juliesaddiction

We had a large group try Celebrity for the first time this last month and I have to say I really really wanted to like or love them but it didnt happen. I am Elite on Princess, I dont enjoy the newer ships because the balconys are way too small. The food is ok in the buffet, like alot of others have said its hard to make a complete meal that is not mish mash, the dining room is good and the specialtys are good. Service in the dining room and specialtys have become so long that it is difficult to go without taking up your entire nite. Entertainment is good, lots to do all the time. Celebrity food was good, buffet really good, dining room just good and I didnt care for the specialtys. The ship is great the room was good, except for the waterfall of dirty water on our balcony whenever they washed the one above, even when we were there. I didnt care for the entertainment at all, it just seemed so discontected somehow. OUr room steward was excellent. But the deal breaker with Celebrity was the lack of connection between the working or service crew and the management. We were unable to esculate problems to higher up crew because they had to solve the problems within the team, cool if they could do that but they consistantly did not. And the excursions were a mess. We usually do private but this time did ship, totally bad decision. The descriptions of the excursions more often than not are not correct and you often end up on a bus for 3+ hours on a 4 hour tour. Big disconnect between the actual tour operators and the excursion department. And we had several people who had their tour times changed which split up our group. So all in all I would have to say Princess has the upper hand.

I stayed in this cabin Nov 25 2017 to Dec 10 2017. The room is really a great room, especially the port hole window. However I cannot recommend it. The roof on the balcony only extends about 1-2 feet over the slider, the rest is open and all rooms above can look down. That is not the real problem with this room tho. When they wash down the balconys (it seemed like every day or two) all the water from the above balconys end up on your balcony. All of that dirty water washes down just like a waterfall over the entire balcony. We were in the room 4 times when it happened, once I was outside and got all wet. We complained many many times and it continued to keep happening. We tried to esculate it to the Hotel Manager but they wont let you get that far. The Hotel Manager however had time to play game shows and pool games through out the cruise. Anyway I searched this cabin before I booked it and didnt see this issue, had I seen it I would not have booked it, so I want to give fair notice.

My mom and I and a couple of friends are booking this cruise for January 2019. We have rooms held right now till we decide which date and deck. We traveled on Viking Star on the inauguration cruise, did the Viking Homelands portion when it was christened. I was just looking yesterday and came upon this cruise, both my moms and mine number 1 bucket list item. Ill have to get out all my camera's to see which one will be best for the lights.

Hi Pat!!! We havent travelled on those two lines but did have laundry done on Viking and it was great!

Have fun on your cruises! I want to do a Germany one as well but we just booked at Paris to Zurich with land extention for next year.

In the past we had a problem with Viking where their scheduled flights got us there late (we had complained in advance but they wouldnt change them) so we missed the whole first day. ONce home we again complained and then I posted to facebook about our experience. they called me after that post and they took the cost of the cruise (without all the extra fees and such) and divided it by the number of days and gave us a credit for a future cruise in that amount. At the time we had just booked the Star (May 2015) so it was ok to have the credit and it was applied. So maybe thats what they are doing? Taking the cost listed in the brochure and dividing it by 2 (50%) and thats how they are coming up with a number?

In the case of your cruise you should get all cash back for the entire thing period. None of the vouchers....I mean who wants to cruise with them again? I wasnt on your cruise but how Viking handled it sealed the deal for me....never cruising Viking again.

Switch to Oceania...you wont be disappointed ;) And their final payment is due 90 days before your sail date.....not 2 years like Viking.

I was overjoyed when Princess removed the Tunis port on my upcoming Med trip next month. I wonder how many cruise ships are actually going to that port right now? Even if you didnt get off the ship you sure are a huge target sitting at that port. Maybe the OP should research other cruise lines who are still going to that port and book that one?

Unfortunately I have to say I am not surprised at all with Viking's solution to the problem. I am not affected by this disaster, just a bystander who has had issues with Viking before and found that only those that make the biggest noise, on social media get their problem handled. A credit for another cruise definately isnt the answer, if I had been involved with the current problem I definately would not want a credit for another cruise. I did cruise on the Viking Star in May of this year and while it is a great ship and the cruise was good for the most part it wasnt worth paying so much so far ahead of time and we had concluded we probably wouldnt sail with Viking again, and after seeing how this is being handled I definately wouldnt sail with Viking again.

The problems we faced on our cruise were handled with the same mis management and different solutions for different people. Non communication played a huge part in all of it as well. The owners were on board with us and I have to say they were very snobby and made us feel unworthy. Looks like all the same problems are still happening. I would hope that in a disaster of a situation like this one that they would have a better plan. The cancelled cruise was cancelled by Viking, they need to refund all of the passengers money and pay any costs those passengers incur to get home. Viking needs to understand what it feels like to plan for something for 2 years, manage to take the time off, pack, fly, and then be treated like these passengers have been treated. A credit for a future cruise is not an answer when treated in this manner.

The only thing I can say is to use social media to your advantage and share your experience as much as you can, Viking probably will seek you out to make it right, even though it cant be made right. There is nothing that will undo your two year experience with Viking but a full refund will allow you to plan another vacation without it having to be with Viking.

Those are the same things we do also but when you have to dress up a bit, like for the ballet, remember to have something safe to carry your passport and money :)

Texts always work no matter what. International is 5 cents to receive and 50 cents to send.........it really doesnt add up to that much over the course of a cruise.

