gnome12

I know you know what you meant, but you worded it wrong. The ban is not on zero emission ships, the ban will be on NON zero emission ships, i.e. all ships will need to BE zero emissions.

I really think that the OP was asking about whether passengers serve themselves from a buffet or whether there is staff to do the serving. I don't believe the issue was table service. The question came from a health perspective.

The train schedule is available to early December on vy.no. The 2024 schedule was the same as the 2023, so I assume that the 2025 schedule will likely still be the same. Last year the new schedule came out in early December and I was able to book the return trip with Norway's Best on December 13. I actually booked 2 return trips because I was worried about the timing, which was a good thing because the original schedule had the fjord cruise earlier than the 9:30 it turned out to be on the new zero-emissions ferry, so as soon as I knew that for sure I cancelled by reservation on the earlier train.

There may be different rules in Norway and Iceland, as well as different rules for different ports. My cruise tendered at both Geiranger and Flam. In each case there was the possibility of docking. My thought was that because we were the smallest ship in port, our tendering would create less traffic and pollution because fewer trips would be required than for the larger ship in port with us. I have no idea if that is the reason, but that was my thought.

When I was working (pre-Covid) there would always be someone with a kid in Guides who would bring them in, put them out in the kitchen, and sell them. (It was considered impolite to go office to office, but leaving them in the kitchen avoided anyone feeling pressured to buy.) I have on very rare occasions seen a group of girls selling at a mall, but never door-to-door.

I don't drink much alcohol. However, soft drinks in Europe are frequently more expensive than beer or wine, and might not be included in the basic fare.

@Cruise Gopher specifically mentioned that they were not interested in midnight sun.

This was actually an aunt bringing some boxes of cookies to our singing group. I have no idea what (or if) the guides do anything differently when they sell them as a group.

This hits all 3 major deep water fjords, Geiranger, Olden and Flam. However, you might be too early for the roads to some of the viewpoints to be open.

Viking used to have a constant 2-for-1 sale. I think they finally stopped it (maybe they were forced to) and reverted to a more normal approach. In fact, I think that I read here that they don't play with the base fare, they play with inclusions and free or reduced airfare.

For me I use cash regularly for 2 things only. My cleaning woman, who, when I asked about e-transfer looked at me blankly so I continue to pay her in cash, and I go to monthly concerts by a band of mostly retired musicians and music teachers, and they are still cash only. And, just tonight, I bought a box of Girl Guide Cookies (the chocolatey mint ones) that were being sold at my singing session.

Who knew???

I always thought that a currant was a completely different fruit and that it actually is a berry. Blackcurrant, redcurrant (and wikipedia says there is a whitecurrant). In the US what you call a currant is (again according to wikipedia), a Zante currant - a dried black Corinth grape.

Keukenhof also plants bulbs that are expected to bloom at different times, some are earlier varieties and some are later. I think if you are in the middle part of their season, you are likely to see a pretty good variety. (I was there at the end of April in 2010, and the gardens were spectacular.)

I think the later cruise might be considered a more desirable autumn cruise. The company has to draw the line somewhere, so there will always be 2 cruises close together with differing pricing.

Here, in Canada at least, sultanas are raisins.

I think for any European river cruise, using Euros would not be unreasonable. Even in countries that don’t use the Euro, the person accepting the currency is generally close enough to a Euro country for his/her own use, or can exchange it with someone who is planning to travel there. US$ are much less handy; they would likely have to be exchanged at a bank which can be a real inconvenience. The only real drawback is that the smallest Euro note is €5, and anything smaller than that is a coin. But we Canadians should be used to that; our smallest bill is $5.

Currency is US$. Top right corner you can see $/€ which is a drop-down menu to select currency.

Just a note that the port is neither Greenrock as in the thread title nor Greenlock as in the post. It is Greenock.

I still stand by my comments. With more passengers on AmaMagna, Ama can offer you more choices of excursions and dining options than other Ama ships. That isn’t to say that you can’t do your comparisons, but it isn’t a true comparison of any other Ama ship with Viking.

I'm sorry, that won't be a true comparison between Viking and Ama; it will be specifically between Viking and the AmaMagna. Because of its size, AmaMagna can do things that can't be done on any other Ama ship.

My trip was with Ama. We started in Hanoi, spent a night on Halong Bay then 3 nights in Siem Reap. Our hotel there had a deal on a bag of laundry, as much as you could stuff for a good price. I rinsed a few things out on the ship after that, but I don't remember whether I had the ship do any laundry. I was fine. I had a lot of very light tops that were easy to rinse out and don't take up a lot of space.

I had the same issue on my June cruise on the Dawn. No, you won't be charged for an excursion that was included when you selected it. However, if they make some changes to the excursion (in my case the Naeroyfjord cruise was changed to a zero-emission ship) then you are likely to be charged. I also had an excursion that was changed from included to select, the unit cost still showed a $0 unit cost on mySilversea although it showed a total charge of $159. That was corrected on board, and I wasn't charged for it. Just as an aside, the charge for the Flåm railway excursion was US$109. I had booked it on my own for less than CAD$95. I actually had 2 reservations which was helpful when the time of the Naeroyfjord cruise was changed. The one I cancelled had originally cost me CAD$92 and I was refunded CAD$95.

Note that almost all of the lines have a smaller number of passengers on board than Viking. Avalon, is definitely not the only one.

I put my responses within the quoted section above.