kctwinmommy

In general, this is a behavior that annoys me! It's extremely rude to let any door slam. But then again, our society seems to have lost some of its common courtesy.

On 9/16/2023 at 7:07 PM, californiagirl said:

ChrisB that’s so funny!  I think we are no longer the Princess target market.  That’s okay, at this point in life we can afford Viking.  No so when we began cruising back in 1998.  I’m pleasantly surprised to hear that there is more included than I thought.  

We're the same! We never even got to Princess, we'd done Carnival for years. Honestly, we never had any problems with them, and we always did their longer cruises, which reduces the "booze cruise" type issues. Plus, we almost always went with some friends who were pretty loyal to Carnival, so it was about the time with them too. Our last one though, which was a 5-night cruise, was less than desirable. No real problems, but just not our people anymore. So we've done a huge 180 going from Carnival to Viking. LOL! But like you said, we can afford it too. We're splurging on a big one right out of the gate too, but it's also a retirement (hubby) and 50th birthday (me) gift basically. Not sure we'll done another BIG Viking one again like this, but possibly a smaller one. We'd also like to do non-cruise travel as well.

32 minutes ago, Butterbean1000 said:

That is another possibility.  We have one more cruise booked with Carnival.  Truthfully, we have started to look at other cruise lines. 

Well, if you look at my signature, then you'll see where our next one is! LOL! We're going WAY different from Carnival. But I know that's not for everyone. And it's a big cruise, not a cheap one either. We're doing this as a celebration too (retirement for hubby, 50th birthday for me).

30 minutes ago, Butterbean1000 said:

I think Carnival is going to have to get their heads out of the sand and grow pair and do something about this or they will start hemmoraging their customer base.  

Or they'll end up getting an entirely new customer base, but it won't include us. Our last cruise reinforced that for us.

We found some similar issues on our last cruise back in November of last year. Yes, it was a 5 night cruise, so not a total "booze cruise," but definitely different than the 7-8 night ones we normally do. And like you, some of the behavior is what we didn't care for. And like you said, it's not that it's Carnival's "fault," but they're not really enforcing rules that are set in place. It's why we're trying something extremely different for our next one.

I also agree with @mz-s - society in general has become so much more disrespectful it seems. Not trying to generalize it, but we do see it more and more in various places.

We just booked it for one night after our cruise next year based on the recommendations on another site. It gets great reviews on Google (4.7) and looks reasonably located near the major things. Maybe someone will see this and respond to their personal experience.

We've actually gotten burnt out on Carnival after our last one and we were looking for something bigger. So our next one is a major cruise, for us, and not on Carnival. We wanted a change. We also have another one booked in about 18 months that is also not on Carnival. I realize we don't cruise every year like so many other so, but we've had a few for sure.

3 hours ago, jkadventures said:

Yes you can. I had a wonderful manicure onboard. 

I want to see if they'll be able to do a polish removal for me?! I plan on using my Color Street nail strips. They can last for a good 3 weeks, but we'll be gone for almost 4. So if I do them before I leave, I may want to have them removed at a certain point and put new ones on. My other thought is I may wait until we're done in Athens and just do it the first day of the cruise. I know, some will think it's a silly thing. And trust me, I'm not exactly stressing about it, just planning my options. I just like having my nails always painted. I feel weird when they're not. LOL!

@uktog That is one of my biggest pet peeves! That has become too common all over these days. Why do you need to facetime with someone while walking through a store. Or sitting at a table in a restaurant. Of course, I also have issues with kids playing on all the devices these days with volume cranked up in all sorts of settings. I mean, I go to the grocery store and there's definite older kids (around age 6-8) sitting in shopping carts with their eyes glued to a phone or tablet.

But back to your post, that would be great if the crew would kindly remind people of their disruptive behavior. We've never had WiFi on a cruise before, so this will be a first for us. All our other cruises have been on lines where you had to pay for it. Being gone for a month, it will be good to check in on our college kid a few times, but nothing serious or any long talks. And certainly not in public like that!

Yes, my parents are on the Saturn and they had to cancel Newfoundland because of the rough seas. It was to be at a floating dock, and the waves were too dangerous. So yes, a sea day. They have had quite a bit of rain on this trip is seems. But that's nothing that can be controlled, so they seem to have enjoyed themselves no matter what.

They actually had their flight home changed by Delta for tomorrow, so they are going to take a bonus excursion to lower Manhattan. I say bonus in that they didn't plan on being able to go.

10 minutes ago, luvtosing said:

Thanks very much for this info. It seems like a canceled port here and there for this itinerary, no matter when the sailing! 

For sure! I don't know if all of the ports for Iceland are tenders, but the first one definitely was, so that one they had to skip. But I know my parents were happy to say they've actually been to Greenland. LOL!

