doglover3

I would recommend that as part of the included Viking (1) strive to offer a walking included alternative AND (2) post pre-cruise info on myvikingjourney that at port X shuttles will be available for passengers starting once boat has docked. Shuttles usually ARE available but knowing beforehand on myvikingjourney will let folks make more secure plans.

I agree with both of those suggestions. We are in the midst of planning our activities for Into the Midnight Sun and our reservation time is tomorrow morning at 3am. It would be very helpful to know if there will be a shuttle for our stop in Edinburgh, as we would like to spend the day in the city, on our own. I wonder if they don't post shuttle info because they want to "encourage" you to sign up for their excursions? At least in Edinburgh, we have other public transit options, but it would be more relaxing to not have to figure that out on our own.

I wrote to Tellus@vikingcruises and they responded within 24 hours. At the 60 day mark we will receive and email with gift selections.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Thanks for checking and reporting back. We are also just a little over 60 days out, so I'll be watching for that email! :)

The walk up/down Fløyen is a lovely option. I live just at the base of the mountain, and if I head up after work I'm up, down and back home again in around 1hr. That's at a fast-ish walking pace. So let's say 1 hour for either up or down should be a good estimate at a very gentle pace, stopping to rest and taking in the views along the way :)

Thanks for your quick reply. We would want to allow time for rest and photos :), so an hour seems like a good estimate.

Great, thanks for the recommendation. Do you know if these boat trips usually sell out in July? I don't want to get tickets ahead of time until I know what the weather will be like. But I don't want to arrive at the pier and find it sold out either.

 

Also, do you know how long most people take to walk down Mt. Fløyen? Ideally, I'd like to ride up and walk down since we didn't do the walk last time we were there.

I'd also be interested in how long it takes most people to walk up Mt. Fløyen? If we have the time and the weather is decent, I'd like to give it a try.

The fishery museum in Flakstad is a bit of a mishmash of old things - not a real fishery museum with glass displays, lots to read, etc. It's really more of a collection of perhaps one person's old things! It actually turned out to be reasonably interesting, fun, and photogenic. If you're just into poking around, looking at things, and taking pictures you'll probably be able to spend all the time you're given. (If not, there's a tiny restaurant right there for diversion!) There really is nothing else near by - not really a town or anything, just the "museum." (See my photos from Leknes here, but ignore the comment re having to pay at Nusfjord; that's if you come on your own):

http://www.pbase.com/roothy123/lofoten_islands_and_honningsvag&page=all) At the fishery museum, there was a blacksmith welding (making?) small cormorants, and some people spent a good amount of the time there watching him and then buying a cormorant. Other people mostly just poked around. I'm not a museum person, but did find this "museum" reasonably interesting! The church at Flakstad was a good stop, and so was Nusfjord. The tour guide added a short stop at a beach on the way back for maybe 10-15 minutes. (I don't remember the name, but maybe it was one of the ones that have been mentioned, and/or the one that was in the included excursion.) I guess the guides really want to show visitors that even in northern Norway, there are beaches! However, I just walked for a minute or two, and then went back to the coach - not much to see/do unless you wanted a coffee or a sweatshirt!

 

The port of Leknes is really between the towns of Gravdal and Leknes. One ship can dock there; others must tender in (short ride.) There's no terminal, but there were one or two touristy- type places right there, a big welcome troll, and I believe some cabs. If I had had more time after the excursion, I might have looked for a cab to take me to Gravdal, because the modern, red glass church there interested me. However, I don't think there's much in Gravdal - or Leknes! At least I got to photograph the church from where the ship tendered us.

 

I would either suggest trying to find an excursion by local vendor (and share with others to make it less expensive) or taking the Sund excursion from Viking. Then again, if you're in port longer, you may have more Viking excursions available than we did - if Viking had been able to offer a drive down to A, I probably would have taken that. However, I ended up being pretty happy with the Sund etc. excursion we DID take. And the scenery that afternoon and night was awesome, so overall it was a memorable day.

Thank you for your feedback. It's very helpful, as always. We also are in port for a short day, around 6 hours, and hopefully will be docked. The port information seems to indicate that and we look like the only ship there that day. Your description of the excursion sounds like it will fit the bill for us and I don't think we will have time to consider driving down to A. I prefer that both DH and I have the ability to look around and enjoy the scenery, rather than one of us driving, so renting a car does not appeal. DH has been reasonably successful taking photo with his iPhone from a coach, so that should work out. Now I just have to see if we can manage to nab two spots on that excursion. We will sign up for the included if there are no spots left and try to get on the Sund excursion once we're on board.

Honningsvag and Leknes/Lofoten are places where you won't be able to do much of anything around the port - definitely take a tour! For H, the included tour is quite adequate. For Leknes, I had wanted to rent a car and drive around to see the beautiful scenery. (And I believe Renardrouge's advice is spot on.) However, in Leknes our itinerary called for very limited time on a Sunday, and no car rental was possible unless I wanted to wait until one place opened a ways away and then rent a car for 2 hours! I couldn't even find a tour operator who could help me out. I took the paid excursion to Sund, Nusfjord and Flakstad (spelling may be incorrect!) It was pretty good, although with our time in port, we ended up with less time in Nusfjord than I would have liked. At the Leknes port/tender area, there's little there, and the walk to town is 30 to 45 minutes down the road, I hear.

