id4elizabeth

When I arranged our tour, I told them "no shopping stops" and they were totally agreeable. I also asked for the Ephesus Museum - it's not part of their normal tour. As far as Ephesus itself, we started at the top upper gate, walked down through the entire site, did the Terrace Houses in the middle, saw the Library and had enough time to scamper up the steps and thoroughly explore it and then down through the rest of the site, the Theater, and the van picked us up at the bottom. From there we were driven to the Museum and had about 45 minutes there. We did not stop for lunch as our time in port was 1:00 pm to 6:30 as I recall. We were back at the dock by 5:00.

My heating pad is only 110 and I can't find any that are dual voltage. If you know of one, please let me know.

If I bring along a transformer/voltage converter (big heavy thing) then do you think I'd be able to use MY 110v heating pad with this big tranformer thing?

Has anyone out there used a US heating pad on a Viking ship? I'm also staying at the Hilton in Prague, the Sofitel in Budapest and the Hilton in Bucharest. Would it work there with the transformer?

Back to Ephesus, we used Ephesus Shuttle (EphesusShuttle.com) with about 8 people from cruise critic. We saw the ENTIRE site top to bottom and the Terrace Houses as well as a tour of the Ephesus Museum which was very enlightening. All the small artifacts and statuary that was found at the Ephesus site has been moved to this Museum and it really fleshed out the whole Ephesus experience. Cost as I recall was $74 pp and that included all entrance fees.

One thing to be aware of with the Terrace Houses is that there are a lot of stairs.

Arrghr#%@&] !!! :eek:

Char Trav - where did you find the arrival/departure times on the Viking site? We're on the Budapest to Bucharest cruise leaving May 3 and it's not on my MVJ (nor on My Calendar). I got the impression from your message it might be somewhere else?

Thanks for the nice comments Char Traveler and Hornblower re my blog. We're about to leave on Viking River Cruise to Eastern Europe, so I'll be blogging about that as soon as I get home. We're going on Viking again because of the fairly large future cruise credit we got from Viking because of all the snafus on the maiden Ocean voyage. We're looking forward to this trip as it's something Viking has done for years and seems to know how to handle any surprises that might come up.

Because MyVikingJourney was such a "success" on the Oceans side of things last year, river cruisers now have to use MVJ for Rivers as well. Viking sent me an e-mail about a week ago advertising a new-for-2016 optional excursion, inviting me to go to MVJ and sign up. It looked interesting so of course I went to MVJ - - as you can probably guess, it's not on there anywhere. In addition, there's no indication anywhere of how long we'll be in any given port. They used to at least give you an idea. Now with MVJ, nothing. Which leaves you to guess how much time you'll have on your own in port. I realize they can't always be precise, but AM, PM, evening, or late at night would sure be nice to know. This info used to be available on their old website, but not on MVJ. But hey, got to keep up with the times!

I wouldn't count on the system errors with excursion booking to be fixed any time soon. The same types of "errors" happened this time last year, so the chances of them being fixed in the next month are slim to none. Take Hornblower's advice and check and recheck, and check again with your paper tickets once you board.

Inborn traveler - this may have changed (hopefully it has) but on the Star last year the one place you didn't want to get iced tea was from the Bar. It was a small chimney glass and they used the powdered stuff to make it - and then on top of that, they CHARGED you for it as a soft drink! :eek:

Screen-gem - And don't forget to.check the paper tickets you get once onboard. These could be different from whatever MVJ tells you. It's the paper tickets that count!

IMO after 50-days on board, the music was not intrusive. There is lovely classical music performed in the evening in the Atrium by a live trio or quartet. It's not all day, nor is it overly loud. In addition there's live music occasionally in the Wintergarden. For special events there is live music around the main pool from time to time. There's elevator music in certain areas like the World Cafe, but it's not loud. I'm usually pretty sensitive to sound, and it didn't bother me.

Sometimes it's in the fine print on the first page of your invoice.

Correction - should have been Spa Desk (not Deck).

Carolyn - I agree with you about the powdered stuff - Ugh! Wonder why this is so hard - every Subway, McDonalds, etc in the world has big brew iced tea machines. They make gallons and gallons. Just buy one of those and put it next to the ice machine and problem solved.

Yes - the workarounds do work. I "borrowed" one of the glass carafes that they serve orange juice in, filled it with hot water and several teabags and took this to my cabin and put it in the fridge. (You do have to remove some of dividers inside the fridge to get the carafe to fit.) Also, borrowed a second carafe and filled with ice. On the maiden cruise for some reason, our room did not have an ice bucket. Another great option is to get several pots from the excellent teas available at the Afternoon Tea in the Wintergarden and fill up your carafe with that tea - while you're enjoying another pot of hot tea of course, and a scone or two. (My favorite was White Jasmine.)

Don't know if they are still doing this, but amazingly there was usually a carafe of cold tea just next to the Spa Deck with a rubber stopper and glasses to help yourself. It was quite tasty.

Thanks for checking this out Carolyn and hope you'Rev having a blast!

