mancunian

Clarandra

Ma y thanks for checking out the non alcoholic drinks for me.   I have never found myself in this position before and have decided on doing it this way so that the two drinks I am currently allowed can be cocktails before and after dinner.

Good news about the Becks too.  I enjoy a beer with lunch if it is hot.

Thank u

you all so much.   This is my first cruise with limited alcohol!!!

 Please Clarandra would you ask the wine waiter if the do non alcoholic wine.

Many thanks

Have just received “important notice” from Seabourn saying that embarkation time has been now been set or altered.   It has an enclosure which basically says the same thing but still omits the time.  Look at My Seabourn or source app.   I have done and clearly I am stupid because still cannot find the time.   

Do Seabourn try to make things difficult.  Any suggestions as to where it is hidden.  This is for Encore cruise on 11 March

We have three Silver Spirit cruises this year and I find myself in a bit of trouble.   Because of heavy duty pain killers I  now have to limit alcohol and have decided I think, that I prefer a gin or cocktail before dinner and another cocktail later in the evening more than wine with dinner or beer at lunchtime.   Not happy but there it is.

Asking advice therefore about non alcoholic wine and mocktails

We are doing one of the two tours Venice to Venice.   I have a problem with my spine and walk with a rollator.  This is a difficult question.   I have discovered that Silversea rarely seem to do what they call level one excursions, the panoramic bus tour ones with little walking and often ban wheelchairs on level two or say unsuitable for those with walking difficulties.  I am afraid I have just booked those anyway.  I found that when on Silver Shadow after Doing that the tour desk made  appointment to discuss this when we got onboard and decided I was generally OK.  Our bottom line has always been that if the going gets too tough we drop out and sit on a form until they come back or meet them at coach.   Our mantra has always been that we must never hold a tour up, and our fallback has always been the thought that if local tours we drop out and get a taxi back.

Whilst this works I must say if things have not improved by June this will be difficult as some places may say we have to travel in a bubble and if this happens we will just stay onboard and enjoy the ship. At least we will be cruising again.

I have only been to Split and Dubrovnik of the places you mention and if you keep to the main areas both accessible.

I do feel for you as I used to be in a wheelchair and have done cruises this way.  I ended up having neurosurgery and now can manage with rollator.  If we come to a few steps bizarrely I can climb them now even better than walking without the rollator so I walk up and my husband although 84 can still carry the collapsed rollator up.  

The person that worries me in this is you.   You do not mention your age or fitness but even in normal circumstances short distances on the flat are hard going.  Early last year my husband had a broken arm and I had to have two lots of treatment with anaesthetic and went to and from hospital in my wheelchair.  my daughter who is 50 had to take me and although neither of us drew attention to the fact we both knew she found it hard going up slopes and pavements.

I am not overly keen on Silversea moving on to included excursions.  Included means you have paid for them in the fare!,!   Which means that by next year fares will have gone up.  Apart from my disability we have never been very keen on excursions and have always , unless in far flung places done only a couple preferring to make our own arrangements, and I am talking now before I was disabled.   If they do this they have to give more thought to at least one excursion at each place being suitable or we will possibly have to revert to Oceania where you can opt for the onboard credit and make your own arrangements.

 it sure if this helps but at least we are or have been in a similar situatiom

Thank you.  I did not find anything on search so I will just have to hope for the best.

Does anyone know if they serve non alcoholic wine in the restaurant.  Sadly because of medication I now have to limit my alcohol but think I should be able to have a couple of drinks a day.I have decided I prefer a gin or a cocktail before dinner and another drink later in the evening.  I am also hoping they might have some nice non alcoholic cocktails to supplement my meagre drink entitlement.

On 9/16/2021 at 8:49 PM, les37b said:

 

You are more than welcome.... And will post how it went.

 

I think most are on Air Malta. I got shafted with afternoon BA flight.

 

Good luck to you too.

