Mich3554

On 10/30/2023 at 1:32 PM, rmalbers said:

I've wondered about ES vs PV myself.  I've been thinking the only benefit for me for a ES would be for in room dining, having the table would be nice.  In certain climates, the larger balcony would be nice, I think, but for the price difference on cruises I've done and looked at I can't really justify it (for me). 

I agree with this.  There were 5 days where I got to have room service for all my meals.  Eating at the desk meant I needed to clear things off before my meal arrived.  Eating at a table would have been nice.  There was only twice we had room service where I was not room bound.  One was our last morning on the ship and the other was after we returned from a late night from a show at the Sydney Opera House.
However, I think we have found our happy spot with the PV.  

We are doing this route, only leaving from Bangkok, next spring.  At least for us, it only means one flight out.  

On 10/31/2023 at 6:22 AM, FetaCheese said:

On both TA December 2022, and Greek Odyssey December 2021, there was no Met broadcast, nor local entertainment brought onboard.  

 

V advertises that these are on every voyage.  (We read Currents thoroughly each evening -- was not listed.). Unfortunately, I never enquired as to why not.

 

 

The Met broadcasts IME tend to be on sea days.  We have gone on 2 TA and the WC.  ON the WC where there were a lot of sea days, there was only one broadcast.  I suspect it has to do largely with the cruise director.  One CD was an opera singer, so there were a couple of Met broadcasts.  However, this is just my small sampling of this, so this may or may not have had an impact on the entertainment.  
 

Sometimes.  However, it’s best if you hit up the Explorer’s desk as soon as you board and ask about it.

58 minutes ago, deec said:

I would NOT start with a Transatlantic until you experience a Viking Ocean Cruise and can determine if you will like sea days.  We are doing British Isles in May and I am so disappointed that there is only one sea day!!!

This is funny, we started cruising with a trans Atlantic and fell in love with Viking because of the sea days!  When I booked the cruise in 2018, a TA was the only cruise where there were cabins available about 3 months before the sail date.  
Like you, we like sea days.  

Ok, I just made a liar out of myself.  We are booked on the Circumnavigation of Australia in 2025.  We booked on board at the beginning of the WC so we got some perks from that.  The price for the cabin I booked is about $6000 less than it is on the website today.  

2 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

Absolutely! 
the house sparkling worked just fine!  
remind me Lorna, it was the real deal French Champagne that Viking leaves 1 bottle of in the refrigerator for the PV’s when you board (we haven’t been further up the chain), right?

We had a bottle in our PV.  In fact, I think I have a pic of the bottle somewhere intending on looking it up.  I do remember noting it was champagne, not sparkling wine, Prosecco or cava.

Getting back to the original question…on one of our cruises, we took a wine tasting tour on the way to the ship.  By the time we got to the port, a case of wine was added to our luggage to be hauled to our cabin.  
 

The only restaurant or bar we did NOT haul a bottle to was Chef’s Table.  No corkage fees.

I book cruises I want and just don’t look back at what the price might be later.  Some go up, some down.  I suspect it evens out in the end.  
 

I do the same for flights too.  Once I find flights that are acceptable price, time, connections 8 book and stop looking.

12 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

If you give me some specific "problems" you are facing, I can give some suggestions.  First off, be sure to know that for USA domestic flights, buying a first class ticket does NOT come with lounge access except on Alaska Airlines.

 

 

Not only that, buying such a ticket for ‘international destinations’….like Belize or Mexico….also do not come with lounge access. 

I was told on embarkation day and the evening before disembarking that they let the dress codes slide.  I know on the WC on embarkation day, a group of us were going into The Restaurant.  One in the party had one jeans and went to go change.  The receptionist told us they let it slide on these 2 days as they assumed people had not yet unpacked (or had packed for disembarking).

6 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

Can anyone who had Tripmate insurance report on whether Tripmate covered Paxlovid if given by the Viking medical team?  Have convinced our local doc to give us a scrip to take on the WC but won't get it filled if the travel insurance will cover it if dispensed by the onboard doctor 
 

TIA

I do not believe Paxlovid is carried on board.  When I got Covid on the WC, it wasn’t offered as treatment, and no one I knew who was in Covid jail received it either.  I do know a few who brought it on board with them.  
All that was offered by the doctor onboard was OTC stuff for the symptoms.  Since I was well stocked with cold meds, I turned them down as another visit (for a cold) resulted in a $25 charge for cough drops…..for the bag I left on the counter at home and forgot to pack!  
 

I would get it filled before boarding.

This past spring, the WC docked in Greenwich and we went into London for a show.  We Ubered there and back, I think it was about 20£ each direction, took about 45 min.  This was to and from the theater district.  
The only cruise where it was beneficial to use Viking transport was in 2021 to get to Santiago.  It cost us $165 for private transport to our hotel there from Valparaiso.  At the time, stuff was still shut down due to Covid still and our options weren’t great.  (We also had a bunch of non refundable OBC to use).  In 2019, I booked a private tour guide who took us from our hotel in Santiago on a wine tasting tour, a really good tour of Valparaiso and dropped us off at our ship for $100.  

On 10/15/2023 at 11:21 PM, SargassoPirate said:

For your consideration, if you wear sneakers pack a tube of either Shoe Goo or Loctite Shoe Glue for your world cruise.

 

On a recent cruise I had a sneaker that started to separate the upper from the sole.  Left unattended it would have become a flapper.

 

In my standard travel tool kit was a brand new tube of Loctite Shoe Glue.  I repaired the separated area, and over the course of the trip had to do two more repairs.  

