longterm

We hired a private guide in Athens, and she took us up to Cape Sounion. It was about 4 in the afternoon, on a chilly blustery day, so there were only 2 other people up there. Having said that, we really liked it; it's a commanding view, a beautiful ruin, and we were glad we saw it. Stopped at a great little Greek restaurant on the way back to town and had a wonderful meal.

In South Africa, not far from the spot where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. They weren't kidding about the baboons; they work the parking lots, and they can be aggressive.

You're probably right; they're obligated to move all the fliers to the airport, and they'll get it done. Since you paid for the transfer, I would just relax, enjoy your time in Venice, and count on them to get you to the airport on time.

We were on one of the first Viking cruises into Venice after the lockdown; we docked at Fusina, then they moved the ship to another dock nearby (I forget its name now); then, the next day they moved us BACK to Fusina. So if it were me, I'd make my own arrangements to get to the airport.

We did the same thing on our last cruise, Rome, Adriatic & Greece; my sweet wife likes to do laundry, and enjoyed being able to access the laundry late at night when nobody else was using it. The door was just across from us, and we never heard anything. Then again, we don't spend a lot of time in our stateroom, except after dinner when things are quiet.

I totally agree; we had a great time on all the excursions. Delphi and Mycenae were both incredible, the Acropolis was of course fantastic to see, and the Acropolis Museum is the best archaeological museum I've ever visited. If you have some free time, you should consider visiting the Plaka district (old part of Athens), find your way to the fish and meat market, which is fascinating to see--like nothing we'd ever seen here in the US.

If it's like the 4-day extension we did, you'll visit the Acropolis and Acropolis museum when you leave the ship in the morning, then check into the hotel after lunch sometime.

You're heading out on our favorite trip! We did that trip In March 2022, and had a great time; we did the 4-day extension in Athens as well. We've both said that we would take that trip again--perhaps add the Barcelona to Rome piece as well, or perhaps the piece at the end from Athens to Istanbul. Our next Viking cruise is the British Isles Explorer, but our other trip we've looked at is from Bali to Australia and New Zealand, so you seem to like the same things we do. 🙂 We enjoyed our Caribbean cruise as well, but the Italy trip was definitely our favorite so far. We're actually doing a mixture of trips coming up--the Grand European river cruise in October, then next year a Rick Steves Scotland tour that will dovetail with the British Isles trip, then with Odyssey Tours to Machu Pichu and the Galápagos Islands, and then in 2025, a land tour through Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. So, which is our favorite? I suspect the Kenya trip will be our best ever, but the Italy cruise is right up there.

Yes, I had arranged a private tour guide before we got there; as it turned out, most of what she wanted to show us was already scheduled on our Viking excursions, but she came up with some good ideas. On the night of our arrival, she drove us to the Temple of Poseidon, where we saw two other people, so we had the site to ourselves (photo below). We had dinner at an excellent Greek restaurant on the way back. On another day, she guided us through the Plaka district; the highlight of it was our walk through the meat and fish market, which was fascinating. It wasn't crowded on the streets, and we had a nice time. Then finally, she took us to her house, where we met her family, and she cooked us a Greek meal. We didn't make it to the archaeological museum in Athens, and I was told after that it was really nice. The museum near the Acropolis is fantastic though.

or as I saw it nicknamed in an article, the "Icon of Disease." Almost 10,000 people on board. Yuck.

It makes complete sense that it wouldn't work, and here's why: Viking Voyager won't work unless you're on the ship; if you are going on a cruise in a week and try to use the app while in your house, the app will load, but you won't be able to use it for anything. It's because the way that the app "knows" you're on the ship; when you connect to the ship's wifi, you're assigned a temporary IP address (a number, think of it like a phone number); the phone number's one that the ship's network has generated for you, and is one that it recognizes. These temporary ("dynamic") IP addresses most often start with 192, but there are a few others as well. (Incidentally, almost all wifi networks do the same thing (the Viking ships do); you're assigned a temporary IP address when you join the network--either if you're using wifi or if you're connected by ethernet cable. It uses a protocol called "DHCP" which assigns these IP addresses; there is a way to get a "static" (permanent) IP address, but unless you want to use your computer as a server and allow connections from the outside world, you wouldn't have a use for it--and Internet providers charge for static IPs. When you leave a Viking cruise, the same IP addresses will get assigned to the next passengers.) When you use a VPN, you go out to a server somewhere (let's say it's in Dallas, for example); that server assigns you a temporary IP address; it's NOT one that the Viking network recognizes as a "local" IP address. So, in the computer mind of Viking's network, you're not local--and therefore, Voyager won't activate. The other benefit of a VPN is that traffic back and forth through the VPN server is encrypted. Personally, I don't worry too much about a hacker on a Viking ship, even though I'm in the IT business and have been managing a server network for almost 25 years. I know I'm going to hear from those who will disagree, but on a Viking cruise, I'm not too worried about it--if I were at a Starbuck's or in a public library, I'd definitely be using a VPN though.

I saw that, but I don't want to get on their mailing list... Not impressed with their site.

Thanks for the info; I went to the Hurtigruten site, but there is almost no information on their site. A little better on the Natl. Geo site though.

