Gojagators

We did the last cruise of season in March of 2023.  Saw the northern lights on 5 nights of the trip but of course thats unpredictable.  Alta and Tromso were great cities to visit and we loved the trip.  Hope you get to go.

Just wanted to thank everyone who has responded with suggestions for our short visit to Paris. We have read all the suggestions and went into this with the realization that we will need a much longer time in Paris to really see and experience the city.  We have tentatively planned to follow a path roughly like the route @DGHOCsuggested and possibly take the Batobus suggested by @formernuke.  Mostly we are hoping to do a little walking after the long bus ride to get to Paris and will definitely set aside a little time to sit and enjoy a coffee or glass of wine while soaking in a little of the vibe of Paris.  We are going to do less rather than kill ourselves trying to see everything.   

Any further suggestions are certainly welcome.  Thanks everyone for the input

We considered the HOHO option but decided with only 3-4 hours we'd likely spend most of the time just seeing things from the bus.  Plus we have read a few horror stories about being stuck in traffic.  It is definitely our plan to return for a multiple day visit but we aren't getting younger and there is a whole lot of the world we also hope to see.  

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

We are booked for the included trip to Paris for our upcoming Trade Routes Cruise.  While I agree that the long ride to get there and back is going to make it challenging to see much, we decided that this may be our only chance to see Paris.  Does anyone know where we will be dropped off in Paris?  I've been looking at a map of Paris to come up with an idea of what we might be able to see.  Any suggestions from anyone who did this excursion?

Thanks for all the daily posts.  I've followed along from the very beginning of your odyssey.  Truly the trip of a lifetime.  If you are ever headed to the northeast coast of Florida I'd love to buy you a drink.

Definitely keep checking on MVJ for availability.  We were able to get a booking for the train trip 2 months after we booked our cruise for this fall when it was originally marked as sold out.  

I second @SailorPaulH suggestion of Cafe Loki.  In addition to a good lunch be sure to try the Rye Bread Ice Cream.  It's worth every calorie and truly unique!

I agree with all the suggestions so far, and you will really enjoy Reykjavik when you go there.  For something totally different the OMNOM chocolate factory tour was truly amazing. Learned a lot about chocolate and had 20+ different batches to sample and learn the differences between them.  Also, the hop on hop off bus was a great way to see a lot of the city in a short time.  

Thanks to this thread I kept checking MVJ for our upcoming Trade Routes and Mediterranean Antiquities cruises and was able to add the 4 night pre extension in Norway, and the 4 night post extension in Greece today.  Both of these were sold out when we booked the cruises.  My wife really wanted to go to Oslo and take the train to Bergan to start the trip.  Thanks to everyone who suggested to keep watching for openings on MVJ.  

Good luck to all onboard and hopefully this doesn't spread to any more onboard.   We are headed to Iceland for the July 20 sailing and I'll be watching for any updates.  

@onlyslightlymadand @Little Monty

Thank you for giving us the info on what is happening from your observations.  I fear your reading of the situation is correct and I'm going to be making a plan B for next year.  

We are also booked on the Orion for Auckland to Bangkok in February.  If you look at the posts from the Australia/New Zealand Forum here on CC the residents of those countries are fairly pessimistic about the chances that there will be a summer season (Oct-Mar) in that part of the world.  Things have changed rapidly in recent months so  its still up in the air currently.  I suggest keeping an eye on the Australia/ New Zealand forum for any hints as to what might happen.  

Heart of the glacier is available on the July 20 departure also.

We also received the same email from Viking last night.  There's definitely some major damage control going on behind the scenes.  I hope everyone got the excursions  they wanted.  I want to extend a major thank you to @Peregrina651 and the other people on the first 3 sailings for the screen shots, spreadsheets, pdf's and other suggestions you posted before yesterday.  Thanks to all of you we knew prices and some ideas of times and my wife and I knew in advance exactly what we wanted to book when the system was working.   In the end we got what we wanted and I hope the frustrations of yesterday will be a fleeting memory by the time we board on July 20.  Here's to hoping its smooth sailing going forward for all of us.

What's the best single malt in the house?  After a very trying but finally successful day booking our excursions for Iceland, I really need a shot.  Heck, just give me the whole bottle.  Packing can wait for now.

After a very trying day we were able to book all the excursions that we had on our list except the included walking tour "Heimaey on foot" which was not a big deal (we're doing the other included tour instead and skipping the follow up hike).  It took 2 chat sessions with some incredibly helpful agents to straighten everything out and to get a refund for double charges.   I really hope Viking learned something today and gets things fixedd for the future.  This was not Viking at their best by a long shot.  And after all that, I'm finally getting very excited for our July 20 sail date to get here!  I think its time to head to the explorers lounge.

