cocopico

We stayed at the Hilton (in a room with a very similar view to the one above). We got a room on the executive floor with access to free food and drink in the lounge. The Viking post-extension folks were in the same hotel, but we did it much cheaper on our own. The hotel is in a great location. We had no trouble transferring from the ship to the hotel on our own, and we just took at cab to the airport (which we arranged through the front desk at the hotel). I can't remember how much we saved, but it was significant.

We are about to book the 2019 Far East Discovery cruise in October 2019. While we have been on many cruises (mostly HAL), we only know what we read in brochures about Viking Ocean.

 

So here goes - thanks in advance for your thoughts!

 

1) We are looking at Penthouse Junior Suite #6023, deck 6 opening into the forward elevator lobby. Any issues with noise from above, below, or from the elevators?

 

2) Business class air seems reasonable at $4000 compared to October 2018 rates (JFK-Beijing, Hong Kong-JFK) and for $50 more, you get to choose your flights. Any recommendations on the best airlines for business class on these routes?

 

3) The Viking website says that minibars in Penthouse Junior Suites are replenished daily with alcoholic beverages? Spirits as well? Is this complimentary?

 

4) How large are the balconies in the Penthouse Junior Suites? Just two chairs and a table?

 

5) The Penthouse Junior Suites are located about halfway between midships and the bow - some more than halfway. Any issues with motion?

 

6) It's tough to tell how large the closet(s) are in these suites - are they adequate? I realize that the tux and gowns stay home for this trip, and that laundry and dry cleaning are complimentary....

We’ve had two PV cabins in that general area and never had any issues with noise. I would note, though, that the deck diagram is not always completely accurate. We had a junior suite on the 8th deck (8017) which on the diagram looks like it is several cabins in front of the elevator lobby. In fact, our door was right at the elevator lobby. Even there, however, we heard no noise from the elevators. (Those elevators don’t get near as much traffic as the aft elevators.)

This is probably a stupid question, but does anyone know why the expansive bow area on Viking Ocean ships are off limits for passengers? I’ve seen some publicity-type photographs where there were passengers up there, but on the three cruises I’ve been on passengers could not go out on the bow. Other (non-Viking) ships we’ve encountered on these cruises allowed such access. I can understand limiting access to appropriate times that would not interfere with crew activities, but it seems like it would be such a great place to enjoy scenic cruising. I’m assuming it is probably a liability issue, but it would be great to utilize that area. Thanks.

Phone usage on the ship is covered. I called from the ship and was billed $10.00 only. Please note that I made several calls that day.

I'm not sure what happened in your case but I specified the line and ship names as well as countries we will be visiting.

Cruise ship rates on Verizon are a separate category of international rates and are not covered by the $10/day Travel Pass Plan. I just re-verified that on Verizon’s website (which incidentally did not list Viking as among the cruise lines that they cover with their cruise line rates). See https://www.verizonwireless.com/solutions-and-services/international-travel/. If you sign up for the cruise ship plan it is a “pay as you go” plan at $2.99 a minute and 50 cents for each incoming and outgoing text message. As I mentioned in my original post, if you are in port you can often use your Travel Pass coverage while on the ship as long as your phone pings the local tower and not the ship’s cell antenna. At sea, however, when you are out of range of local, land-based carriers, I believe you will be paying very high rates even if you have the cruise ship plan.

https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/travelpass-faqs/

 

Check this out. TravelPass is very good. It worked for us on the cruise (you would need to list countries you will visit on the cruise) and our son during his travel in Europe. He used his phone all the time and the charge was $10.00 per 24 hours. This international plan works against of your current plan. We have unlimited data, text and minutes but if you have a limit, you would need to monitor your usage.

We do use the Travel Pass in countries where it applies. My point was to caution people that even with Travel Pass (or some other version of it from other carriers) if you are not careful, you may inadvertently access the ship’s cell tower even when you are off the ship, depending on the strength of the nearest local cell tower and where you are using the phone. In our case, we were using the phone on the dock right next to the ship, thinking we were accessing the local cell service (and therefore covered by the Travel Pass rates). It only happened to us once (I think in Zadar or Kotor) but the result was a nearly $100 phone call.

