Twitchly

This is helpful. It confirms what I figured: Viking will still allow you to cruise if you mess up the timing of your pre-cruise testing. One less thing to lose sleep over.

I’ve only heard of it on a couple river cruises. Would love to see it extended to ocean.

Mostly my husband, who is a hospital physician. Part of his job for a while included tracking statistics. You can also Google “hospitalized due to Covid vs with Covid.” Some hospitals are starting to differentiate, such as in this article: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/the-difference-between-being-hospitalized-for-covid-and-with-covid New York found that 57 percent of their hospitalized Covid cases were actually there due to Covid. The rest were there for other reasons. Statistics are tricky things, and lazy reporting doesn’t help. And since I’ve probably tread too far off into Covid-land here, I’ll bow out.

About those hospitalizations … most (all?) hospitals now test inpatients for Covid as a matter of course. Unfortunately, most reported statistics don’t differentiate between patients hospitalized due to Covid vs. patients hospitalized for other reasons who also test positive for Covid. It would be far more informative if they did. The death rate, thank God, continues to go down and is now at the lowest rate since the pandemic started, according to WHO. That’s very good news!

We’ll be in London for several days before joining Viking. We’re planning to bring a proctored antigen test and test in our hotel the day before we board. We’ll probably test ourselves before we fly to London as well, and I may do a PCR test for that because I recently had Covid and could test positive off and on for up to 6 months. If that comes up positive, we’ll cancel and file for insurance recovery. It feels like such a crapshoot.

Since we’re talking about a refund of about $1.75K per day — completely lost if we stay on board — it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I understand others feel differently. If we were near the very end of our cruise, or if we were cruising in Viet Nam or the Amazon rather than the UK, I might be more likely to write off all chance of a refund. Maybe.

Not much of a risk. If we stay onboard, we’re guaranteed no coverage, no refund. If we get off, we at least have a chance to salvage something.

We got confirmation today from our insurance company (not Viking’s) that we’re only covered for trip interruption if we quarantine off the boat. So now we know what to do. Hope you have a lovely, Covid-free cruise.

A few pluses for the Viking extension: - They take your luggage in a separate van so you don’t have to lug it yourself. - The tour guide we had on the train was great, fun and informative. - Viking reserved two train cars, and we had a fun group. - We were given vouchers for food. - At the other end (we went Bergen to Oslo), we got a quick tour of Oslo, followed by a good dinner in a restaurant on the water. We extended our stay in Oslo to two nights instead of one, which gave us a full day in the city on our own. We would definitely do that again.

Good advice. This morning I sent an email to our insurance carrier (not through Viking), and they confirmed that there’s no trip interruption coverage for us if we stay on board — but there is if we get off. So there’s our answer. If we win the booby prize and test positive, we will ask to be ejected as quickly as possible.

I’m torn. As I understand it (and I’m far from certain about this), if we remain onboard, there’s no trip interruption and therefore no insurance refund. Even though our expensive vacation is effectively over (unless sitting in a stateroom counts as a vacation to someone). On the other hand, if we leave the ship, that could count as trip interruption and allow for us to recover some money. If that’s the case, I’d rather sit in a hotel room of whatever quality and salvage something from our lost vacation.

Great read, as always. At the end of April, more than 30 of us (myself and friends and friends’ family members) got Covid within the same week after a series of shared events, and our trajectories have all been pretty much identical: sore throat, mild headache, slight cough, congestion and sniffles. And a bit tired. Basically, the symptoms of a cold or mild flu. (I had a very slight fever for a day or two.) Lasted just a few days for all of us. Most of us were back out and about after our five-day quarantines. Ages in our Covid club range from 6 to 80+, and we range from vaccinated and boosted (me) to completely unvaccinated. (The unvaccinated friend had some digestive issues as well and was sick a few days longer — he also has some of those “pre-existing conditions” — but is thankfully fine.) It has taken a bit longer for our singing voices to fully return (some of us sing in a choir). But aside from that, no lingering effects. All of which is to say that Arlona’s symptoms sound very similar to what all of us experienced, and there’s every reason to hope she’ll be feeling much better very soon.