Well at this point I have no idea if we have the 3 excursions we put in our cart and are showing as charges twice on our credit card are even booked.  When we intermitantly can get into the excursions the ones we want showed in our cart and need payment.  Our cart shows 3 items in it but going to checkout shows our cart as empty.  Our calendar shows the excursions with dotted lines around them.  Beyond frustrating and NOT what I expect from Viking.  

Anyone who was able to see and put anything into their cart is way ahead of us.  We keep getting error messages or no shore excursions to book messages.  I feared this would happen when they opened up all cruises left at one time.  Arrrgh   

12 hours ago, Jim Avery said:

We really need to get over this.  You can have serious, lingering effects from many diseases...... Including death....  This is not worth the panic and shutdowns.  Flame away..

Jim    I actually agree with you up to a point.   There's enough vax/ antivax and lockdown/ open up threads on CC now so lets skip that debate here.  

However, The question of allowing non-vaccinated passengers to sail on Viking cruises is one area I will not compromise on.  Its not that I'm really worried about getting covid from one of them, its the risk of an outbreak among them that disrupts my vacation. I'm not willing to be on this years version of the "magical mystery tour" that Heidi13 and others took last year on the world cruise.  We have 2 back to back cruises booked that will be 36 and 92 days long including the pre and post extensions.  We are spending more money and time on these 2 trips than we have ever spent before and the ports are a lot of our remaining bucket list destinations.  I want  to minimize the risk of a disruption as much as possible.   

While Countries requiring vaccination for passengers and crew entering their countries may let Viking and other cruise lines off the hook for setting a vaccine requirement as a condition to sail with them, is that really the best way to set corporate policy?  This is a real dilemma for the cruise lines.  No matter what Viking decides they are sure to upset some percentage of their customers.  

We have 2 back to back cruises booked with Viking for this summer and another set next year.  There is always a chance that something could happen (bad weather, noro, personal medical emergency, mechanical problem,  etc) that interrupts the trip.  That's life, there's always some element of risk involved when we travel.  However the chance of a covid outbreak that causes us to miss ports if Viking allows non vaccinated passengers on board is not one my wife and I will accept.  Sadly we will cancel 2 of our dream bucket list trips and we will have to look for a new cruise line or other means of travel.  I really hope we don't have to make that choice.  Losing one year of travel has been bad enough, I don't want to miss another year.  

@Heidi13  Thank you for your very detailed explanation of how a ships safety procedures are developed.  When Viking introduced their health and safety measures in December of 2020, they were very progressive in having arguably the best program in the cruising industry.  They were using every known procedure and even leading the industry by having testing available on all their ships.   However any safety program needs to evolve over time as new knowledge is gained and new methods become available.  Vaccines were still in development and testing when their program was announced and it was not reasonable to include them at that time.  However, times are rapidly changing and vaccines are becoming more available and their distribution is ramping up.  I'm having a hard time understanding why Viking is hesitating to update their policy to require all passengers and crew to be vaccinated if they truly want their procedures to be industry leading.  As we are all too aware covid is an easily identified risk to any cruise line and in order to reduce that risk to "ALARP" status wouldn't that include vaccination now?  

And I really want to thank you again for all the time and effort you have put into providing us with the detailed posts you add to the boards regularly.  

I would like to urge anyone who reads these boards to email Viking at tellus@viking.com.  They will reach out to you and genuinely seem interested on getting peoples thoughts.  The rep I talked too actually listened and asked for my thoughts on a few things.  It wasn't just a one minute call thanking me for my email, it was a real discussion about a number of issues.  

54 minutes ago, OnTheJourney said:

So you're suggesting that there are to be no excursions ashore? If that's the case, I have no further interest in cruising. Just getting on a ship for the sake of cruising around and not really getting to explore new places  just doesn't seem like money well spent to me. Are you saying that people should not be allowed to go ashore at all?  Once again....not interested. 

No.  We discussed making a number of excursions much longer to fill the time spent in port or possibly having a  morning and different afternoon included tour available.  Like you I have absolutely no interest on just floating around the ocean.  My wife and I cruise for the ports and prefer as few sea days as possible. We also discussed arranging private tours or allowing free time in ports if everyone on board is vaccinated but I got the feeling that is less likely at first.

Well I got my call from Viking today in response to my email I sent.  I had a very nice conversation and told him that I feel that vaccination of all passengers and crew are necessary for us to cruise safely.  He told me that Viking has a committee that is very seriously considering requiring vaccination to travel and that he felt it was likely that it will be adopted.  One issue he mentioned was how they could determine who has actually been vaccinated and avoid people trying to get by with some faked vaccine document.   We also discussed shore excursions and I told him that a 2-3 hour tour and then a return to the ship would not be acceptable to me.  He assured me that they are very aware of that issue and that is the other thing that is actively being discussed. For whatever its worth, he told me to expect an announcement soon with any updates to the health and safety program. 

Be sure to email Viking at tellus@viking.com if you have any input for them.  They are listening and will reach out to you for input.