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hqarangrsl

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About Me

  • Location
    Arkansas
  • Interests
    Travel, Football
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Viking Ocean
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Don't have one

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  1. I have never arrived in NYC, so don't know what happens there, but have never had that long in Miami, NOLA, etc. You must vacate your room usually by 8 and the ship a bit later than that. Your TA is probably erring on the side of caution just to make sure you have time to get to the airport 2 to 3 hrs before your flight. What you do depends on how long it takes to get from the ship to the chosen airport and what the lines are at airport check-in and security. It would probably not be pprudent to plan on being able to get off the ship before 7 am though. Just my thoughts, I am not an expert. Hopefully someone with NYC experience will chime in soon
  2. I think I was misunderstood in my last post. I was not being negative about Viking Air Plus as they are working within the constraints they are dealing with on Airline contracts. What I was trying to get across to people who are looking at this "tips for new Viking Ocean Cruisers" thread for help on how to solve their problems is that getting Viking Air Plus may not ultimately be the answer to getting exactly what they want for air arrangements - because the way Viking could always solve our issues in the past is NOT the environment they are working in now. So, take some initiative to try to solve the problem yourself if Viking encounters problems from the airlines that they can't resolve. Some of you are such loyal Viking Ocean fans that you may not be willing to entertain the idea that Viking Air Plus may not be the be all to end all for getting flights you want at this point in time - and it is not fair to the new Viking Ocean Cruisers to not tell them of the current day realities.
  3. Just want to share our recent experience with Viking Air Plus. Originally we did not opt for Air Plus. The flights we were getting from Viking were all going on United and Lufthansa - all through Chicago in January. We watched all of their changes to our flights for a couple of months and never saw anything we really wanted to do...connections weren't really good, departure and arrival times not good, etc. And, there were never any options available on MVJ self service that would not have cost a significant amount of additional money. About 3 weeks ago we paid for Air Plus and gave them 4 outbound and four return flights options. Originally they booked us on our #2 and #1 options. We were happy and felt the $200 was well spent. Then one week later they changed our flights back to United through Chicago and Lufthansa - same flights as before Air Plus payment. Went through our TA to say this was not acceptable and she came back and said Viking said if we wanted to change from what they had us on now it would be an additional $1053 per person. I went online that night and bought flights we wanted with good connections and arrival and departure times for less than what Viking was charging us for Premium Economy. We had good options or both Delta and American, so it wasn't that no flights were available. Bottom line, we cancelled Air through Viking and are getting a refund that more than covers the tickets we purchased and the funds we paid for Air Plus paid for transfers to and from the airport. We have never had this type of problem in the past with Viking. Don't know if it is just new people in their Air department who don't know what they are doing...... or if they are not getting decent contracts with airlines in the post-covid era...but it does not bode well for future Viking Air usage.
  4. We were using Viking Air for our Jan 23 Antiquities cruise and booking Premium Economy. The seats they assigned for the US legs of the flight were regular economy, not comfort class. So were the Europe legs seats. We cancelled Viking air and booked our own flights last week. For less than what we had paid Viking Air we booked premium economy and we were able to select Comfort+ seats at no additional charge (we tested Delta and American before making our flight selection and we were able to this on both). Additionally, when we booked United for a flight to another European cruise in Sept the comfort class seats were available to us at no additional charge. Not positive this answers your question directly, but hope it helps
  5. We have flown Delta, United, and American and none of them call Comfort + Premium economy. There is a significant difference (at least to us) between the economy comfort seats at the front of the economy cabin and the premium economy in a separate cabin
  6. Does the shuttle bus go into town Piraeus or into town Athens?
  7. T Mobile does not include cruise ships. My husband switched airplane mode off accidently last month on a cruise when he was using wifi to surf and a moment later got a text about connecting to the ship (not Viking) cellular. He asked me what that meant - I immediately turned his airplane mode back on. For that minute and a half or so the charge was $8.00.
  8. hqarangrsl