 

 

Les.  We have booked on Oceania in. November after being bounced from the Viking   cruise.  We are having your experience.  We were booked on an early morning flight from LHR  to Marseille which BA has kindly cancelled and put us on an afternoon flight instead.  I realised we could not get to the ship before 7.30 pm at the earliest and if any delays to the flight we might not make it at all as ship sailing that day.  We eventually asked for a flight the previous day.  Means the cost of a hotel, but hey I need an easy life.

4 hours ago, claranda said:

It seems such an odd decision considering that there are only 2/3 October cruises affected, none in November. Why alienate customers at this late stage in the Med cruising year?

We’ve now swallowed our frustration, accepted it as one more Covid *****-up, and moved our reservation to the same cruise in March 2022. Easier for us than most people, as it was only last month that we moved from March to October! All this shuttlecocking back and forth does play hell with flight and hotel bookings, though, doesn’t it? We will go to Venice anyway, and (after a brief flirtation with some Oceania options) add on nights in a very posh hotel in Bologna and drown our sorrows in Franciacorta and pasta ragu. Hoping those others affected find alternative ways to travel…

Glad you are sorted, well at least not on the disappointment.   I worked it out today that if we had accepted the £250 pounds (which incidentally I was not told about just that I could get a refund or move to another cruise) it would not have gone far towards the higher costs of next October’s cruises against what we paige this year.

19 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Can you please provide a list of the cruises affected and I will send a note to my contact in Basle to see if they can get you a proper response.

That is so kind of you.  There are now 5 of us.   Two including me on 2 October Malta  Adriatic, one on 3 October  Malta Istanbul, and 2 on 26 October not sur which of the itineraries.

6 hours ago, claranda said:

My agent confirms that the 24 October sailing also off for Brits - he only heard from Viking this morning re this. Viking offering £250 off another booking and obc of £250 per person.

 i am so sorry this has happened to you too.  acid you agent find the reason.  At least you have had a little more warning but still a nasty shock.

19 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Tom - you are correct. The initial cruises from Portmouth were only for UK residents. Even though we still own UK property and I travel on a UK passport, we could not book one of those cruises. In these times, it was a business decision to minimise risk.

 

Having a cruise cancelled is always a frustration, but like you, unless I know all the facts, I wouldn't be writing-off the cruise line. Yes, it is easy to blame Viking, but cruise planning & scheduling is highly complex and is normally completed at least 2 years ahead. Many factors, most of which are outside the control of the company, impact a cruise line's ability to alter an itinerary at short notice. In addition to the number of ships vying for ports and the other marine challenges, we also have frequently changing Govt COVID directives, in the ports we visit.

 

I suggest it is highly unlikely that Viking will write-off the business from one of their 3 primary markets, without good and valid reasons.

 

However, from a customer service perspective, the customer is due a reasonable explanation.

Thank you for thar Heidi13.  I agree with what you said but unless we get a satisfactory reason that is exactly what we shall do.  There are four of us now on the two threads on here in this situation and we have none of us been able to get an answer.  I do.not think it is anything to do with flights as has been suggested and if it was Dubrovnik could not take the ship why not tell us.  They do not seem to want us to know the real reason and I am actually wondering if it is the 75/25 division Harriet Q suggests.   If so though it seems extreme to sacrifice the UK passengers just to give US passengers a few hours in Kotor and I guess they would not want to tell us if so.   I do not like what has happened or the way  Viking have carried things out and whilst I will not say never, I just have no desire to go with them for quite a long time.    Whilst I liked our two cruises on  Viking I am probably not as smitten as the rest of you seem to be and we have two other cruise lines we are keen on too.

One thing I am not over keen on is that all the ships are identical and I prefer the opportunity to explore different layouts.

Hi Tim.   Please report back.  I am thinking I should write to.  Have you looked on the Malta thread on here and seen a third person affected.   Also someone on the cruise says she has mentioned it to the crew who know nothing about this change from Dubrovnik to Kotor,

Yes Jess is quite right Viking was not favouring the UK but desperately trying to find places to sail from and found UK, Bermuda and Iceland where I think most of the US people on here including yourself  Tom were enjoying yourselves.