My parents are on the Saturn right now, Iceland to NY. They had to cancel their first stop in Iceland (don't ask me the name of the port. LOL!). It was a tender port, I know that. But they did both stops in Greenland. However, for yesterday's port, my parents ended up cancelling their excursion. It was raining pretty hard all day, and while my mom is mobile enough, she has to be a little more careful. I'm sure it just wasn't worth risking a fall/injury as hard as it was raining. They did go into town today where they docked, even though it was raining for part of the day, but not as hard.

I do have our day in Bruges written up in my trip review, which is in my signature, with pictures. 😃

When we were there 6 years ago (on a different line), they had a bus that was making hourly trips to and from Bruges. It was/is one of our favorite cities!! We just walked around the main square area, visiting a variety of things on our own. We did a canal boat ride (I recommend doing that earlier in the day, as it got very busy in the afternoon). We had some Belgian waffles, hit a chocolate shop, a couple of churches, and even went to the Torture Museum - very creepy!! Oh, and our son was 14 at the time as well. It's a very easy city to get around, lots to see on your own.

Our son went to the teen club on a few cruises and honestly, it seems like they all are that way. The teens meet up on the first night, tend to find people they click with and then do various things. Our son would go the first night, which is highly recommended, and then I'm not sure what activities they do that first night. But, he would end up taking to some people and finding a few that he seemed to get along with. They would often meet up at the club then, sometimes doing activities that were planned, or just hanging out doing their own thing.

And yeah, no photos of it, most teens wouldn't share or post those here I would think.

20 hours ago, Frenchberet said:

Pizza Restaurant in Reykjavik

 

 

 

There was a bar here at home who had that on their sign as well. I think it might have said Yelp though, instead of Trip Advisor, but same concept. LOL!

We saw this while heading back to our ship in Roatan... I get the weapons, but slightly concerned about why they need the nuclear symbol there. LOL!

Wow! How sad! Hope he recovers! Crazy that this can happen to a crew member as well. =( We read about it with passengers often.

1 minute ago, Bruin Steve said:

Cindy, the cruise ships dock near the southern terminus of Las Ramblas...so, it's a fairly short distance to most of the hotels people recommend on ths board...and a fairly inexpensive taxi ride--which is how you are going to want to go from ship to hotel...especially with luggage.  From whichever hotel to the airport for Sunday, it depends on your budget...you can always pay for a taxi or limo to the airport...but, if you want an easy and inexpensive way, again, use the Aerobus.  It goes from the northeast corner of the Placa Catalunya to the airport, departing every few minutes with only a couple of stops.  There are several hotels waking distance to the bus stop...I like the H10 Catalunya Plaza--just across the square.  There is also an Iberostar hotel right near the bus stop and a few others fairly close...But this is the area you should really look at.  Almost everything you might want to do inn your short time in Barcelona is close by...lots of restaurants a nd a great El Corte ingles department store and supermarket right there on the eastern side of the Placa as well.  Good luck.

Thanks so much! I'll check those hotels out and see which ones look like where we want to stay.

I did scroll through several of the pages on here, but I may have missed it. We're coming into Barcelona next May, at the end of our Viking cruise. We dock on a Friday, and have the day there, but then disembark the next morning. We've opted to get a hotel room for that night, to fly out on Sunday instead. I didn't want to have to stress about getting to the airport the day we disembark. So we'll have all day Friday in town and then Saturday as well. Looking for a hotel near the cruise terminal for Viking, and then I'm looking, it appears there's plenty of public transportation ways to get to the airport on Sunday morning. Thanks so much for any tips/advice on this one night stay.

I see the admins at least moved this to River Cruising.

4 hours ago, photopro2 said:

 

However, following this thread's reappearance on the board I decided to investigate the screenshot data on which the thread is based, only to discover it does not relate to Viking Ocean at all. 

 

It is taken from an item on TripAdvisor where a Viking river cruise is listed as number 1 in "Lignan-De-Bordeaux Attractions". 

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g1939161-d10813724-Reviews-Viking_Cruises-Lignan_De_Bordeaux_Gironde_Nouvelle_Aquitaine.html 

See screenshot below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep! I noticed that too, as I also went to find where these reviews were on the site. As I commented, I wouldn't even think to look there for reviews, as there's a hundred different Viking cruises. I get it, the OP isn't happy with the results they got, but it seems they just keep rehashing things. We haven't taken our cruise, yet, it's a our first one next year, but we're super excited about it. My parents have taken 3, with their 4th one next week, and they have nothing but positive things to say.

It seems like lots of complaints about water levels and airfare issues, by just skimming through some of the reviews. And honestly, I've never looked at Trip Advisor for reviews on cruises. I read things here, on the book of faces, and anywhere else I can find information.

We do carry on only now, and we just take it to a table on the Lido deck, grab some lunch and drinks, and just hang around until our room is open.

I'm so sorry! Was a report filed with Carnival? I'm not sure if you have an idea when or where it happened. But I would file a report at least.