It is definitely cooler thann the mid-west and can get downright chilly when it's raining. On the other hand it can get quite warm, so have a few T-shirt, a pair of Capris or shorts. Instead of the fleece, I might suggest a rain jacket that can double as a wind breaker. If course if you have room the fleece would be nice, but you definitely need a rain jacket!

I think they are just different. As far as getting to know people, I quite agree it's more difficult on Oceans. However, we had a great bunch that we got to know through Cruise Critic Roll Calls. Since there's more passengers, there's more chance of meeting up with others on your cruise on CC. We planned lots of private excursions on our 50 days on the Star with folks we met on CC.

By contrast, I've been trying to locate folks on our upcoming Eastern European cruise and have found narry a soul.

I like the food choices on the Star - you can decide buffet tonight, MDR, or one of the Specialty places for something special. Or even room service. Also like the laundry facilities. Not to mention my favorite amenity, the SPA!!

However, I agree one of the pleasures of river cruising is getting to know everyone. Also, although I don't have statistical proof of this, the tour groups seemed smaller on the river cruises.

I'll happily go on either though as long as there's new things to see out there, I totally prefer either type of cruising to bus tours!

Bummer! Not that Freya is bad - just not as nice as the L'Occitane in my opinion.

Oh shucks! I was so looking forward to the L'Occitane!

Thanks for the info.

Can anyone who is or has been on a 2016 Viking River Cruise verify whether the toiletries this year are still L'Occitane or whether they switched to their Oceans' brand Freya?

Hi Carolyn - reading your posts makes me really miss being on the Star this year, despite all it's teething problems last year! Fortunately though we're headed off to Eastern Europe on Viking in a few weeks so more new things to see.

Question: is there iced tea readily available? :D

So far Viking Oceans has been fully booked and has not lowered their prices. I'm frankly surprised there's that Deck 8 DV cabin available on 12/27 as those 4 DVs on the 8th are usually the first DVs to sell. Someone must have cancelled. Not seen Viking ever lower prices closer to sailing, but with the recent advisory in Turkey, they might start getting cancellations on their Istanbul to Venice run and lower prices there or offer some other sort of incentive. Rather than lower prices, Viking Ocans or Rivers tends to offer incentives like "free" airfare. Forget OBC for those already booked!

Stonepebble - yes - getting totally psyched! Our "first" day in Prague is basically a wipe-out as we get into the airport at 11:00 am after flying all night. By the time we get to the hotel and drop our bags and get something to eat, I don't figure we'll see much, but do have a few things planned to see close to the hotel if we're up for it. The next day we plan on spending the whole day in the Jewish Quarter by ourselves, just following Rick Steves. We might take in the Medieval Art Museum if there's time. The next day is with Nina exploring the whole Castle area, the Monastery Library which is supposed to be awesome, and Little Town, which is below the Castle. The next day is with Nina again in Cesky Krumlov, and based on the schedule for the day, I don't think combining it with anything else would be possible. The next day, we are going to see the Old Town on our own, walk across the Charles Bridge, and hopefully take in the Mucha Museum, of course stopping in at chuches, Old Town Halls and everything else there is to see. Our final day we're picked up at the hotel by Nina and transported to Budapest, stopping at two small UNESCO listed Czech towns along the way. In Budapest we pick up our Viking cruise to Bucharest.

From my reading and other friends who've been there, there is so much to see in Prague, I would think the one outing to either of the two towns would be all you'd want to do. I'd love to have another week in Prague to be honest. Note: Re the Jewish Quarter - it's closed on Saturdays and any Jewish holiday. They have a web-site that says what days the are closed. Hope you have a wonderful time!

Thanks TruckerDave- sounds like good advice!

Bzv - I'll probably go against the grain on this question this time and be the only one who says stick with the larger cabin. However, space is important to us. We were in the Penthouse Junior Suites on Deck 8, which is even larger than the PV cabins, so obviously space is a priority for us.

The views from Deck 8 are great, no doubt the best on the ship, but most of Deck 8 is open to everyone (the Sun Deck) so you can enjoy it anytime really. I would often go out on the Sun deck, rather than staying on our balcony, when we were coming into and out of port as there was stuff to see on both sides of the ship.

There are 4 DV cabins on Deck 8 - the rest are Penthouse Junior Suites. There are 2 DVS on each side about mid-way down the short hall.

I'm just recalling on our cruise how many folks we ran into in DV cabins who complained about the lack of drawer space and storage space in general and how cramped they felt. It's really a trade-off - space vs. view.

Depends on when you go. We tried to eat at 6:30 as soon as the dining room opened, and we usually had a 10 to 15 minute wait. If you do 7:00 or later, there didn't seem to be a line. They have plenty of tables for 2 so that's not at all an issue.

We travel with BIG bags and they have easily fit under the beds. I don't know the exact measurements, but i'm talking BIG bags. The kind that would get an overweight charge for the normal 50 pound weight limit. (Except we fly Business so actually have 70 pounds and manage to stay under that.) If yours is bigger, there's usually a corner of the room behind a chair or something where you can store it. And if you look really helpless and tip your steward, I'll bet you he can find a space outside your cabin. This was done for us on Uniworld cruise in Russia - but don't tell anyone...