    Wine

    This is the Viking Ocean cruises Board. You need to post your question on the Regent board
  9. I read their web site and read recent reviews on the web and all of them indicated no better meals, no priority boarding, no premium meals, and no separate cabin. So, I just made my decisions based on those reviews. I saw nothing anywhere that indicated what you got. Maybe there wasn't a separate cabin on the type of plane we were booked on, because I also looked at Seat Guru and did not see a separate cabin. Oh well....... They used the Air Plus fee to pay for our transfers to and from the ship. So, maybe technically it wasn't refunded...but we didn't have to pay for transfers and we got a refund for the cost of airfare plus $4 - the difference between 4 transfers and Air Plus for 2 people.
  10. Understand and agree with your comments
  11. We got frustrated with the changes we kept seeing for our flights for a Jan 2023 Antiquities and the Holy Land cruise about two weeks ago. We fly premium economy and they kept putting us in Lufthansa and United flights coming and going. All of the United flights they were offering went through Chicago - and ORD in Winter is a recipe for disaster. And, Lufthansa says they have premium economy - and they charge an increased rate for it, but they do not include the typical Premium Economy perks of priority boarding, a small separate "cabin" on the plane, better than "economy" meals, etc. So, we don't want to pay for something that just means your seat is in the front of the economy cabin rather than the back. So, we paid for Air Plus. We provided 4 flights for each direction that were acceptable to us (one of those was the flight from Athens to home that Viking had us on). Our flights were immediately changed to one of our 4 choices. We were happy and felt it was worth the $200 extra to feel secure. Skip forward one week later and we receive a schedule change - Viking had put us back on the United and Lufthansa return trip. Contacted them and they said there was nothing available unless we paid an additional $1053 each. I got on the web and found flights on Delta and American that got us there and back at good times with seats available and called Viking Air to try to get those flights. They said they could not see those flights available to them. So, we booked flights we wanted with assigned seats all the way, cancelled our Viking Air and Air Plus, and purchased transfers from Viking to get us to and from the ship and the cost was only $50 more.....well worth it for the peace of mind we get for the next 2 1/2 months!
  12. Just wanted to provide some follow-up to my post about United changing our plane. When we got to Houston to get on our flight to London we got texts from United that we had been upgraded to Business Class. So, the change of plane was a good thing in the end for us. I think I have the lovely United person who I talked to after we got the text that the plane had changed. I think she took pity on us and flagged us for the upgrade before all other Premium economy passengers - so sometimes being nice to an airline rep has benefits!
  13. OTJ, I feel your pain! I haven't gotten my TA involved yet, but I am watching the daily changes and cringing every time I get an email. However, I am beginning to get to the belief that Viking Air is probably not as much to blame as the airlines are. We are taking a cruise (northern Europe on NCL - we had old credits that were going to expire) leaving on Monday. We booked our air on our own because we had credits from a previous United Polaris Business Class flight that, because of a plane change at the last minute, was not Polaris - but an old plane with business that is what current Premium Economy is. We booked Premium Economy on the flight for this cruise. Today (we leave tomorrow) we get notified that they have a plane change and our new plane doesn't have Premium Economy - so we get Economy....and I can't get seat assignments until we get to the airport because they need to "reflect us in premium economy in their records" in case they go back to a plane with that class of service. Oh, and if we want to get our money back for the increased price we paid for premium economy vs economy - we have to provide "documentation" to them after we return in a request for a refund. Maybe Viking air is doing the best they can with the sorry state of airlines today???? For now, I am going to go enjoy my this month cruise and worry about January after we return!
  14. OTJ - Are you doing the Antiquities/Holy Land cruise? We are on that and I started getting flight skeds about a month ago. Started out with flights we really hated. Then came one with a flight to Rome that we are OK with - return from Athens not so good. Then yesterday we got a new change that put us back on the original flight to Rome (still hate that for numerous reasons), but gave us a change for the return flight from Athens that we like. TA says to just wait until just before ticketing and if we don't have what we want - then pay the fee and tell them what we want. Just curious if you are getting these kinds of changes so frequently...
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