingham, and it is about 90 minutes to Vancouver, a bit shorter to YVR, a lot depends on time of day and tunnel traffic. We have Nexus, so get expedited border crossings. We plan on it taking 2 hours to get to SEA for a red eye, 3 hours if we are going through during any rush hour traffic. The border crossings can be a crap shoot, it has taken us as little as 5 minutes, as much as 2 hours (pre Nexus).

Last year, it was released around Dec some time. I had a WC for 2024 on my radar and asked my Viking agent to let me know when he gets something. I got an email while I was on the Jupiter, and a call from my agent after I got home asking me if I was still interested.

We did this cruise in both directions. The first time, we were able to arrange a private wine tour from Santiago to Valparaiso, which also included a tour of Valparaiso and dropped us off at the ship at the end. The second time, DH was researching how to get from Valparaiso to Santiago (Delta had canceled our flight and we had to fly out the following evening) and came up with squat going in this direction. I don’t know if this was a Covid issue or not, because we had not researched private tours out of Valparaiso, just Santiago the previous trip. For us, we wound up taking private transport that Viking organized for us. It was not inexpensive, but it got us to the hotel I had booked and it killed the balance of non refundable OBC we had, that we had to either use or lose.