Mich3554

14 hours ago, Mitina said:

Getting ready for our Athens to Istanbul (with Cappadocia) trip in October.  With the port stops in Turkey, what currency is recommended for any independent excursion entrance fees, meals, tips, etc?  Euros, US$ or would you recommend Turkish Lira? 

Lira.  That was preferred when we were there 2 years ago.

The information will be on the cruise documents you receive about 2 weeks before your cruise.  This is where we were docked last fall, but no guarantee you’ll be at the same location on your cruise.  
Piraeus cruise terminal A Akti Miaouli
Piraeus, Greece

41 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

Lorna -

Same here.  They had slower groups on our River Cruise in May.  However, I don't recall ever seeing separate slow group tours on the Ocean trips we've had this year.  Perhaps it varies cruise by cruise itinerary.

I do think it is a good idea however, since so many times, we've had those with mobility issues not really understanding their position and insisting the entire group slow down for them.  It is a tough situation for the guides to deal with.  Separating into 2 groups - a fast and a slow group - on Viking's part would really help everyone enjoy the excursions.

Agree about the Gentle walkers group.  On our last river cruise, one woman we were traveling with was slated for a new knee when we got home.  She and her husband went with that group instead of with us.  
As with others, I don’t remember there being a comparable group on ocean excursions.

17 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

Michelle - we'd had only the slider in PV rooms (by choice).  Then our last cruise, Midnight Sun, in July, they gave us a last minute (literally as we were checking in) from DV2 to PV1.  PV1 had the door and window, so we got to try it.  It was just fine! 

Again, the PV rooms alternate as you move down the ship - 2 Slider Rooms, then 2 Door Rooms, and son on.  Here is the list I've posted before.

 

Viking Ocean - PV Rooms with Sliders.pdf 207.95 kB · 1 download

We are in 5084 on the Neptune come Dec.  When I booked us, there were not a lot of choices for PVs.  TBH, I never even thought about using sliders to cull my slim choices.  I’m ok with it.  

We have only ever had a slider in the PV rooms we had, but will have a door and window on our WC.  I guess we will find out which we prefer!

4 hours ago, vegasjandk said:

We've been thinking about the trekking poles - thanks for that idea.  And thanks for the encouragement.

I have a few mobility issues as well, and started taking hiking poles on excursions when they are not necessary in getting around the ship.  They really do help considerably.  
The first set of poles I had were too.one for my suitcase, even collapsed all the way.  So they traveled in my backpack with the handles sticking out.  DH was afraid they’d get confiscated going through security some time, so we bought replacements that collapse much shorter.  
In my case, they help a lot more with balance, not just support.

My suggestion when you go shopping for them is to pay attention to the weight, the grips and the length they collapse to.  REI has a pretty good selection to try out before you buy.

5 hours ago, Gibsontravels said:

I just found out that those nice little dumplings, or shu mai, are hidden under a cover on the WC breakfast buffet. No wonder I’ve missed trying them!  I will get a chance in Dec. 2022 in the Caribbean. 

Yep.  We go up for dim sum in Vancouver fairly regularly, and those are not quite as good as Sun Sui Wah’s……but close.  The ones at our dim sum place also include chunks of shrimp.

I also found out that you can order them in The Restaurant for breakfast too.

50 minutes ago, Moonlion said:

I would probably do this independently even if the Barcelona pre-extension were available.  For ~$1200 for the two of you, you get 2 nights at the Nobu Hotel Barcelona hotel which includes breakfast, transfers and one "panoramic" bus tour on the day of checkout... you also get an included panoramic bus tour of Barcelona on your second day of the cruise.  The rest of the time, you are "on you own" to tour Barcelona.  Independently, you can book 2 nights at the Nobu Hotel Barcelona including breakfast for a total of about $560 which covers both of you (Booking.com, May 2023 rates).  That leaves over $600 to cover the transfers.  Unless I'm missing something, I don't see much advantage or value to book the Viking pre-excursion. 

This is largely my experience with looking at booking extensions too.  We just don’t bother, come into a new city and go and do on our own.  Your Viking e documents you receive about 2 weeks before your trip tell you where you are docked, and IME hotels and taxis have this info as well.  

1 hour ago, formernuke said:

This may vary by ship, but on Jupiter in October, I'm pretty sure that all the restaurant menus were available on the TV from the start of the cruise. Certainly at least several days in advance.

We were on the Jupiter from 10/31-12/20.  Only the current day menu was available for The Restaurant during this time.  Menus for Chef Table and Manfredi’s were available though.