This cruise would have been our first attempt to go overseas having had to cancel IcelandHowever thank you for your kind thoughts, at least you are the only one of your countrymen to actually    give any thoughts on this, they seem mostly concerned about whether you should wear jeans in the dining room.

We will not be on our planned sailing on 6 October as Viking have cancelled UK passengers due to the fact that they are using Kotor again not Dubrovnik so UK passengers cannot go.  There is no apology or reason given for not staying with Dubrovnik and in my case no phone call.  I just happened to phone them as we were a day off two weeks to check all was well.  It was not!

As you can imagine we are shattered and angry as we really needed this cruise as this year has been tough, nothing to do with covid, and we had travel and hotel booked, along with cat care.  We are left with nothing but a full refund, no way will we accept the other voucher offer as we do not wish to travel with them ever again.  UK passengers seem well down their list of priorities.

You  can be sure we will. A cruiseline who can do that to people two weeks before their  cruise for no good reason for which they are not able to offer a reason when they have been using a perfectly good solution in the previous weeks is not one I would feel happy about in the future.  At least you got the phone call.   Although I have written expressing my feelings on this as well as to the two booking reps, we booked direct with Viking I suspect we will hear no more as they obviously do not care.  It is very difficult to speak to anyone higher up with them..

Have just read on the Malta thread there are 497 onboard, 122 from Uk.  If the figures are about the same for 2 October that is a lot of guests tearing their hair at present and swearing at Viking.   It is also a lot of revenue lost.

Timbloom.    We are in the same position as you but unlike you we were not informed about this, but as we were approaching our two weeks before sailing I thought I ought to check.   I too have been unable to get any answer as to why when they had originally changed Kotor to Dubrovnik they had not kept to this.

We are annoyed because we were two weeks off sailing with travel arrangements and hotel booked and also cat sitter, and no advice from Viking about the change and when would they have told me.   I definitely agree they are really not bothered about UK passengers.   

We have taken the refund option as we are not inclined to travel with them and booked a cruise with Oceania instead on 7 November.

  No  Viking has not yet taken off Kotor.  It has on current cruises.  For UK passengers as Montenegro is now on our red list much as I like Kotor we will be in a mess if the do not delete it as. I understand it our insurance will not cover us and we will need to isolate when we return.

  Could someone who has been on a recent cruise please tell me which ports you were able to go ashore by yourself.

 Many thanks

Jazmyn99

I guess our experience was very different to ours.   The passengers on ours were very friendly, and apart from one waiter who was having a bad day the staff were great.

I guess you were in a standard veranda cabin on SS and a penthouse on Viking, because the veranda cabins on SS are bigger - much wider than the verandas on Viking.   They are longer too, because you have your dressing room, wardrobe area included in that.

Staffordshire

i Mancunian, as you have helped us decide to go on a Silversea cruise, it may be we could give your details so we both get a discount.  No worries if that isn’t your kind of thing, and we are not 100 per cent sure yet because of an insurance issue, but if you would be interested let me know and we can try and get in touc

07432656298

Hi Mancunian, as you have helped us decide to go on a Silversea cruise, it may be we could give your details so we both get a discount.  No worries if that isn’t your kind of thing, and we are not 100 per cent sure yet because of an insurance issue, but if you would be interested let me know and we can try and get in touch.

    That sounds good to me.  I hadn't really realised there was such a thing.    Not sure where you found it or what details we need.   How can we get in touch.   I can put a phone number (rarely  used top up phone) on here.  What do  you think.

If you decide to watch Visit with Us videos there are seven of them. You might not want to watch them all but I recommend you watch the one on the veranda stateroom, the ship tour and the food one.   I think their videos are excellent - he is a very good cameraman and they very rarely show themselves.   Very professional.

Angela

I am frustrated.  We sail on 2 October three weeks today and we have heard.nothing.   My Viking journey show Montenegro as does the advertisement for the cruise.   I really want the situation confirming that it is Dubrovnik as the end of the week is our last chance to cancel.  I have phoned Viking and have got nowhere