LindaS272

Clay, I vaguely remember something about this on our Nov. 2019 SE Asia cruise on the Orion. I think somebody from the CC M&M said they were going to participate in one in the Wintergarden during tea time, but being an English tea lover, I didn’t pay much attention. I believe I saw them doing this during tea time later on—I think it may be “on request” or may depend on a staff member who knows an Asian tea ceremony.

1 hour ago, Clay Clayton said:

I was taking a look at MVJ this evening and read something in the description of the Winter Garden that I hadn’t noticed before. Thinking maybe it was a change due to new post pandemic cruising, I used the WayBack machine and discovered the same text was used in August of 2019. 
 

Anybody ever attended (or heard of) a “calming tea ceremony” taking place on board? It’s never been offered on the TAs we’ve done. It sounds like it could be done on Japanese cruises. We did the Far Eastern Discovery Cruise (with several port calls in very southern Japan) and it wasn’t part of our schedule so not sure when else they might do it. 

Clay, I vaguely remember something about this on our Nov. 2019 SE Asia cruise on the Orion. I think somebody from the CC M&M said they were going to participate in one in the Wintergarden during tea time, but being an English tea lover, I didn’t pay much attention. I believe I saw them doing this during tea time later on—I think it may be “on request” or may depend on a staff member who knows an Asian tea ceremony.

2 hours ago, Jim Avery said:

You are wrong.  We have done exactly that twice so far this week alone.  Exactly as I described.  Here's another thing for you to consider.  I have heard various "experts" refer to covid as an "aerosol virus".  In other words a virus carried in droplets small enough to hang in the air for a longer period of time than simple droplets.  So go in your sealed up living room masked up.  Spray your favorite aerosol air freshener.  If you can smell it, your mask is not very effective against aerosol viruses.

Okay, well, you have been exposing yourself and other people unnecessarily if there has not been proper air flow in the restaurant and adequate distance between the tables.

50 minutes ago, Jim Avery said:

So you go to a restaurant, at the front door put on a mask, walk 40 or so feet to a table, take off mask for the duration of the meal.  If you are not holding your breath during the meal, you are masking solely for show.  Just one example of the stupidity of bureaucratic mask "rules".

Jim, nobody does that. First off, in our state, we are only recently at 50% capacity in some counties for some restaurants. Social distancing is still in effect and many restaurants are upgrading their ventilation systems for airflow. Most people I know are still not going to restaurants even at the 50% capacity rule. Some are sitting outside where they know there is maximal airflow. Even indoors there are often limits to the amount of time you can spend at the table and who can be at the table—vaccinated, or family members in a bubble. In addition, the staff are wearing masks the whole time, even if vaccinated. I think Viking on these first cruises will have variants of what our state is doing now with regard to dining.

In terms of how this disease is spread there seems to be a large degree of “misunderstanding”—to be charitable. It’s HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS. So mask wearing and social distancing are for public health.

Since no one on these Iceland cruises will be going back and forth to the Continent or other points in Scandinavia, you won’t be experiencing what happened to us after our first Viking ocean cruise in July 2019–but a cautionary tale on Icelandair for the future (unless you want stress, or possibly just adventure :-).
 

We had a fabulous first cruise on the Baltic/St. Petersburg run on Viking Sky with Capt. Olav in July 2019, and then spent five days tooling around Norway on our own. We were scheduled to fly out of Bergen, of course via Reykjavík, and then home to Seattle. Icelandair has a well-honed route from Seattle to Europe with quick turnaround time in Reykjavík of only about an hour—changing planes and offloading your bags to your connecting flight. Works fine when they’re on time, but not so much otherwise, as we discovered. (We had flown with them a few times before this).

Our flight out of Bergen was delayed by an hour (with no explanation of course) and no customer service to help us with our tight connection in Reykjavík. We got off the plane in Iceland and were surprised that they were still going to make us go through passport control instead of as transit passengers. We had to ask the passport agent where our gate would be since there was no info for Icelandair- we had about five minutes to get to the gate. But coming out of  the passport check, a uniformed guy was hustling a bunch of us against a wall and roping off a lane, separating my husband and I. My husband walked ahead across a long hall and they sent me to the left around the corner out of sight of him into a small room for a spot “security check”!

I was livid—to say the least!!! First off, hubby had no idea where I was, our flight was about to take off, and I couldn’t contact him on our phones because they were in flight mode!!!