On 8/29/2022 at 10:44 AM, ellenw said:

We were on Viking Jupiter in July, and I loved the food! My first dinner was liver and onions, which was fabulous. And certainly not common to see on a menu. I'm guessing very few people were as excited as me to see it!

 

My sister sailed with us, and had been on Jupiter pre pandemic. She felt the food on this cruise was very good, but not quite as good as previously. Does anyone else feel that way? Just curious if it's the same supply chain and cost issues hitting everything. Please don't take this as a criticism of Viking.

We were on the Jupiter 10/19, 12/19 and Oct-Dec 2021.  I did not find any changes in the quality between 2019 and late 2021.  
The only glitch I found in 2021 was that I love the little dumplings served in WC during breakfast.  They were replaced with filled won tons (like you’d find in soup).  I later found out one of the ingredients was not included in the provisioning and Viking had to pivot.  The dumplings were back on the buffet a week later.  

14 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

57 I can get but 930???

And for us, 3 months apart!

I had 4 left in my passport and renewed 5 years early for Viking’s 2022-23 cruise.  I’d think with 10+ pages available, you’d be good…..but it depends on where you go.  An 18 day cruise in South America, with a side trip to Iguazu (hitting both Brazil and Argentina sides) ate up 4 pages alone of my passport in 2019.

10 minutes ago, Gojagators said:

Totally agree that we will not really see Paris.  We get off the ship at 8:30 am and get back at 7 pm.  We have already decided that if we can see the eiffel tower and take a stroll along the seine and possibly the Champs de elysees we will be satisfied.  Not really even going to try to see too much.  Hopefully we will be able to return for a longer stay but the craziness of the last few years has taught us to enjoy what we can when we can

If you decide to do this, then you might want to jump on a HOHO bus for one of the routes.   Our last trip, we bought a pass and used it to drop us off at the attractions we wanted to see.  While we did use the metro, and it was a more efficient way of travel, the HOHO let you see more.  You can also plan your route such that you get off with access back to the cruise bus.

22 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Our experience is slightly different than yours. We have found that Viking’s markup has been less than on other mass market lines and in a couple of case almost exactly what we could purchase the same tour for directly. The only difference being the size of the group.

 

Agree with you about “stuff” happening. But as you also said, the tour guides future rests on getting you back to the ship. When we were in Puerto Madryn Argentina I had arranged a daylong small group tour for 8 of us from our rollcall. We were headed back from our nature tour in the peninsula north of the port when the guide quietly asked me if I would be agreeable to making a stop and picking up some others from the ship. Their guide had called and their van had a flat tire.  Our group of course agreed to being slightly uncomfortable for the last 30 minutes of our drive as we all knew it could have just as easily been us. The point of this long winded story is that I think most guides work together to make sure that no one gets left behind. 

Puerto Madryn was the one time I was incredibly happy we were on a Viking tour.  We had gone to the penguin colony in Punta Tombo and were nearly 2 hours late getting back.  Then on the way back to the port, a semi took off the bus’s side mirror when we got caught in a horrible traffic backup.  The bus pulled up to the ship, we boarded and we were away from the dock before we got to our cabin.  

We took 2 cruises on the Jupiter, about 3 months apart.  The crew that was still there recognized us from 3 months earlier.  With thousands of people passing through, how do they do that?
 

We sat down in the Aquavit terrace, not realizing it was lobster night at the grill.  One of the managers eating back there heard me grouse and went to the pool grill and brought back both DH and I a lobster to have with the rest of our meal.

DH’s shoes fell apart in Colonia.  The shoe disconnected from the sole, and other than sandals these were his only shoes.  While we went shopping the next day for new shoes in Montevideo, our cabin steward brought his old shoes to their machine shop.  Delivered his old shoes back that evening, looking like new shoes.

We were leaving for dinner and a stain on my sweater that I thought it had washed out but was still there (DH helpfully pointed it out just as we were leaving our cabin).  Cabin steward heard him laugh at my inability to hit my mouth with food.  I went back to the cabin to put on another shirt, and threw the chocolate stained sweater onto the bed to deal with later.  Cabin steward took my stained sweater to the laundry and got the stain removed and returned it the next morning.  

43 minutes ago, CILCIANRQTS said:

We loved Honfleur!
Charming little community with lots of restaurants, photo ops, nice people.

We too could not justify the long bus trip to Paris.

Yep.  We went to Giverny when our cruise stopped in Le Havre.  It just didn’t seem to make sense to try to go to Paris as you spent too little time there for such a long bus ride.  I love Rouen too, would gladly go back here too.  We haven’t done Honfleur, so I’m filing that away for the future.

