phil1107

Just curious if body lotion or cream is provided in the suites.

We were on Viking Mars in April. The wait staff and room stewards were exemplary. Good service combined with friendliness. The food was very good. There were some things things I did not like but this was most likely personal taste. The scrambled egg is amazing - I had it every day. The filet mignons grilled on the pool deck were the best steaks I have ever had. The swordfish from Manfredis was stellar.

Jaipur, Agra and Delhi are all extremely interesting if you like history. They are not as pretty or smart as some of the stops on the cruise. I deducted 0.5/10 for the extension because of the 2 Gandhi-related items which were of no interest to me. But don’t misunderstand me, the cruise itself was great (9/10) - fantastic service, very good food and amenities, and most of the stops were interesting. I found Goa dull and Bangkok not as interesting as I was expecting ( probably not helped by having a guide who seemed to lack knowledge). I wish we had longer in Singapore as we didn’t have time to everything I wanted. I wasn’t anticipating enjoying KL but I thought it was great. We befriended a couple on the cruise. They were unable to book the extension as it had sold out quickly. So if you decide to do it, don’t wait around.

We did this as a post-cruise extension this year. The historic sites, hotels and guide were great. I would rate it 9.5/10. I enjoyed it even more then the Across The Bay of Bengal cruise. I would do it again with no hesitation.

During our recent cruise, I drank copious amount of the excellent Norwegian Double Amber.

The link must lead elsewhere. The menu I see has nothing under $14. I am in Canada and I assume I default to their Canadian site

There is a ‘View sample menu’ link at the top of the beverage package page:

The Oceania website shows a sample bar menu with some very expensive drinks on it. It is hard to believe that these are covered by the Prestige Select package but I haven’t seen anything to say otherwise.

Would you say that Seabourn have the same clientele as Viking, Regent, Silversea I.e. some 50s, more 60s, lots of 70s, some 80s?

We are unhappy with the amount of the auto-gratuity and the lack of transparency over how it is divided. So towards the end of our recent ocean cruise, we requested that guest service remove 100% of it from our account. They did this promptly without any further discussion. We then proceeded to tip individual staff as we felt appropriate. I understand that this penalizes some staff but if Viking were more transparent it would be easier for everyone.

I feel similarly about the LA office but the service onboard is enough to outweigh this. The worst response I had from LA was when I said that I had a number of unresolved issues with them and that I wanted the contact details of a supervisor so that I could escalate. Their response - tell us what your issues are so that we can redirect them accordingly. I.e. send emails critical of the front line staff to the front line staff!

We were recently in room 3086 on Viking Mars. This is right above the restaurant. I heard nothing from below.

Just done this as a post-extension. Loved it.

I am booked in a V2. I cannot book specialty restaurants until on-board. But, contrary, to Azulann’s post, I can book included and additional cost excursions 60 days prior. I know because I did!

The Viking website clearly says (in several places) that the fare includes 1 excursion per port. Once stated this becomes a contractual obligation. My expectation is that enough extra places will be created to allow every guest (who has booked) to go the excursion. if they do not then sue them for breach of contract:

I seem to have been designated an email contact. All the marketing emails I get has his contact information on it. Unfortunately he frequently does not respond to my emails asking for further information. Is this a common problem? I have noticed the same pattern with Oceania. in contrast my designated contact at Silversea always respond promptly. It make me much more likely to choose Silversea over Regent.

So I have heard that you can buy the SSBP onboard. And on our last river cruise a couple we knew get it on Day 2. Do you know if there is any time limit? Could you buy it on the last day after calculating that it would save money?

I find it so amusing that every thread goes off-topic. This one has quickly gone from satellites to footwear! The thread I started on on-board coffee mainly discussed the milk!

I have heard that July-September can be rainy. Is June, therefore, the best month to do this?

So if I have understood the last few posts correctly - Silversea will charge extra for top-shelf cognac etc but this becomes complimentary with the $60 meal at La Dame.

Not sure what shoulder season is. What month was this?

But it was only today that I got 2 days notice to make final amendments for an April 18 sailing. So I think the ‘freeze’ is about 12 days.

Not sure what ACH stands for. It’s the option to debit a chequing account rather than a credit card. My MVJ offers me a 3.3% discount for doing so.

For a while I have has the SSBP in my cart. Since there was a recent price increase I assumed that there would not be another one. And that, therefore, there was no urgency to paying for it as long as I did this before the MyVikingJourney closes and details get sent to the on-board account. I found out today that this is not the complete story. On receiving an email from Viking saying that I had 2 days to make any adjustments to my MyVikingJourney account (and I assume that payments is one of these) I attempted to pay for the SSBP in my cart. I found that my preferred payment option ACH is no longer available. A message now tells me that I cannot use this 30 days prior to departure. Again Viking has really annoyed me as this is the first that I knew about this rule. They know that I always use ACH for pre-cruise payments and they know that this is in my cart but there was no message on the payment screen prior to this and no ‘heads up’ from Viking prior to the 30 days. Again poor service Viking! I am posting this so that others do not make my mistake.