We didnt have chip card and also didnt have a problem anywhere. Interestingly enough while we were gone we got a notice the credit card company was sending out new cards with the chip.

Be careful of pickpockets!! I know we hear this alot while in Europe and we were warned in Russia..........and it did happen to us. Be especially careful if you take the excursion to the Ballet at night. Normally we use backpacks that are hard to get into or PacSafe type items while on excursions but when you have to dress up somewhat for the Ballet those items dont exactly match so my mom carried a regular shoulder type bag that zipped shut to hold our passports (which you must carry in Russia) and her coin purse that had one credit card and various types of monies. When entering the ballet a rather large crowd has to squeeze in thru the narrow door and that is where it happened. We did not know until we got back to our cabin on the ship and the card had been used and the bank had caught the activity and suspended the card. To report your card stolen you must use a land line. No land line, so Viking helped us out and used the satellite phone (at midnight). Thank goodness it wasnt worse and they didnt take our passports too.

we used TJ Travels on our Homelands cruise last month, I highly reccomend them, we had a small group of 8 and it was perfect in every way.

Has anyone had experiences with tour companies in St. Petersburg?

Thanks for sharing and giving advice.

J & J

We too had a great experience with TJ Travel, a small group of 8 for two days, couldnt recommend them higher.

Thanks for the super info re St Pete! Makes me feel much more confident about getting off in time:). We're also using TJ Tours but for a group of 8.

Maybe the excursion threads could be broken down by segment? ie VIKING (and other) EXCURSION REVIEWS - Istanbul to Barcelona

We also used TJ Travel for agroup of 8 and it was excellent. I highly recommend them. We thought we were the first off the ship lol but maybe not. In any case we were the only ones going through the terminal at the time. Super fast and our guide was right there when we came out.

So is there is a shuttle into Gdansk, which I understand is a gem but one needs to get there from the ships docking spot?

There is no free or otherwise shuttle to gdansk. They did have a shuttle but it went to the nearer town to the port which also started with a g but isn't gdansk. The included tour goes to gdansk and it is well worth it. Great old town.

Also we got on in Bergen on May 16 and we haven't had many complaints. The ship is wonderful, the staff is so nice and friendly and the food is awesome. I wouldn't worry about having a great cruise.

I can highly highly recommend TJTravel. We used them a few days ago and they were excellent. Super easy to work with and plan your stops custom and we were able to do a small group of 8 from the ship. We got into the Hermitage over an hour before it was open to the public. We had lunch in local restaurants. We had signed up with Alla but switched when they weren't so flexible. The tour with TJ Travel was by far one of the best tours I have ever had. Our guide was Michael and he was perfect. (We are on board the Viking Star now and did our tours the 26th and 27th of May)

From past experience Vikings response to anyone that has been wronged by them who was bold enough to get the experience on social media has always been a monetary credit. This credit could never pay for the experience you lost. And yes we have figured out for ourselves that Vikings management is not good. Yesterday we were coming back on board when those VIPs were leaving and waited to be able to scan back in for a few minutes till we saw the size of the line then I butted in and asked to scan our cards and was treated rudely so I was rude back and our cards were scanned. Felt like a low life.

One scanner for entrance and one for exit would be much better.

Winnford or something like that for the sweater but most of the shops on that stretch with the historic buildings has them. I got one for 695 krone which is about 95 us. My mom got one in the winnford shop and paid 1390 krone. We both love them.

Our China cruise and air wit Viking was good but our Amsterdam/Basel was so bad, we knew we were going to miss a whole day with what Viking booked and they refused to change it so we had no choice but to miss a whole day, never saw Amsterdam at all and almost missed the boat..and dinner.

We are doing Oceans next week and they waited so long to book air, way too close to the trip so we booked our own so we had control of stops and layovers and came in right around the same cost.

Once again Vikings famous "customer service" strikes again. Ive been a victim too, not for this but another issue. I had to take to social media to get it resolved, but only after the fact. It just shocks me over and over how unprofessional their customer service is, yet the cruise itself is usually fantastic. We have a trip with Viking in 2 weeks on the Star and no matter how fantastic it is we wont be using Viking again. Between that prepayment required and their customer service there is just no way any vacation should have that kind of stress coming along with it. There are many many other companies that do a good job and manage to have good customer service.

Signed,

not a Viking cheerleader

From my experience Viking offen doesnt do what they should when they should and the only way to get any real help post to social media, everything you can think of. I used their facebook page for this reason and while they did not fix the problem they caused before we left they did compensate for it later. Compensation after the fact is not the way to go, it doesnt make up for what you missed in any way.

Travel ins is a must and can be bought from many different companies, you dont have to buy it through Viking. I would think that since you contacted the company before the cruise started you should have been able to get back at least part of your money. Maybe the "right" Viking person hasnt heard the story, and finding that "right" person is often impossible.

Like I said...use your social media ;)

I so wish they had alternatives to The Chefs menu, my mom loves most of that stuff, but even some of it is too exotic for her. Usually I can find something so that she can indulge but so far what I have seen I could eat maybe one thing off the menu and the previous menu nothing. I think we will be skipping our reservation at the Chef's table.

Yep we want to do the Northern Lights trip, up there on the bucket list :)