The security people were clueless and impassive—but fortunately only delayed me for a few minutes. I was able to find DH and we raced to our gate just as they called us as they were closing the doors. His bag made it home to Seattle—mine did not ‘til several days later.

But this certainly colored our view of flying with Icelandair—particularly going and coming from Europe without clear contingencies!

10 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Thanks for clarifying, as you didn't mention Viking in the initial post.

The original poster asked about the Viking Venus repositioning:

”Any passengers on board?  Haven't been following this so didn't know if it was some sort of repositioning cruise.”

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Sorry, but limited cruising has taken place in Europe for many months:

• Mein Schiff 1 & 2 have been operating in the Canaries for months,
• MSC Grandiosa has been sailing Italy/Malta since August, with a short break in Dec/Jan.
• Hapag-Lloyd Europa 2 operating in the Canaries
• Aidaperia operating in the Canaries since end of March

This article is a summary of all cruises currently operating

 https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/24746-here-are-the-cruise-lines-operating-right-now-2.html

 

 

But Viking has not. That was my point.

3 hours ago, OnTheJourney said:

Any passengers on board?  Haven't been following this so didn't know if it was some sort of repositioning cruise. Darn....and to think it could have been us back in January. Was looking forward to Gibraltar, having never been to any port that was on the itinerary, except for where the cruise would have ended up in London. 

This is Venus heading up to the UK to do the round England cruises beginning in May. Europe isn’t open for cruises yet—too many cases. Which cruise had Gibraltar as a stop? I don’t remember that one, but would sure like to be on it!

12 hours ago, Let Me Travel! said:

Just hoping our vaccine distribution continues at the recent great rate...I’d really like the world get back to normal...I do think that we, as a population have become hysterical about the virus overall...we failed to protect the most vulnerable to the virus at the beginning and we imposed restrictions on the entire population as a knee-jerk response. I’ll wear the mandated masks, but I honestly do believe that as the population is vaccinated, (as the SCIENCE recommends) we need to stop the show and allow business, travel and social interaction recover...it’s my opinion that we are prolonging the drama.

It’s tough on everyone. We’d all like to get back to normal. In terms of hysteria, there was a “dance macabre” going on with certain folks in the beginning who said it was all a hoax and refused to take precautions. THAT’s why we had to shut down. And science didn’t know in the beginning just how contagious it was through respiration. Now we know—and masks, social distancing, and ventilation are the key. Raging outbreaks continue to occur because thousands of people are not heeding the advice. Sure hope the vaccinations can overtake the numbers and get us out of this mess

I’ve been frustrated by our local health dept. in that you don’t learn until months later just WHERE the surge in cases are. Masks do work, and many people are not wearing them—thus the outbreaks.

1 hour ago, Jim Avery said:

When do you stop wearing them, or do you plan to wear them the rest of your days? Just trying to understand when enough is enough.  Never in history has such action been taken to shut down peoples lives, not for any previous epidemic situations.  

I plan to keep wearing a mask as long as there are still cases surging in my area, and when I travel through airports and on planes. Also when in any crowded, indoor space where it’s difficult to keep six feet of distance/or ventilation is poor. I follow the science and the CDC recommendations closely. It’s tragic in our country that so many won’t do the simple things of wearing masks and social distancing until this thing is under control.

9 minutes ago, Let Me Travel! said:

We’ve gotten masks that say “For Government Use Only”...vaccinated people do NOT need masks.... it’s all for show...

I hope you’re not on one of the upcoming cruises on Viking, cuz you’ll be surprised by Viking’s stance on that issue. The masks are not only to protect others from your respiration should you have COVID, but also to protect you from people infected with a variant that the vaccine does not cover.

6 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

Haven't flown with Iceland Air, but did research the Saga Class. I read a couple of travel blogs and generally they were not impressed.

 

Best summary is it is more Premium Economy than Business Class. The seats are slightly wider than economy and do not go flat, although they recline slightly more than economy. Meals are included, but quality was at best average.

 

Positives were the Lounge in Iceland, which was impressive.

 

 

It’s not like Premium Economy, more like First Class domestic in the U.S. The seats are worlds apart from economy and recline quite a ways but not full length—very comfortable, though. Meals pre-COVID were good quality and better than what we used to get on international flights in coach back in the day.

On 4/16/2021 at 7:00 AM, Peregrina651 said:

 

They leave a residue in the dryers that builds up over time and will get on the clothing of anyone who uses the dryer. Dryer sheets are on the list of products that folks with skin rashes are told not to use, even the ones that are fragrance free..