Roothy,

We seem to have similar taste in many of the port activities. We are looking at the included excursion and the one you took out of Leknes when we cruise this June. My one hesitation with the paid excursion to Sund, Nusfjord and Flakstad is the fishery museum doesn't really interest me. Do you remember if there was anything else to see while you were in Sund and, if not, how much time did you spend at the museum? I would consider taking the included excursion, but can't figure out what to do with the rest of the time in port.

And btw, ShipsinBergen has a new thread for 2018. You might check it out.

Thanks for that information. I have subscribed to the new thread. And thanks to ShipsinBergen for all their help and information. We are looking forward to being in Bergen this June.

Here's the link, to make it easier to find the new thread:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2615207

So sorry for not understanding. Does that mean I am in a V cabin? :)

If you are in a "deluxe veranda", you are in a DV cabin. The V cabins are veranda cabins. As Dauntless has said, the cabins are the same, but the DV have a few more amenities and earlier reservation times. Their locations may also be a little more desirable, for some. If you go to this Viking webpage and scroll down to Stateroom Features, you should be able to see the list of amenities for each cabin category. I don't know which ship you are on, but they are all pretty much the same.

https://www.vikingcruises.com/oceans/ships/viking-star.html

Any reviews of other Mamsens items?

A little off the breakfast topic, a thread on desserts mentioned the "Success Cake" at Mamsens. Here's the link for that thread:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=54097953&highlight=success#post54097953

Thank you so much Cruiseskier for your wonderful review. Also thank you Cyber Kat for posting the link to Cruiseskier’s review in the 2018 Rhine roll call.

 

I just spent two days reading every single post on your review; thank goodness I’m retired, LOL. My friend and I decided the other day that we wanted to go on the Rhine Getaway. We have a friend who works for Viking and she told us about this cruise, so of course I had to check it out in Cruise Critic first. Thankfully I was guided to your review.

 

I’ve been on 43 ocean cruises, so it is about time to check out a river cruise. By the time I got to the 450th post I felt really excited about this cruise. We were able to book it yesterday morning. We got very lucky as options were very limited as the cruise is in 5 months. We will be in a Veranda Balcony room on the Viking Vidar sailing June 28th 2018 from Amsterdam to Basel. We had to go with this date so we could do the 2 days pre-cruise in Amsterdam and the post 2 days in Basel. The only drawback with the late booking is that we had to use the more expensive hotel Pulitzer in Amsterdam as the Movenpick was already booked.

 

 

I was really nervous about the ship as it is very small and not very many people. After reading your review I feel like I know what to expect both on board and on the shore. Now I’m heading over to the 2018 Rhine board and hopefully get acquainted with them. Thanks again, Kathy

We too had never been on a river cruise before our Rhine Getaway two summers ago on the Viking Alruna, after having enjoyed many ocean cruises. We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the smaller, more intimate river longship. I would hate to have to pick which type of cruising I prefer, but I can safely say I love both! :D

I'm sure you'll have a great time!

Let me correct what I said about keycards. I'm on the Sky now and seeing folks who have punched a hole in their keycard and have it on a lanyard. Clearly it hasn't been causing them problems. So I take back what I said.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

I think I've read somewhere on these forums that you can take you card to a Viking crew member and have them punch the hole. That way you know it doesn't go through something important. I'd include a link, but I can't remember where I read it. :o You could try a search.

Great thread, thanks. Taking our first-ever cruise vacation soon on Sky from Miami, I'd be grateful for any information on the following:

 

5) I did not see our cruise listed in the Roll Call section of this site. At less than 3 weeks out, is this unusual? Other Viking cruises immediately before and after ours are listed.

 

 

Thanks for any input.

We take our first Viking Ocean Cruise in June 2018, so I'm not much help on your first few questions. I did manage to find a roll call for the Feb 4 Turquoise Caribbean Seas. I hope this link works:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2563325&highlight=Feb

I am assuming this is the cruise you are looking for. It was a little difficult to find, so I suggest you subscribe to it so you get notifications if there are new posts. I didn't read the entire thread, but it did look like there is a Meet & Mingle, so you might want to sign up for that.

Hope you have a great time!

Yes, precisely why I said in my post we need to watch for follow up Visa actions, which as yet have NOT happened.

Here's an update from early May 2017 about the visa concerns in the NY Times. I couldn't find anything more recent, which I take to be a good sign. :)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/world/europe/eu-visas-united-states.html?_r=0

Fabulous photography! Thank you for sharing. We've been to a number of those ports, but makes me want to go again.

Oh wow. I honestly thought it would be more last minute. Thank you for your responses.

We were warned that it could be as late as when we arrive to check in, but it seems like each experience is different.