I suspect you're right; he didn't say how he was getting to the continent, but since he was on a bus, I bet he was headed to a flight. I looked at quite a few carriers who do Antarctica tours, and none of them mentioned the chances of not being able to get to the continent (which of course makes sense). We're at least 2 years from going, so we have time to decide, but it sounds like we would *probably* at least get to spend some time there, if not on the Falklands or Georges Island. We're doing the British Isles Explorer next summer, and the Shetlands and Orkney are high on our list--from looking at reports, July is a good month to go, but who knows... I sure hope we get to see them.

My wife and I are seriously considering an Antarctic expedition on Viking for the future (probably at least a couple of years from now). I've read stories and listened to podcasts about people who took expeditions to Antarctica, only to get down there and find out that they won't be able to get to the continent. In one instance for example, a podcaster said he'd gone on a trip there, had all the jackets and gear, boarded a bus, and then they were told that the weather would prevent them from being able to get down there. He wasn't on a cruise though, so I don't know if he was supposed to fly there or if he was going to traverse by ship. How often do cancellations occur? From what I'm reading online, weather is mercurial and sometimes unpredictable. Have there been Viking expeditions that were unable to approach Antarctica because of weather conditions? If so, how often has this happened?

Well, all I can tell you is that I started playing clubs when I was 14 and all the way through grad school, and was in the music business in Nashville until the early 2000s, and I know from experience that many clubs (probably most of the ones I played in over the years) never paid a dime. It's the same story with union work dues; by rule, members of the AFM (the American Federation of Musicians) have to pay 2.5% work dues on every job they do. When we played concerts all over the country, the venues were supposed to file a contract through the union, and pay work dues for the performers. Invariably, they either refused or just neglected to; in some states like New Jersey, where Atlantic City had tons of artists performing, union reps would routinely show up backstage and collect work dues. But for other smaller venues all over the country, work dues didn't get paid. What this meant was that musicians like me wouldn't get the proper contributions to our pension funds, and upon retirement would have smaller pensions than we would otherwise have had. It all depended on the location and the local reps; in some cities, ASCAP and BMI (of which I'm a member) were vigilant--in others, not so much.

True; he did a cover of "And I Love Her So" that did okay. He was really smart to trademark "American Pie" though; one of my favorite band stories was when they were invited to an after-show dinner at a local restaurant called American Pie; the owner opened the restaurant just to Don and the band, who were treated like royalty. After dinner, Don turned to his manager and said, "Get the address for this place; they'll be getting a call." 🙂

You're right! I totally forgot about it. Have several friends in his band; he's a Nashville guy.

Well, that's true, but sadly, most clubs don't bother with paying license fees; I would assume that a company like Viking does, because they're so visible, but bars and nightclubs often don't bother with it. When you see a lounge band playing cover tunes in a nightclub, more often than not the club hasn't bothered to pay a license fee to have songs played in their facility, and enforcing this is a logistical nightmare for PROs. Despite the general public's perception that musicians are making a killing, the reality is that songwriters these days aren't making the kind of money they used to make before this era of streaming. Even huge artists like James Taylor have lamented that the royalties they collect from streaming--which represents almost all music sales these days--is a pittance compared to the money that used to be made from physical media sales.

Generally, streaming costs, or performance royalties, are the same whether you wrote a hit song or an unknown piece of music. All of this is dictated by contracts between PROs, (performing rights organizations), artists, and publishing companies, all of whom get a slice of the proceeds. For this reason, if someone does a cover (a new rendition) of an existing hit (like a Beatles tune, for example), the current owners of the Apple Music catalog (now Paul McCartney and Sony/ATV) get paid, as well as the performer who recorded it, who gets paid on the streaming or CD sale. There's also a slice that goes to the owners of the *publishing* of that work--it might be the artist, or it might be a company like Sony, BMG, or Warner Media. So, when you see an ABBA or Beatles show, the ship *should* report this to the PROs, who bill them accordingly. Sadly, artists these days often don't collect royalties when their tunes are played in shows, especially in clubs. I would assume that Viking does report on this, but it's murky water, and explains why the state of the music industry is in such shambles. It used to be that bands toured to promote their recordings, and not so much for the revenue; this has completely changed, and now big artists make less from recordings than they often do for touring. But I digress. An interesting aside: Don Maclean recorded "American Pie," and never had another hit. He was wise to trademark the phrase "American Pie," and today he's a multi-millionaire, just on that one song. If you see a restaurant called "American Pie," you can bet Maclean's lawyer has contacted them and is collecting a use fee from them. 🙂

Doesn't matter. Performing rights organizations (ASCAP & BMI are the 2 largest) collect for dead people all the time, because the ownership most often passes to descendants. You can bet that, every time Elvis tunes are played on streaming media or used in a film or on TV, someone's collecting royalties.

We hadn't planned on the colder weather, so bought caps and gloves once we were in Italy. In Greece, we wore jackets, gloves, and caps; if you plan to go in March or early April, plan on colder weather when you get to Delphi, which is at a higher elevation than Athens. I remember it being very windy and chilly on the Acropolis as well, and in Mycenae, where it also snowed, it was really cold.

We did; that was one of my favorite places as well--it was REALLY cold up there though, was snowing. Here are a couple of my Mycenae photos...

My wife has had issues with that in the past, but absolutely none on the Viking cruises we've done--both ocean and river.

Some photos from Delphi; you can see the snow in one of them.