1 hour ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

If you say so. 

 

I would have no qualms about flying TK from a safety standpoint - there is no cultural problem at the airline, nor any ongoing maintenance or operational issues.  If you are focusing on incidents in the past, be sure to get the relevant specifics on any crash, as well as putting those crashes into proper perspective.

 

TK is definitely a first-world airline, with all of the positive reputation that goes with that.

Neither do I.  I have flown Turkish Air and find it is almost on par with Emirates.  

My first suggestion would be check with the store first.  I made a large purchase in a store in Italy, and the store was very used to sending purchases home for cruise passengers.  Best thing, it was free (I’m sure the price for shipping was built into the price I paid).  
The store shipped it such that I would be home when it arrived.

21 minutes ago, TayanaLorna said:

All experiences are informative.  Love the Ocean cruise ships and was going to schedule our first River until i began reading about the ships and people's experiences.  I don't like the lack of 2 people dining tables and being forced to sit with 4 to 8 other people, don't like the lounge being the venue for lectures, port talks and entertainment with no where else to get away from crowds but the top deck, and i don't like having to pay so much more for a balcony room.  Still too risky for me given no testing or masking.

We recently did our first river cruise this past spring.  We had a balcony suite (courtesy of the 125% voucher) but we never used the balcony.  The big perk for us was the free laundry.  
There are other seating areas other than the lounge.  However, a few afternoons I took my kindle to the lounge and watched the world go by….just like on ocean cruises.  It wasn’t noisy or packed, other than for port talks before dinner.

The Aquavit terrace has 2 seated tables for meals.  DH and I also ate at the end of a long table.  There was no need to communicate with others if we did not want to.  We did go with 3 other people, so most times we ate with dinner them.  
Our cruise was April/May, the Grand European.  It happened before testing and masks were dropped.   

The only time I have seen perks or discounts linked to the length of the cruise was when we booked on board.  We booked a 30 day cruise and a 50 day cruise when we were on our South American cruise.  Both were linked with additional discounts and OBC for the cruise length.   
For instance the 30 day cruise had an additional on board discount of $400, the 50 day $800.  We also received OBC for each, but as it wasn’t on the invoice, I don’t remember how much but know how much was related to the cruise length.

When Viking canceled Viking Homelands part of the 30 day cruise, they also canceled the British Isles part.  My Viking agent had to do battle with his manager to get our discounts back as we still kept the BI part.  We got the $$ back in OBC.

4 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Andy 

I often wonder when I read of the incredible services you received on your World Cruise how much is ever provided on a regular cruise. While we have always gotten great and friendly service and suspect we would find it similar to your experience, just wonder how much it might be different but need to actually go on a cruise to find out 😂

When we went on the South American leg of our cruise last year, the only pair of shoes (his other footwear was Tevas) that DH brought with him deconstructed.  The sole totally disconnected from the shoe.  We wound up doing a frantic shopping trip in Montevideo to try to find him new walking shoes. We also bought glue to try to fix his old shoes.  
When DH went to try to repair them, his shoes were missing.  We tore our cabin apart looking for them.  No shoes.  Later that evening, our cabin steward brought them back fixed better than new.  They also cleaned them up.  

I renewed mine in Jan and it took 3 weeks with expedited service.  My friend did not expedite and it took her 6 MONTHS to get her passport renewed.

On 8/11/2022 at 10:35 AM, Smokeyham said:

Hi All,

Reviving an old thread, but the question is still relevant and I wonder if anyone has a different perspective on using a travel agent now that cruising has resumed?

 

Nope.  I have an agent I deal with at Viking, and he takes pretty good care of me.  At this point, we have booked 11 cruises, including a WC with him.  Only one of the 11 we booked while on a cruise, not through him.

6 hours ago, Grettiegoo said:

Wow, just read this thread. We're doing this cruise in November, 2022. Don't know if anyone will see this almost a year later. If so, what was the weather like? I know weather changes, but an idea of what it was like for your trip would help. I've looked at the average temperatures and weather in all the ports, but would just like a "human" summary if possible and an idea on what kind of weather to pack for.  Thank you so much!

The weather was fabulous in both Uruguay and Argentina in early Dec, warm and sunny.

Going to jump on this in that we also received updates from Viking as to what we needed to do to get into certain countries.  Last Oct-Dec things were changing much faster than they are today, but on our trip in that time period, 5 countries (including the US) changed their rules while we were in transit.  
Best thing you can do is check both Viking’s requirements in MVJ and your entry country’s requirements to make sure nothing has changed.