When you book a guarantee in any category of stateroom, do you pay less than the lowest cabin price on their web site for that particular type of cabin? And then hope to be upgraded to a higher cabin: DV6 to DV3 or 1?

We paid the going rate for our V1 Gty (there were no V1 cabins available at the time or we would have picked a cabin) and were happy to get upgraded to DV4, though prices had dropped and the DV4 was then going for the same price as we paid for the V1 Gty. I've read about others who got the same category they paid for - no upgrade. I think it's best to be sure you'd be happy getting what you were guaranteed. If you happen to get an upgrade, what a pleasant surprise!

I am wondering How far in advance did you receive your (Gty) specific cabin assignment prior to sailing?

We are sailing on June 23, 2018 and we got our Gty cabin assignment in late November 2017.

We’ll join you all at Jiminy’s table too!!!

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Just following up. We made final payment a little over a week ago. Within a few days after, I noticed on our MyVikingJourney account that our cabin had been assigned. We were lucky to get an upgrade that was basically the equivalent of the price difference when our TA contacted Viking. Since it was the same price for the upgraded cabin as we paid for our guarantee, I don't consider it any great gesture on Viking's part, but I am satisfied with the end result. Would have been nicer if Viking had just done that when asked, so we could have avoided the negative feelings, but I'm back on track hoping for a great experience on our Viking Ocean cruise!

We paid for a guarantee for a cruise in June 2018. Our cabin was assigned when we made final payment last month. We also received no notice, I just picked it up when I looked at our MVJ account. We got a small upgrade, though prices had dropped a little, so it was basically the equivalent of what we had paid.

I was able to find it using "Find a Cruise" on the Viking website. If your narrow it down to Aug 2019, you should be able to find North Pacific Passage in the bottom row, at least on my PC. Looks like a great cruise. We love Alaska and adding Japan and Russia would be exciting.

We are booked for July 2018. Purchased the cruise June 2017. Just saw they dropped the price $400 per person. Emailed out TA today. Waiting for her response. I expect to pay the lower price.

Good luck. I heard from my TA just yesterday that Viking doesn't really budge on that sort of issue and she was unable to get me anything, though she tried for days. I am still deciding if I want to try contacting Viking myself. The price has gone back up for our cruise, so I doubt I'd have much success. Let us know how your TA fares.

I didn't know it until I went to MyVikingJourney to confirm the price we paid and the cancellation dates but we were assigned a stateroom in the category we had guaranteed....so while I too was hoping for an upgrade, no such luck:loudcry:

 

Hope your TA works some magic...be sure and come back and let us know...especially if you end up with an upgraded stateroom...might give me some leverage! Thanks for your good wishes regarding our voyage...I am sure it will be fine, but was hoping for something magical....oh well.

I checked MyVikingJourney and we are still unassigned. Now I'm sort of hoping that they wait to assign us, since it seems like that might mean a higher category cabin? (yn) The lowest are supposedly sold out, though that has changed back and forth over the last couple of months. I will have to keep an eye on that. I will let you know what happens. Our trip is later than yours, so I may not have a final answer for some time.

Maybe the magic will still happen for both of us once the trip starts. We loved our Viking river cruise and the experience on board is what clinched it, despite some hiccups along the way.

Clay,

I too have contacted my travel agent and she is hard at work trying to figure something out with Viking I will likely give her till the end of the week and then contact Viking as well. I would be happy to take either an offer of OBC or a cabin upgrade. We'll see if the OBC is offered. If so, hopefully we'll be able to use it for a shore excursion or two while on the trip, since I know you can't use it to pre-book on MVJ. We can't cancel and re-book since we had used some other credits which would not be reusable.

Was your guarantee cabin assigned or are you still waiting to see where you land with that? Maybe you'll get a nice upgrade that way. Either way, I hope you enjoy your trip once you're onboard.

We find ourselves in the same situation as Clay and I agree with every point. It is disappointing to be paying the same price for a V1 category as others today are paying for a DV4.

The gamble we accepted was that we would get a V1 cabin or better for the price of a V1 cabin, though we would not be able to chose the location and we wouldn't know until possibly when we boarded. We have done this sort of guarantee with other cruise lines and it has always worked out to our satisfaction. We have never found ourselves paying the same price as others in categories higher than we paid. I also don't think this has anything to do with the guarantee. If we had paid the going rate for a DV6 cabin, which we could have gotten without a guarantee, it would now have bought us a DV3. So anyone could wind up in the same situation.

We have every intention of enjoying our cruise, but I do think that Viking needs to rethink how they manage price changes. It will certainly be a factor when considering whether I want to book with Viking in the future or another cruise line that will give us a price guarantee.

We are in a DV6 cabin for the January 6-16, 2018 West Indies Explorer cruise on the Viking Sea.

We had no trouble signing up for included and extra excursions last week. We will book our specialty dining dates tomorrow.

 

Happy cruising,

 

Gary and Nancy Rooker

That's encouraging for those of us in the DV and V categories. I wonder how passengers spefically in V cabins have fared recently, especially with the specialty dining reservations, which can't be made until you're on the ship?