Some do, some don’t. Not a problem for this chemically sensitive gal. I have started bringing my fragrance free laundry soap on all our travels and was pleasantly surprised to find that Viking’s laundry soap was fragrance free. I use free & clear dryer sheets though.

I doubt it. These bans will not stand up to court challenges, or to the companies (like cruise ships & airlines) that may impose requirements.

2 hours ago, id4elizabeth said:

Some thoughts about going directly to the Blue Lagoon from the airport.  I was reading the Blue Lagoon Terms and Conditions today and if I'm reading correctly you will not be allowed in the Blue Lagoon or any of the Hotels, or the Spa or restaurants until you've gotten the ok test results from your covid test at the airport which might take as long as 12 hours.  Now hopefully this changes.  We currently have a reservation at the Hilton in Reykjavík,  but I was thinking of changing that to a Blue Lagoon hotel so we could enjoy the retreat spa while we're waiting for check -in.  But this may not be possible.  I have a question into the hotel at the moment and will let you know what I find out.  So, if u r just planning on hitting the blue lagoon, and you don't have the results back from your airport  Covid  test, they might not allow u in. 

Now all this appears to apply to the general Covid restrictions before the vaccinated passengers became exempted in general.  So perhaps this will change hopefully soon.  Just wanted to make you aware of the Ts.& Cs of the Blue Lagoon

 

Someone in one of our groups was going to stay at a Lagoon hotel right from the airport and he may know more about the situation.  If you're reading this and have some insights please let us know!

 

Here’s the link to current info: https://www.bluelagoon.com/blue-lagoon-temporarily-closed

Despite saying “temporarily-closed”, this should link to “the Blue Lagoon has re-opened.”

12 minutes ago, DaveSJ711 said:

 

I'm a practicing lawyer (40 years and counting); I booked the Southeast Asia trip in question; I corresponded with Viking about our ability to leave the ship and return; and I was Linda's companion on the trip.

 

Viking sent us Terms and Conditions for our cruise. I reread them this morning. Neither Section 8 nor Section 19 makes any reference to a passenger's ability to leave the ship and return mid-cruise. The T&Cs are silent on this issue.  VikingTermsandConditions.pdf

 

The day I booked the trip, I asked the Viking agent whether we could leave the ship en route and return. I reread his response this morning. He wrote, quote: "You guys can leave the ship and come back. This is not an issue."

 

In reliance on what the agent told us, we booked a nonrefundable flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia and a nonrefundable stay at a Siem Reap hotel. Two months later, we made a courtesy call to advise Viking that we wouldn't need a transfer at the end of the cruise (because of our travel plans). Only then were we told that the agent was wrong, and that the Cambodian port authorities had to approve our travel.

 

 

 

My husband Dave further clarifies the issue.

Somewhere else in these threads, someone commented about Viking’s somewhat corporate attitude and lack of customer courtesy before getting on a cruise and wondered if they were paying attention to cruise critic posts on the issue. In general, we’ve had great experiences with Viking. But this one pre-cruise experience was difficult and upsetting. Management onboard was great and we felt like valued customers once again.

2 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

 

Linda, with his years of experience as a cruise ship officer, we rely on Heidi13 to give us the perspective of the cruise lines. He understands what drives the policies and procedures and can give us the inside view.

 

Also, keep in mind that on Cruise Critic, responses to posts are read by more than just the person with the issue.  While his response may not apply to the specifics of your situation, his reply is instructional and informational for the other people who will be reading his response and it will help others to avoid the problems that you faced.

Actually it wouldn’t, because what we faced was a bumbling, discourteous response from Viking. I submit that the cruise lines also need to have an attitude of courtesy and customer service toward their passengers, which was sorely lacking in our case prior to getting on the ship. Guest Services and management onboard were great, but the corporate agents beforehand were not. So this whole thing is not about needing to understand it from the cruise line’s perspective. What there was was a dysfunctional corporate response.

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Thanks for the clarifications, but having experienced similar situations, I probably have a better understanding of the entire process than most people. As Peregrina explained, I have experienced these situations from both the pax and ship's perspective. I suggest you are only considering the pax perspective and not the implications on the entire ship's clearance and departure process. You may also not have fully read and understood the Terms & Conditions of the Passenger Contract.

