burnabyjean

Yes. We would usually pick up a couple of bottles at one of the bars and take them back to our cabin.

50 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

I welcome anyone who had a positive experience cashing in on Princess Promotions.  There seems to be very few examples of how this works in real life.

I'm not sure how "positive" my experience has been. I was "sucked in" by the sales pitch just over a year ago. The package at that time was $7199 and I paid a $1440 deposit and have been paying monthly since. It came with $6000 future cruise credit, $300 in on board credit and the hotel vouchers that have been mentioned before. The problems started after I booked a cruise for this fall. As it had been almost a year at the time I booked the cruise, I forgot it had to be booked in US funds (I live in Canada), so I booked on the Canadian site in Canadian funds. When I called to get the credit applied, I was told they weren't able to do it. The only solution was to cancel our booking and start over, which would have been fine except that we're travelling with friends and had booked shore excursions, flights, etc. etc. After several phone calls, we did manage to get everything reconstructed, so we're good to go. I've used one of the hotel vouchers for the night before our cruise. We will likely use another hotel voucher next winter, so we won't lose anything for the experience, but I certainly won't do it again!!

On 3/31/2024 at 7:53 PM, KeepCalmBearOn said:

Viking allows you to bring anything you want, bottles of scotch? case of wine? No problem, no charge, just enjoy it.

Viking also doesn't charge a corkage fee if you want to enjoy your own wine in the dining room.

I had been watching cabin availability for our recently completed cruise. As others have indicated, only 5 were showing per category. One day I did my usual search and about 20 showed for DV4, so I immediately did a "chat" and got our cabin changed. Within hours it was back to the usual 5. It is irking, as this shows that they can show availability if they chose to.

3 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

Do you have Aeroplan, and were the same Aeroplan numbers used on both flights? That might have helped link the two.

No, we don't have Aeroplan (we usually fly Westjet :)). It was pure luck that we booked the short haul with Air Canada.

We had a cruise with included air, but only from a major airport, so we separately booked a flight from our regional airport to Calgary. The short flight was with Air Canada and the long haul was with Lufthansa (which are, of course, partner airlines). We didn't even ask, but the check in agent asked us if Calgary was our final destination. When we said Budapest with Lufthansa, she was able to link the flights and we didn't have to collect and recheck in Calgary ... we picked up our luggage in Budapest.

I know Princess usually has a "Canadian at par" sale. I checked my emails and it came out in February this year. I haven't really paid attention to the time of year when these offers arrive and if they're the same time every year, so I can't speak for timing coming up.

26 minutes ago, Oceangoer2 said:

Are there air tags for a system other than Apple?

I have a Samsung phone, so I use Samsung Smart tags. They've worked very well for us. I've heard that the Tile works well for other Android phones.

We live in BC and our local London Drugs carries it.

10 hours ago, janetcbl said:

The best paella we ever had was on a beach in Barcelona….have no idea the name of the restaurant. Still have dreams about it!

Same for us! It was amazing. We'll be back in Barcelona in January and hoping to find the place again.

Just speaking from our own recent experience, it was about 5 months from renewal application to receiving the cards in the mail. This was with no interview required.

5 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

If you plan to leave the ship, you would have to have a Visa.

I don't know if the rules have changed, but when we travelled to Brazil by cruise back in 2014 ALL passengers had to have a visa, whether planning on going ashore or not. There were many unhappy people at check in who were not allowed to board as they didn't have a visa.

3 hours ago, gnome12 said:

Sorry, no news could also be bad news. People that are told they require interviews aren’t told that immediately. So no news is nothing more than no news. 

I should add that I was checking my account at least weekly, so I would have seen if an interview was required, even if they hadn't contacted me.

23 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Our credit card was charged about three weeks ago, haven’t heard anything else. No news is good news?

Our credit card was charged back in February. We heard nothing more until our approval notice a few weeks ago (a wait of about 4 months). The only evidence that our application was active was the "pending approval" status on their website. So yes, "no news is good news".

I just logged in to my account, as I seemed to recall updating my passport information on their site. On the right side of the screen there's a link called "update documents". If you go in there, you can update your passport information (at least I can in my account).

2 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

With respect to the shore-ex info provided to pax, the information provided by the OP is the same as we used to get when sailing with Princess.

My screen capture was indeed from the Princess website!

I had sort of hijacked another thread with this, so I thought I'd start a new topic. We have been disappointed with the amount of information given on shore excursions. Several people have suggested that more information is given at the port talk, but that's too late to cancel if we've paid for one. It hasn't happened often, but there have definitely been excursions we wouldn't have purchased if we'd known all the information ahead of time. At someone's suggestion, I sent an email to tellus@vikingcruises.com. I got a phone call today from a representative who said that my request would be forwarded to the appropriate department. He also said that my request was "logical and sensible", not like some requests they receive 🙂.

FYI, this is what another cruise line has readily available on their website (you don't even have to have a cruise booked to find this information):

1 hour ago, CCWineLover said:

Great idea!

 

Please send an email to Viking explaining in a nice way your suggestion of having more details in written format on the excursions.  This would be great!

Instead of saying "Why can't you do this" perhaps make a positive suggestion to them and show the example you posted here.  I would chime in as well!   And don't wait for another cruise to do so.

Thank you!

Done! I just sent an email to tellus@vikingcruises.com. Now we wait to see if anything changes 🙂 .

21 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

Why wait until you board the ship?  Why not email Viking and ask your questions when you are in the planning phase?

 

 

In line with waiting until the port talk the day before your excursion, why should you have to call Viking to get information that they could quite easily put on the website with the excursion description. It could potentially save them MANY phone calls and emails and/or unhappy people on the day of the tour.

3 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

 

Did you attend the Port Talk where they describe the details of the tour?

This bothers me just a little about Viking. You shouldn't have to wait until the day before your tour (when it's too late to change arrangements) to hear the details of your tour. On another cruise line I travel with, they give you ALL the details before you book an excursion: distance of bus ride, number of stairs, distance to walk, washroom availability, food availability, etc., etc. You are then able to make an informed decision about the tour. Attached is an example of what is readily available: 

1 hour ago, CoW mAn said:

90 days prior to expiry is what I saw on the website

Directly from the Customs and Border Protection website: "CBP and CBSA are asking the NEXUS members begin their application renewal 364 days prior to their membership expiration date." I would definitely NOT wait until 90 days ahead. Ours took just over 4 months, and we didn't need an interview. The earliest interview time for us, had it been needed, was October 3rd.

Just an update: My husband and I applied for renewal on February 6 and just received notice that we've been approved, with no interview required. Just over four months, which doesn't seem too bad, given what we were told to expect.

It used to be six months before your current expiration, but with the backlog they've changed it to one year. We applied February 6 this year and are still in the "pending review" stage. I would get on it ASAP!

We spent three days in Paris post-cruise last year. We had lunch at Madame Brasserie at the Eiffel Tower. It was very expensive (but less than dinner time), but SO worth it. We enjoyed it immensely. The first photo is the view from our table at lunch and the second photo was taken while waiting for the elevator to go up.

1 hour ago, Piper77 said:

I was eventually quoted 498 Euros for 2 for the Amalfi coast drive / tour.  Were you given a price as well?

We're not sailing until December, so I'm just in the planning stages. I haven't approached them yet, but I just wanted a rough idea of what we might be looking at. Thanks for the response!