Most cell carriers charge pretty outrageous fees for cruise ship cell service. We have Verizon and use the Wi-Fi for communications while at sea. When we got back from one trip we discovered a $95 charge for a brief call from the cruise ship. As it turned out, the call was made in port from the dock, but the ship tower was stronger than the local cell tower and so the call was routed through the cruise ship tower, hence the exorbitant bill (at least that is what Verizon told us). I was able to prove that we were not on the ship when the call was made and had no way of knowing the call was handled by the cruise ship cell service so Verizon reversed the charge. In other ports, we made calls from the balcony of the ship and had no problems with those calls being picked up by the local towers. I have no idea how the technology works, but just a word of caution if you are using your cell phone on or near the ship while in port.

Hi does anyone have any experience regarding Viking airport transfer in San Juan have a cruise booked for March 2019 Thanks

We’ve done two San Juan-based Viking Ocean trips, one where we arranged our own transfers and one where Viking handled the transfers. Doing it on your own is very easy and easily half the cost of the Viking transfer (if you don’t use Viking air, in which case the transfer is included). Taxi service from the airport is very convenient and takes only about 15 or 20 minutes. They drop you right at the curb outside the port building entrance. There are Viking folks there to meet you and help you get processed in. They will take your luggage to your cabin. We had no difficulty at all doing this one our own, either transferring to the ship from the airport or from the ship back to the airport.

The second time we sailed out of a San Juan was after the bad hurricane season. We used Viking included air and the transfer was included. It took a little longer to get everyone together to fill the bus, but the wait wasn’t too bad — probably a half hour or so after everyone got their luggage. You get your luggage off the luggage carousel and then it all gets handled by Viking until it ends up in your cabin. (It is very important that you use the Viking-supplied luggage tags with your cabinn number printed on them.) The process went very smoothly.

Bottom line - if you have the Viking-included transfers, use them. If you don’t, you’ll save money doing it on your own and it is very easy. The cabs are right outside baggage claim and there is someone there to help you get your cab. The cabs take credit cards. Hope this helps.

In my experience, they use local time.

We did one river cruise (Nuremberg to Budapest) and were very impressed with the Viking experience. We never considered ourselves to be “cruise people” and wouldn’t be caught dead on one of the mega-ships, but the river experience caused us to want to check out the then new Viking ocean cruises. After our first Ocean experience, we were hooked. We’ve done three Ocean trips and are doing the “Into the Midnight Sun” cruise in July. We really love the size, scale and amenities of the ocean ships, and they just keep adding places we want to go. We may get back to a river cruise someday, but for now we’re sticking to Viking ocean cruises.

Nice to hear they might be changing up the entertainment a little. After three Ocean cruises with the exact same lineup (ABBA, Rat Pack and Beatles), it will be nice to see something a little different. The trios, pianists and guitarists are always good, if only for what they add to the overall ambience of the public spaces. Having said all that, I can’t say the entertainment is a big deal for me anyway, and I’m perfectly happy to leave the “glitzy” shows to the other cruise lines! :)

I totally agree that they should provide more detailed information on excursions in advance. The brief descriptions provided in My Viking Journey give a decent overview, but they are nothing like the descriptions given at the port talks. We have changed our plans several times after hearing the port talk, particularly after getting more information on how long the bus rides will be, etc. Unfortunately, by the time of the port talk it is often too late to cancel a paid excursion, but if you want to change from an included tour to a paid one, and there is still room, you can still join. I know that they sometimes have to make adjustments in the excursion schedule, which is understandable, but they know if a particular 4-hour excursion is going to include 3 hours on a bus and it would be helpful to have that information before making your reservations.

We did that cruise during the “quiet season” last year and it was fantastic. We did the Olympia tour in Katakolon and found it very interesting. My favorite, though, was probably the “wall walk” tour in Dubrovnik — I highly recommend it. In Venice we did a “Walks of Italy” after hours tour of St. Mark’s and it was pretty incredible. The tour guide was great and having the Cathedral essentially to ourselves was amazing (I think the tours are limited to less than 20 people). Otherwise I second the comment that Venice is great just to explore on your own.

We’re on that cruise departing Greenwich on July 7. Our itinerary shows a midnight departure. If your trip is on myvikingjourney.com, you can click on “My calendar” and then “view trip summary” and see all the port departure times. Hope this helps.

Thanks, but I think those are the same one-paragraph descriptions that appear in the MyVikingJourney. The descriptions provided in the port talks provide more details, such as how long you are going to have to spend on a bus to get to a particular location. I thought I saw a document posted online somewhere that included the details, but I haven't been able to find it again.

