Clay Clayton

They also will make it at The Living Room bar.

Welcome to Viking and you’ve picked a great cruise to start with. We did it last summer and had a great time. If you haven’t been to Iceland before and can make it work with your time and budget, I highly recommend flying in early as you will only get a tiny taste of Iceland from your one port stop. I’ve included a picture of Gullfoss (Golden Falls) which is one stop on the Golden Circle tour-easily doable at various price points as a day trip from Reykjavik. And I wouldn’t get your hopes too high regarding Northern Lights-we were gone from the third week in July until the first week in August and never saw the sunset …which means it’s usually too light to see the northern ones. The other phot below was taken on night at midnight. This was as low as we ever saw the sun.

That’s how it was on Sky for the WC which was new to us. I assume (and I recognize what that may be making me) that it’s the new normal but would need someone on Star to confirm.

On the older ships, the pool grill becomes the noodle bar at dinner.

Hope you’re recovered from the shock of not having twice daily room cleaning (we aren’t!). Our asian cruise with Viking was one they aren’t doing anymore (I don’t believe). We sailed from Bejing (Tianjin), had a couple of stops in China, Okinawa and another stop in southern Japan and then Shanghai before ending in Hong Kong. So not sure our experience will give you much insight. Additionally, as this was our first trip to the region, we did most (all?) included excursions. Drop me a line at BigNCBear at aol dot com and let me know which ports your cruise is going to stop and we can see if there is any overlap.

Perhaps we just got lucky, but we never asked about cancelations, we would just pop by the Maitre’d stand and ask if they could find us a table. Sometimes they said if we came back in 30 minutes they would have a table or occasionally they asked for a minute to set up a table and ushered us in.

If you aren’t up to walking around but would like to get a taste of Iceland, I highly recommend spending the morning at Sky Lagoon. After the overnight flight with little to no sleep, it is great to be outside and enjoying the warm water soothing those muscles that weren’t used much during the flight.

If our experience on the World Cruise from LA to London was that the quality of Starlink service ranged from “meh” to awful. Had lots of trouble posting photos to our “live from” thread and sending emails with photos…can’t imagine trying to stream

Thanks!

Sorry. Should have said not a promo that cuts the price almost 50%

It does and I think I read your CC review last night. Interesting that using the special ops boat has to be licensed but tenders don’t? Oh well, rules is rules.

Thanks but have done that and there isn’t a promo on Antarctica.

We booked on August 23rd and as I recall, GenVisa’s deadline was in October for those of us boarding in Los Angeles. So no issue there. We also were ahead of excursions opening though we did have to hurry to figure out what we wanted to book when it became time (late September?). If you hear of a deal on the longitudinal, let me know! We are currently looking at either the Toronto-Fort Lauderdale or the Lauderdale to Santiago segments as at around $5000 for $15 to 18 days, they seem like a deal.

Almost always, a server or the manager will jump in and ask if you need assistance if they see you struggling. I am sure if you found your table and then asked the server that is responsible for your table to assist you they will do so with a smile. And if my experience is any indication, once they help you once, it’s unlikely you will have to ask again. They will see you and immediately come to your aid.

How easy and expensive did you find the self driving tour. Would love to do that but when I’ve looked at the price of accommodations, we have been scared away.

Welcome to the last minute club!

Was that forecast for the northern latitudes? Was that forecast for those latitudes? Based on our visit last July, even though the sunset at 10 or 11 pm and rose about 4am, it never really got dark so would think it would be difficult to see them.

We are thinking about booking Polaris for either Toronto to Fort Lauderdale or Lauderdale to Santiago. If anyone has any been on either of these itineraries, I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts. We think it would be a great way to try out the expedition ships at a great price. But after reading the few reviews of these, it seems that is the only real pro for doing so, most reviewers say there isn’t much use of the special equipment nor many interesting ports. Lastly, if anyone has done Viking’s overland excursion to Monte Pichu, would love to know its cost and whether you found it a good value. TIA!

Following along to keep up with our friends, VaGirl and her boytoy. Hope y’all have a great cruise!

Afraid I’ll have to disagree which I don’t usually do with you!😂. Now rather than having a single place to send newbies to, there are two so neither will be comprehensive. To me there is so so much good info in the original thread but to each his own. I have found when I come across a post of considerable length I usually start at the last post and go backwards. When things become repetitive then I stop or skim.

Check and see where in “London” you port. If Greenwich then there is lots to see and you’re a an hour mass transit ride or 34 minutes in a car away from Central London. But if it’s Tillbury, you’re a two hour ride or an hour in a car to central London.

You would think but no. I believe it’s $100 pp but I can’t recall as it used to be $50. It allows deviation at both ends and often will allow you to deviate your airports. For example we disembarked a transatlantic in Barcelona and 10 days later flew home from Rome and our flights were “free” except for the deviation fee. You will need to talk with Viking to see if for example you could pay the deviation, fly into London for a few days, get yourself to Bergen, and then fly home from there (likely through London)

A couple of things Your friend doesn’t have to be on your same cruise to refer you and you get the discount-she just has to have sailed with Viking previously. If Oasis is your favorite ship, Viking may not be a match for you. It has less than a 1/5 of the number of passengers and with that comes less entertainment, venues, activities. We LOVE Viking for what it is (passenger crew ratio, mostly inclusive, not glitzy) and isn’t ) -no kids and no casino being the two biggies) but if you found Pearl too small and not engaging then you might want to watch some YouTubes. Gary Bembridge (among others) does a great job of describing Viking and what impact your cruising style has on your enjoyment of the line. While I don’t disagree that prices have gone up since COVID, we have still been able to book under promos (World Cruise, currently looking at an October 24 expedition) where savings are about 50% over initial rates. But as I noted, if you can’t be flexible with when you go and need a particular itinerary on a particular date, then I would book as early as possible. With the example I gave of last summer, we booked a year early as it was a birthday cruise and we wanted to be sure it did t sell out. If we had waited, it would have been over a $1000 cheaper per person.

As long as you don’t mind arriving the day of embarkation and having no control over the flights or routing. You can pay for a deviation to change the flight dates and pay again for Air+ to have some (but not guaranteed) control over your flight routing.