Mich3554

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.

This is what it was like going around the Horn the last trip. The first trip, the Captain turned back as it was too ugly out.

Sea day. There really isn’t anything close to divert to. The time we made it, the cruise before and after us did not. We really lucked out, but we were well aware that the odds of getting into that port are about 50%.

We have done this twice, in Dec and Jan. The weather is very warm in both Santiago/Valparaiso and Buenos Aires. As we went south, I was comfortable in a LS shirt, sweater and a rain jacket on top. I wore jeans and waterproof hiking shoes. We saw the penguins….all the penguins! We also did a few winery tours, did the train to the end of the world, and planned our own excursion to Iguazu falls at the end. This cruise is one of my favorites. ETA: just be aware that the ship has about a 50% success rate of stopping in the Falklands as it is a tender port. We hit it once, once we did not.

This was how it worked for me too. They had people on board before we left Norway, and I had a wad of cash before we left Bergen. I also did damage with Dale of Borway.

I would imagine that if you caught Covid that could not be controlled with cold meds, you’ll likely wind up off loaded to a local hospital.

Go to REI or a similar specialty store and have them fit you. My current hiking shoes are Keen Terradoras, which are waterproof. My preferred Merrill’s have decided that 10.5 size isn’t necessary in many styles, 10 (too tight) or 11 (too loose) should be good enough. Most people have brands of shoes that they find fit them best. I know there are only about 4-5 brands of shoes in my closet.

Last winter, Chile’s entry paperwork was an absolute nightmare (as I posted earlier). The website sucked, it regularly went down and even with a team of Viking staff helping passengers get ashore, some passengers still had to remain on the ship due to incomplete paperwork. There were a lot of frustrated passengers and Viking staff. Even so, the scenery on that sailing was utterly spectacular.

It looks like Chile’s nightmare paperwork is no longer, BUT things change on a dime. So what happens next year is always going to be a big question mark. I would not not go due to Chile’s entry requirements (even the old ones). Chile’s fjords are spectacular.

Chile’s requirements were a nightmare. I truly felt for the Viking staff in trying to jump through those hoops, because it was a total mess. In the middle of it, Chile’s web site went down too. It was a clusterf#$&, and despite Viking’s customer service, some were not able to get off on the first stop. Just watching that staff deal with the madness made me appreciate them more.

We spend 54 days on the Jupiter last fall/winter just when Omicron started taking hold. We lost a lot of countries and ports due to countries closing borders at the last minute. Viking did whatever they could to make things good for us. As we sailed with them pre Covid, we did not see an appreciable change in the service. There were changes, but we just rolled with the changes as there was nothing Viking could do. It’s not fair to blame Viking for things that are totally out of their control. If you are going to look for problems, you’ll find them. But why don’t you go onto your cruise with an open mind and not look for problems in the first place?

We played duplicates on the second leg of our back to back to back. That was the Barcelona to Buenos Aires leg. On the trip from BA to Santiago, there weren’t enough people to play duplicates, just lessons and practice games.

Actually, the Sun did have drawers in the closet. This ship was our first cruise.

We were in a PV for our 54 day back to back last fall/winter. We did not use all of the drawers, and in fact, used the big drawer in the credenza as our laundry hamper! I think I posted dimensions of all the drawers while I was on that cruise when someone asked.

Love sea days, we had 9 consecutive ones on our last cruise and could have done more. It seems to me that many either love ‘em or hate ‘em. I try to book cruises that have a decent number of sea days, only because I like having a down day to process what I have seen. I find that when you go from port to port, things tend to run together. That’s why I really like the SA cruise, as there are a lot of sea days interspersed with ports. The sailings, especially the Chilean fjords are spectacular.

This! Pre Covid, Viking was running a special. I have a Viking agent that I try to use for all my bookings. He’s getting harder to get hold of, but ALWAYS gets back to me. There were a few cruises we were interested in booking, one was the SA one. After I booked the others, I started on the SA cruise (bulk booking, I think I booked 3 cruises this phone call!). The time we thought we wanted to go fell outside the promotion, and I was doing a bit of grousing about it over the phone to my Viking agent. He said, I can do you one better. If you leave 2 weeks before you want to leave, we have an unannounced special and I can knock 3x what the special is off the cruise. We were not wedded to the dates I chose, so jumped all over that. $3000 discount was much better than $1000!

We have yet to board the ship with a Viking transfer. What happens is the taxi pulls up to wherever the ship is docked. We normally put our room tags on our luggage while leaving our hotel. Viking takes care of the luggage immediately and it gets delivered to our room. We check in. The luggage, if it’s not in our cabin when we get there, it shows up soon after.

We usually book a PV, but are happy in a DV too. We like the PV because DH has RLS and when it acts up, having a sofa to stretch out on is appreciated. We usually book around 5089. As to whether or not you use Viking Air, it depends on how much control you need. I have no problem booking our flights and doing our own extensions. Some people are uncomfortable doing this. When I book with Viking air, there is usually a big financial advantage and we pay for air + along with deviations.