We are doing the Into the Midnight Sun cruise in early July. This will be our fourth Viking Ocean cruise and we are looking forward to it. As others have noted, the excursion prices seem to be a bit higher than on our earlier cruises with Viking. But here is my question -- does Viking post the longer, more detailed descriptions of the shore excursions anywhere? The one-paragraph descriptions in the MyVikingJourney are great overviews, but nothing like the descriptions given during the port talks on board the ship. We have frequently found ourselves wishing we had made a different choice after hearing the more detailed descriptions at the port talks, but at that point it is too late to make a change if you have any existing reservation on other paid (as opposed to included) excursions. Thanks.

Filters or PhotoShop? NO not a diss,, a real Q. :)

The photos taken with my DSLR were processed in Lightroom. A few are HDR and processed with HDR Efex Pro. The others were taken with my iPhone and were processed only on the phone.

We took this cruise over Thanksgiving. Apparently a good number of folks cancelled because of the hurricanes but we didn’t really see any damage in any of the ports other than San Juan, and even that was fine considering the damage done there. There were only about 600 folks on board, which was great. This was our third Viking Ocean Cruise, and we had a great time. Photos of the trip can be viewed here:

We were right behind you on the Viking Star on the same trip, leaving Athens on April 2. Our trip was equally fabulous, and I very much enjoyed your photos. We did not stay over in Venice, but will be there for the third time in October. I am excited to see that the construction on the facade of San Marco Basilica has been completed. My first photos had scaffolding on the right, and the second ones had scaffolding on the left. Maybe the third time really is the charm!

Thanks. There is still some scaffolding on the side of the basilica but the front is clear. We did a "Walks of Italy" night tour of the Basilica which was pretty amazing. We (three groups of 10) had the whole place to ourselves and the guides were great. I highly recommend it.

Beautiful pictures! May I ask what photo editing software you use?

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Robin

Thanks, Robin. I use Adobe Lightroom as my primary photo editing software.

Well you certainly succeeded in some awesome shots! Thanks for your response.

I am trying to decide whether I want to take two lenses on this next trip again, or get one that might cover the range.......

I would recommend 1 lens in the 18-200 range. I almost never used my second lens (the 16-35) and I find for travel photography you tend to use more wide angle than long telephoto.

Thanks for your kind comments. On this trip, I used a Nikon D800 with 16-35mm and 24-300mm Nikon lenses. The crowds in Venice were definitely tough to avoid, but the shots taken in San Marcos were early morning or dusk, when the crowds thinned out. The Burano images were taken after a rainy day and I avoided the main area, which was pretty crowded. I can't imagine visiting Venice in the high season!

Hi,

Thanks for posting your lovely pix. We are on the same itinerary on the Star on March 29, 2018.

Did u take the ship included excursions or did u purchase any?

Appreciate any info, this is our first Viking cruise.

Elaine

Hi Elaine,

Thanks for your comment. We took a mix of included and optional tours. Frankly, many of the optional tours for things like cheese-making, olive wood carving, pottery making, etc., were more like visits to places specifically set up for tour buses. It was not what I expected and I wouldn't really recommend them. The included tours are pretty much overviews and walking city tours and they are good for a general sense of the place you are visiting. All of the tour guides we had were quite good, and many of the included tours have the option of just staying in the port or city and using shuttle buses to get back to the ship. (In every port where you weren't able to walk to the city, Viking provided free shuttles.) The one optional tour we really enjoyed was the Dubrovnik wall walk -- really interesting and great views of the city and sea. It does involve some pretty steep steps in a couple of places but overall I didn't think it was all that taxing. I would not recommend the Kotor tour that take you over the mountains -- it would be a beautiful trip but the narrow winding road is undergoing major construction and we had major delays. Also, if you are at all afraid of heights, avoid this one! Before you sign up for any of the optional tours, be sure and find out how much bus time it includes. There were a few were you would spend the better part of the day in the bus and unless you enjoy that sort of thing, I think the time is better spent wandering around the port city on your own. I hope you have a great trip -- we did!

We just got back from the Viking Empires of the Mediterranean cruise from Athens to Venice (March 27 to April 4, 2017) and it was fantastic. The weather just couldn't have been better -- sunny and low 70's almost everyday. The Viking Sea was great.

Photos from the trip can be viewed here: https://milsteen.smugmug.com/Travel/Viking-Eastern-Mediterranean/

If you are looking for "ship photos" I included a good number of images from the ship on our December cruise in the Caribbean here: Viking-West-Indies

Thanks, Larry. My photos were taken with a Nikon D800, a Panasonic LUMIX (waterproof point & shoot) and my iPhone. The panos were all shot with the iPhone.

Thanks, everyone, for the very kind comments. The trick to avoiding people is to get around the ship early!