Actually, one of us is a lawyer and we did read the Terms and Conditions carefully. Most importantly, our initial inquiry to Viking about leaving and reboarding was okayed by a Viking agent who wrote us in an email “You guys can leave the ship and come back. This is not an issue.” We then proceeded to book a flight to Siem Reap and return to Bangkok, as well as a non-refundable hotel. When we called Viking a few weeks later to tell them we would not need the airport transfer at the end of the cruise because of travel to Siem Reap, we were told we would need to get independent approval from the Cambodian port authorities. So the problem here was being told by a Viking agent “no problem”- then being told WE had to get “permission” directly from the Cambodian port authorities, not that Viking would take care of things for us from their end. Of course we had no way to know who to get permission from, and it was only after weeks of frustration through various levels of Viking management stateside that Viking said they had finally figured out what needed to be done from their end and that we could do what we wanted to do.

Quote

With respect to Visas, yes I am aware that 2 options for Visas are available in Cambodia, the ship may procure a Visa upon arrival, or each pax is required to procure their own individual Visas. I believe I explained that regardless of whether you procured you own Visa or the ship procured on arrival Visas, you plans would result in delayed ship clearance and possibly also departure.

 

With respect to the cruise documents, I believe the situation is addressed in the Terms & Conditions - specifically in Section 19 and also Section 8. If I reread them in depth, I can probably find others, but these are the 2 main ones I can think of:

• Section 8 - You are required to obey ship's rules & regulations including the Master's Orders - the gangway board with the "Time Aboard" is not a suggestion, it is a Master's Order. Any pax who have not advised the ship of an intension not to reboard and have made alternate arrangements in any port have contravened this section of the Passenger Contract
• Section 8 - pax conduct will not impair the ship or inconvenience other pax - by planning independent travel and not returning by all aboard time, the ship's departure can very well be delayed, which is an inconvenience to pax and a cost driver for the cruise line.
• Section 19 -  Unauthorised stopover or disembarkation or failure to make any sailing of the ship at any port shall be at your sole risk and expense, you may be denied subsequent boarding, and you will not be entitled to any refund, payment, compensation or credit of any kind. 

 

 

The other couple that disembarked in Saigon clearly contravened Section 19 by disembarking the ship without authorisation. They are actually lucky that both the ship and local authorities permitted them to reboard the ship. Many cruise lines would have prevented them from re-boarding.

 

When the Terms & Conditions require "Authorisation" for a stopover or unplanned disembarkation, I suggest that advising the cruise line of your independent travel plans is not a "courtesy", but a requirement.

 

 

As you can see by my response above, none of this applied to our situation.

And the Terms and Conditions do not “require Authorisation”—Section 19 just says it “shall be at your own risk and expense” and that “you may be denied subsequent boarding.” And the “Authorisation” that Viking said we needed to do was not from Viking but from the Cambodian port authorities.

So we are talking a little bit of apples to oranges here. That’s why I said you didn’t know the details of what we had to deal with.

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Unfortunately, when planning private travel that will have you rejoin a cruise in another country it is NOT a courtesy call you make to the cruise line. This is critical information that must be provided to the cruise line in a reasonable time in advance of the cruise. This is even more critical when Visas are required, especially when they are procured on arrival by the cruise line.

 

To explain the process. When ships completes the arrival process, the ship's manifest lists the compliment of pax & crew, noting any that are leaving the ship at that port, with the remainder departing onboard. If the ship acquires Visas on arrival, they must provide details of everyones travel plans to the local authorities.

 

When pax book overland Shore-ex tours, this information is known to the ship and the correct travel information is provided to the local authorities. Similar for officers/crew/entertainers etc that are paying-off, the authorities are advised they will fly out of the country. All others are listed as being aboard upon departure. Local authorities take a rather dim view of crew/pax that miss the ship's departure.

 

Had you applied for a Cambodia tourist Visa prior to the cruise and provided your travel plans, but had not advised the ship, it could potentially delay the ship's clearance. Had the ship submitted that you were departing Cambodia onboard the ship, but the local authorities had record of your alternative travel plans, the discrepancy would have to be resolved before granting the ship's clearance. Delaying the ship's clearance would delay everyone from getting ashore.

 

When you notify the cruise line of alternative travel plans, such as rejoining in another country, the Cruise Line must check the Visa requirements, as some countries may require a different Visa. The crew must also make changes to the ship's manifest, which requires additional workload. It is fairly common for cruise lines to charge a fee to approve this type of request.

