PRH

We’re on Jupiter in March from Buenos Aires to Barcelona so hopefully she will be well stocked before we go!

The last four cruises we’ve been on, it was gone within six days. When the bar manager checked stock, there was none. Guess we cruise with heavy Woodford drinkers!

No, which is why I asked if anyone knew what they might charge. None of them are mixers like tonic (which does show on price list) but they are ingredients.

We drink Woodford Reserve Old Fashioneds. Recently it seems that Viking stocks only a very limited amount of Woodford such that it is gone pretty quickly. We’ve typically been offered Wild Turkey or Jack Daniel’s—neither of which appeal to us. This has been true on Ocean and even more so on River and Expedition. We are on a 21 day Transatlantic in March. We are thinking about taking two large bottles of Woodford with us. Will a Viking bar hold these bottles for us and reserve them to make our Old Fashioneds? Since no mixers are involved, not sure what Viking would charge us. Anyone have any experience doing this? Thanks!

Belfast—Tours by Locals—with Frank (Francis H.). Historical and Political tour of Belfast in his Mercedes van. He will pick you up at the port. Excellent tour. You will see parts of Belfast you will not see with Viking (we took the later Viking tour and it was hohum compared to Frank’s. My 23 year old nephew was blown away.

Update to our visa application. Got an 3mail saying “sorry for the delayed response” and then proceeded to give the same “need to reload” and “name, date of birth does not match passport” and again with no link to upload. Next day, email with same bra# and ticket number addressed to someone else altogether with exactly the same text! Obviously they combined two applications into one so our money and time is totally wasted. No way to resolve.

Just to interject some macabre humor….got an email saying they were waiting for a reupload but again provided no link to do so and again noted that “name and birthdate” were different from the passport. Then, the very next day, same bra# and inquiry #, references Edward (not my husband’s name) needing to reload the same information! Obviously the same numbers got assigned to two different accounts! So much for $$ spent and obviously now lost.

We use Tours by Locals with great success. Also, Frank at AsadoAdventures offers tours and has drivers. Frank also offers a wonderful Asado meal and walking tour to purchase ingredients.

Good idea! I just sent an email to Tellus@vikingcruises.com. Given all this, they may need to abandon Brazilian ports (I realize probably impossible for Amazon) but this visa situation has made Brazil untenable.

Just got email that my visa is ready to print! Only took a month. But my husba d"s status is "no active application found." Therd has been no reply to my emails for help. Not sure what to do now. Money wasted?

I got a call from tellus@viking.com in response to my email telling us we received the email about Brazil in error—that Brazil visas were not required for cruise passengers. A Brazil visa would not be required for boarding (in Argentina for a transatlantic). This is the opposite of what my TA says. My application has gone through QC and is now being reviewed by Brazil immigration; however, my husband’s is now still unresolved and the latest email requesting yet more reload/uploads has a non-working link making it impossible to do so as there is no other way to access that page. We submitted exactly the same documents except for pictures and passports edited exactly the same way. We called vfs for assistance and after a long and unproductive call (he could not grasp that the link was not working), were told to call back next week as there were many applications to be processed. Today when I checked his status, it says no application found! We may need to test the Viking on “no visa required for boarding.” Unfortunately they did not follow that call with this in writing.

We are struggling. My application has gone to immigration but my husband’s is still pending. Got the third email asking for another reload but the link does not work—takes you to the login/status tracking page instead of the reload/upload page. We called yesterday for help and after being disconnected four times, were on hold for ove4 an hour. The person couldn’t understand the issue (that the link in the email does not work so we could not update/reload) and kept telling us to call back in a few days. Well, we are traveling next week through January so doing all this will be impossible. What is interesting, we both loaded the exact same documents except for photo and passport—which were edited exactly the same way. Why did mine pass and his did not? Now when I go to check his status, I get an error—no application found! Viking told us (verbally) that no visa was required—at least to board. We might have to test that at this rate!

Built into the cost of your cruise are port fees and taxes. If a port is skipped, the port fees are not paid to the skipped port. If no passenger reimbursement for skipped ports, guess who keeps those $$?

After being asked to reload documents on Saturday, last night got an email saying my application had been forwarded to immigration review. Then I got an email right anfterward asking me to reload documents for my husband’s application and giving 10 DAYS rather than 12 hours to do so! This is like watching paint dry and being asked for a touch up every so often.

And Merry Christmas to you! We’re on the same TA this March. The promotion code is FV23.

Be aware that final payment for 2026 for that promotion is Nov 30, 2024! We also discovered that you cannot change sailing date without cancellation and loss of your deposit.

At at a minimum, you should be refunded port fees for missed ports.

I was told they needed the signature side of the passport too. And sideways, not straight up and down.

Another question to ask: refundable or not (refundable means you will get cash back equal to the remaining OBC either from your travel agent or refunded to your credit card.). Our TA gives the maximum OBC allowed by Viking. AAA gave us a much lower OBC.

Viking called to let me know (in response to my inquiry) that Brazil eVisas are not required for those not flying into or out of Brazil—at this time, to their knowledge. Visas will not be required for us to board our transatlantic in Argentina and 2 port stops in Brazil. My TA insists that they are required. We did apply, though still waiting……

Isn't that the truth!

received this last night. Resubmitted last night so guess we’ll see. According to a person on trip advisor, passports must be two pages (lay passport flat on your scanner, scan ant 600 dpi, and save to images to crop, size, etc) and scanned in sideways with pixels of 500 and 352. To complete the processing of your Brazil visa application, the Embassy of Brazil requires the following documents and/or additional information. Checklist Items • Please re-upload Passport Bio Page Comments • Passport- Re-upload colored scan copy of your passport BIO page. Photo of passport copy are not accepted. Please upload these documents on your application by accessing your account. Kindly note that your application cannot proceed until we receive all these documents. You must provide the above documents within 12 hours. In case of delay, your visa application will be processed as "Incomplete", which could result in the rejection of your visa application.

I was finally able to submit today thanks to posting on trip advisor! “ Uploading signature and photo for Brazilian tourist visa” do a search. It helped me untangle some of the technical things so my documents would finally scan in. He said 300 dpi was not enough. I used my scanner at 600dpi and ‘photo/image’, saved scanned documents to pictures, edited for cropping, pixels and below 1MB, saved and then uploaded. Hope this helps someone else.

Did you do the editing on your Mac? Or did your photos simply come out less than 1MB?

Ok, dumb question. I cannot get a single document or picture to be 1MB or less! How are you doing it? The photo is killing me as I cannot get it to 2x2! I have an iPad and android phone for cameras. Thanks!