Great to see you’re keeping your sense of humor, Gary! Love the t-shirt. 😄

Fair enough. For what it’s worth, this wasn’t Gary’s first Viking Ocean cruise. He did a review last summer that was overall very positive. He’s been on one more Viking Ocean cruise than I have at this point. 🙂

Sorry to hear it. May it pass quickly.

I’ve watched a few of Gary’s videos as well (including at least one other Viking Ocean review he did a while back, which was quite positive) and would agree with Clay. He seems pretty even-handed to me in his reviews. I’d much rather hear an honest take on something than a glowing advertisement. In this case, I think he was wise to point out aspects of Viking’s culture that might not appeal to some and will appeal greatly to others. That’s something I want from a reviewer. I also think there are limitations to just asking a cruise line’s most loyal/experienced customers what they think. Generally, they’ll also be that line’s biggest fans. Nothing wrong with that, and I definitely learn a great deal from them, but there’s also something to be learned from why someone doesn’t want to cruise again with a given company, or why they might cruise with several companies for different kinds of experiences. Since I’m so inexperienced in this form of travel, I particularly value hearing different viewpoints.

That was fascinating. Thanks for sharing it. I really don’t have anything to compare Viking to; the only other cruise line I’ve used was long ago and for work. So when he comments on the sheer volume of cruisers jamming onto a single excursion, I would add that we often experienced the same thing, but I just assumed that was part of any cruise experience. We chose a few excursions that didn’t feel quite so jammed, but overall it felt like most of our sightseeing was done with hordes. Again, I assumed that was common to all cruise lines. For our upcoming cruise, we’re considering doing more on our own. He mentions that his partner would miss the casino and “high-end” evening entertainment of other cruise lines; that’s not us at all, but obviously tastes differ. We also loved the aesthetic of Viking’s decor. He notes the focus on learning about the places you visit with Viking, which is one of the main things that drew us to it. We really enjoyed the opportunities Viking offers to do that. And he thought the food was excellent, as did we. But what I found especially interesting about his comments — and what will probably draw the most impassioned debate on these boards — was what he had to say in the first few minutes about what he called Viking’s almost “paternalistic” approach to its passengers. That feeling of being “cared for” by Viking is something I’ve seen mentioned often as a big positive on internet boards — “Don’t worry, Viking will take care of you” is a frequent phrase. He found it a mixed bag, appreciating some aspects (the staff’s attentiveness to his desire to avoid alcohol) and not others (feeling too directed into a more Viking-curated experience, and Viking’s daily testing protocols). Again, I don’t know how other cruise lines compare. But his comments turned on a light bulb for me about the high passions expressed around Viking’s daily testing rules and why my husband and I may be out of step with a significant part of Viking’s demographic about this — and about other things as well. We’re not really looking to Viking to “take care of us” to quite the degree that others might be, at a number of levels. So while Viking is a great fit for us in some ways, this podcast has helped me better understand where it’s not, and why. If someone is considering sailing with Viking for the first time, I think they’d do well to listen to this podcast and see what they think.

Done. Though not specifically for that reason.

Good. Our TA said nothing about it. I found out about it here.

It’s a hot-button topic on the discussion boards. But if you aren’t an internet junkie, I can see how you could miss knowing about this. It certainly wasn’t emphasized in the documentation we received, and it’s well buried on the web site.

I thought perhaps the crew member was new and didn’t make it to the ship in time. No idea where I got that impression, though.

Yes, it is. I would much rather just get off the ship and quarantine in a hotel for 5 days or whatever that country required, especially if our trip insurance wouldn’t cover us if we stayed on the ship. Then afterward we could spend whatever time we had left traveling around wherever we were and try to salvage something from our vacation.

Was this a penthouse veranda room?

So will your group be the first? If so, you’ll have great bragging rights — the first people ever to cruise on Mars! 🪐

Did you have any choice in the bottle of wine? Or was it just “red or white”? Did they bring you a new bottle each day?