With all due respect, you don’t know the details of what transpired in our situation. And Viking doesn’t get your visas for you, it’s the responsibility of the passengers to procure their own visas prior to boarding the ship (which we did in the case of our Cambodia visas). Viking made it extremely difficult for us even though they had no role in obtaining our visas. And there was nothing in the cruise documents that said we couldn’t do what we were arranging. From our perspective it most certainly was a courtesy call. We have traveled on our own all over the world for the last 40+ years and had not expected the rather exhausting and somewhat discourteous response from Viking customer service and management at the time. When we finally were able to talk it through with Guest Services and management on the ship, there was no problem. But it was the process before boarding that completely took the wind out of our sails. We met another couple on the ship who were doing exactly the same thing we had arranged but were not going to tell Viking about it. We saw them take off with backpacks from HCMC. When we saw them upon their return in a hallway onboard, they were royally pissed about the issues they had getting back on board and they decided they were going to stick with cruising with Oceania.

1 hour ago, Little Monty said:

 

 

 

 

For those who are tea drinkers, initially I went into the lounge each morning and made 2 cups of tea and took them back to the cabin. After spilling most of what was in the cups for the first couple of days I started ordering room service.

 

A pot of tea, some milk, 2 cups and 2 tea bags. Delivered hot to our door on request by room service.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are primarily tea drinkers, so on each cruise we ask our cabin steward first thing to take away the coffee service and replace it with a kettle for boiling water. Then we have room service leave us a small pitcher of milk to leave in our mini bar. I can’t do caffeinated tea so I always travel with a big supply of Barry’s Irish Decaff Tea. We’re happy.

4 hours ago, Jchivers said:

If an excursion description describes a stop as The Gateway to [fabulous and world-famous] Region X...that means it's an hour-long bus ride to get there.  🙂

More like HOURS LONG. We had a bit of an issue on our SE Asian Viking cruise in Nov. 2019. I think the description said our Cambodia stop at Sihanoukville was the “gateway” to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat—but it was only included as a $4,000 pp add-on for three days out of Saigon—an earlier stop. We wanted to go on our own from Sihanoukville, at a vastly reduced price, and rejoin the end of the cruise a couple of days later in Bangkok. When we made a courtesy call to Viking a couple of months before the cruise to let them know our plans (after making our own arrangements), the bottom fell out because they said we had to get permission from the port authority in Cambodia to leave the ship. It took three weeks and numerous calls to Viking—finally “permission” came through but we were too exhausted by the onerous process to follow through.

1 hour ago, zalusky said:

If you are in a PV or higher room they stock liquor in the room.  As a newby to Viking my question is what Mini-bar choices do we have beyond the generic aspect of Coke/Vodka/Sevenup/beer?

 

How much choice is there?  Anybody have a list?

 

 

We were on four Viking cruises—July 2019/Baltics—Sept. 2019 No. Trans-Atlantic—Nov. 2019/SE Asia—Feb/Mar. 2020 in PVs. Coke of our choice, tonic water, beer. Alcohol was mini-bottles of whisky (usually Dewar’s); gin (Beefeaters); vodka; white rum. Definitely able to get soft drinks of choice, mini alcohol not so much (no mini Bailey’s :-(). And then the PV inclusive fine bottle of French champagne.

On 4/11/2021 at 4:37 AM, Seaharvest said:

I think this is a good idea but I am so into this now I might just keep checking all of the Roll Calls because I don't want to miss anything. I will try to just read the other Roll Calls and comment only on my Roll Call and here.  And after a nice Spring the weather here in Norther Michigan is turning cold again for awhile so I will have time indoors to play on the computer. My first contribution will be that someone on one of the Roll Calls mentioned videos by Rick Steves and I have watched a couple of them and found them informative. One was a general lecture on Iceland with some history, and a few ideas about travel and sites. The other was about a specific spot. There are additional ones I will get to. How have I not heard of him before? Thanks for whoever posted that. 

We are from the Great Pacific Northwest and so have traveled with Ricky books and videos for nigh unto 40 years. I used to work for him in Edmonds, WA, back in the day in the early ‘80s before he was famous from his PBS shows (he is my age). We were pleasantly surprised he had added Iceland to his repertoire recently.

We wanted to go on one of these Iceland Welcome Back cruises but the dates did not work for our petsitter (three cats), so we’ve opted for a slightly earlier land excursion and will wave to y’all from shore.