claranda

Just being picky…but it is/was Her Majesty; HRH is the next step down, the one denied to Harry and Meghan! But let’s NOT start on about them…..🤑

Thanks for the report so far. It will be interesting for me as we’re doing the same trip in reverse next September. It will be a totally new route for us. We’ve only been to Vancouver/Whistler in Canada and only New York in the US - and all some years ago. I blush to admit that we didn’t enjoy New York much at all, so this time we’re thinking of flying into Philadelphia for a couple of days and then getting the train up to NY on embarkation day.

We were on the same Med cruise as Gary in March. It was our first cruise with Viking and I’d looked at his earlier Viking reviews and thought them very positive. I can see where he’s coming from with these comments; Viking can appear paternalistic or controlling (or reassuring to some passengers) if you take into account all the extras you can opt in to - the flights, the pre/post cruise stays, the included excursions. The important part is that you don’t have to opt in, and we tend not to. And other cruise lines offer just the same options. Like many others here, we enjoyed the lack of children and the casino and quite a lot of other aspects of a Viking cruise. There were also disappointments. We sailed on Seabourn in March, too (a result of various covid cancellations/postponements) and there were good and bad aspects there as well. I raised my eyebrows a little at Gary’s sudden turnaround on Viking, but found what he said of interest, as usual.