 

 

We were doing a back to back to back in 2021…..which was our warm up for the world cruise we had booked for 2022-23.  We were in Colonia Uruguay when the sole started flapping on DH’s well worn Merrill hiking shoes.  We were about 30 days into a 54 day cruise.  Our next stop was Punta del Este, so we went shoe shopping with DH wearing his Tevas sandals (his only other pair of shoes).  We also went hunting for shoe glue to glue them back together.  Got back to the cabin and went to repair the shoes, but they had disappeared.  Turned out our cabin attendant took them and got both shoes repaired.  You couldn’t even tell that they had fallen apart.

14 minutes ago, vnb2003 said:

We returned from our last cruise in January 2020 and didn’t fly since then. All our international business class with Viking was business on all legs - domestic and international.

This has been my experience…..3x since Covid.  I have pretty much stopped using Viking air to book because of it.  If I am going to have to do the legwork (and since we always deviate, I’m not looking for ground transport), the only benefit is cost, and usually have done much, much better than Viking for cost.  When I have to go online, find alternatives and contact Viking to rebook them….in the proper class…..then what’s the advantage?  

20 hours ago, vnb2003 said:

Sorry this is incorrect. We bought Viking Air Plus and are flying business in 3 weeks to 

Los Angeles and back USA portion. Had preferred flights, times and seats. The price was good as well.

  

So you are flying within the US, business class?  That’s not the problem being discussed.  If you book a business class in the US to another US city, this doesn’t seem to be a problem.  The issue about business class seats is when you are flying overseas and booking (and paying for) business class.  Viking tends to book ‘mixed class’ seats overseas where the overseas portion is business, but will book you in economy seats to fly from the west coast to the hub for the international flight.  Almost half my flight distance for an overseas flight is in economy, and that’s not what I paid for.  
My experience is much like @CCWineLoverso after dealing with this so frequently, we just don’t try anymore and book ourselves.

We were on an ATV tour in Isafjordur where the guide recognized DH’s interest in photography, so made our ATV tour visiting various different landscapes.  He was pretty good about making sure that DH was welcome to stop when he saw something that interested him to take pics as long as he wanted, without rushing him.  This was a private tour though, but the guide was one we had been introduced to previously through a Viking excursion.

Interesting.  We were out in Puget Sound on a dinner cruise a few years ago when a pod of humpback whales was seen.  The Dungeness crab dinner was quickly forgotten while we all went out on deck to watch the whales.  Locally, ships are not allowed to get within a certain distance of whales, and the whales were continually getting closer to the boat we were on, so we had to keep backing away to keep the legal distance, rather than getting closer.  20-40 yards was too close, so wonder if this is restriction is only for the local area or a worldwide standard?
We saw more whale activity on that dinner cruise than in the 3 whale watching trips I’ve taken visiting guests out on…..combined.  

The only reason why we started with Viking, even though I was hooked on the idea of cruising was (1) the Oceania cruise we were interested in was fully booked, the sales rep laughed at me and never got back to me with a quote on another cruise and (2) when I called Viking, the sales rep was willing to dig through inventory to let me know what cruises were available for the time we wanted (in about 3 months).  There was a room available on a trans Atlantic, so we booked it.  There was almost immediate payment required (I think I had 24 hours) but their sales staff were far more responsive.

It’s amazing how a single customer service rep being willing to go the extra mile for a newbie wound up getting about $250k of business sent their way over the last 5 years.  I have stuck with the same rep.

18 hours ago, DJVKN said:

Not sure if anyone is still monitoring this board but I have a question.

If you sent luggage using Luggage Forward did you include an air tag or tile in the suitcase or box for tracking? TIA!

Diana

We were told they weren’t allowed, so didn’t use them.  There was a long laundry list of what you could not include in their shipment, and we followed it to the letter.  
We did use Air Tags in the luggage that we brought with us on the flight.  

No children or casino sold us on Viking.  I think only Virgin has no kids, but the ships I have seen they are much larger, and that has little appeal.  I have looked at Regents, but haven’t pulled the trigger on one yet.  

1 hour ago, Kentucky Mockingbird said:

When heading to the Dubai airport. are item such as nail polish, sunscreen and tanning lotion (in your carry-on luggage)  forbidden?

 

These items (and others) were removed at DHL headquarters as they were in luggage shipped by Luggage Forward to Dubai for the 10/26 sailing.

Luggage Forward doesn’t allow these items to be shipped, it’s not Dubai.  We shipped luggage for our world cruise, both to the ship and home.  Medicines (including OTC), toiletries, vitamins, spices, electronics and a bunch of other things were not allowed to be shipped.  
Those items, under 100 ml are allowed in carry on luggage in Dubai.  They are allowed in checked luggage in larger quantities.  I have flown through Dubai several times with all of these.

6 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Only you know if you will be bored.

 

We did over 30 sea days in a row with Viking and even on the days with 25 hrs, it was tough finding enough hours to sleep.

This is the nice thing about Viking, you can be as busy as you want to be.  We adore sea days, but on the WC there were people griping that there were too many sea days and they were bored (I did wonder if they bothered to look at the itinerary).  
If you think you are going to be bored, then don’t do a TA, or any cruise with a lot of sea days, If  you don’t like sea days, find a cruise that’s in a different port each day.  There are a lot of them.  If you do like sea days, find a different cruise that has more of a balance.  

1 hour ago, Codecow said:

Silver spirit was so worth what I paid for it with many sea days.  Unlimited alcohol saved the trip for me!

We actually got an accounting of our alcohol use on the world cruise, since they kept track of it.  Viking made money off of us, as we did not drink 1/2 of what the package would have cost us had we paid fo4 it a la carte.  

18 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

Brings to mind our absolute favorite "lecturer" - Russell Lee !

He has to be the absolute best at delivery and entertainment, often making what might seem like a dry subject, come completely to life!   He also puts quite a bit of effort into his preparation.

Kudos!

Agreed!  He even has a tie he wears to match his lectures!