Riversanddale

Good info on the candy, coffee, water discussion. We’ve had good luck with asking for diet sodas on several trips but no luck with candy on any. We’ll try notes next cruise. One cruise they only had our favorite candy on day one of 14 and said they had run out on day two but it never hurts to ask nicely. We’ve also had great laundry service. These trips are rare treats so it’s worth it to me not to spend my time doing more than rinsing out my undies. Looking forward to our October cruise and hoping the water levels permit. Happy sailing to everyone.

Oh my, oh my we feel so bad for all the folks and companies impacted by this. Can’t imagine the ripple effects on locals, cruisers, and transport. We sail on the Idi in October and we’re hoping she has a new captain by then. No confidence in this one.

Just a note adding our interest in a thread for the Main River. Our next trip is Bamberg to Trier and we love and try to follow this area. Thanks for all the current updates on the rivers and happenings. With changing weather patterns and more boat traffic it’s hard to stay current from afar. Our wishes for safe travel for all.

We love Viking and have another upcoming cruise booked with them but it raises flags for me that they continue to have problems. Too many ships so are they now resorting to hiring less experienced crews? I never used to consider this. Our thoughts and good wishes go to the passengers and everyone affected by this accident including all the other shipping in this area.

Such great info and help. We’re looking at Amsterdam to Basel mid November 2019 with Viking but wondering what water issues we need to be looking out for. Are many riverboats sailing that time of year? Thanks for any thoughts.

Thanks for the info. Can anyone give info on the true itinerary order and time in port? We’d also be interested in the dining experience. Thanks.

One quick question. Who is the cruise director on your cruise? We'll be on Viking Sun later this month. Enjoy your time.

Can only speak of our experience last fall Rome to Lisbon. It was our first ocean cruise (many river cruises). On our second evening the captain made the decision to not port in Marseille and sail on to Barcelona due to 12-15 foot seas. My husband can't go ocean fishing with friends because he suffers from seasickness in relatively calm weather. No problems on Viking Sun I'm happy to report so we leave on another cruise later this month.

Good luck with your boarding and have a wonderful cruise. We'd love to hear some of your comments along the way about your ship and the cruise.

Wonderful reporting on your Cuba trip. Thanks so much for sharing. Your photos on pbase are really interesting and very nice.

We’re looking at going on this cruise and it looks like Viking does a decent job of it even without being able to dock in Havana. Our concerns are how strenuous and long the days are for Havana and Trinidad and the cost of these two particular tours. You mentioned how bumpy the bus rides were. Are the buses older and roads bad? We’re used to half day tours in Europe and the Mediterranean where we can limit walking and climbing as we aren’t as young or spry as we would wish. Do you recall any of the costs for these options?

Happy travels. We love Viking - river and ocean so perhaps we’ll cross paths one day.

Did you know that if you go to the list of excursions on the web page for a particular cruise (see CharTrav's description above), and you click on each excursion, you do get a pretty detailed description of the tour? They do not specify a numerical breakdown of how much is bus time vs. walking time, but if you read carefully, you can get a pretty good idea. I know the actual port talks contain more information, but I found the full descriptions on the website (not just the little blurb on the main excursion page) to be quite helpful.

We, too, find the descriptions lacking in their detail and not always accurate. One thing we really miss from our many river cruises is a slow walking option. Our last ocean cruise only included one port (out of ten or so) with that option and it was totally mislabeled. Our next ocean cruise offers none with this option. We find that "moderate" is pretty worthless as a catchall phrase. We enjoy being able to see what we're rushing past in places we may not visit again and it gives time to snap a photo or two. For us that's a big plus on the river cruises.

Fully agree with giving shuttle times and locations (even if not cast in stone) ahead of time. We often found ourselves catching taxis because this info wasn't available until too late for planning to coordinate with ship tours and/or private ones and making options like staying in town for lunch more doable. Yes, I realize this is harder with docking changes but that's why I pay Viking the big bucks for their expertise and experience.

Also, I wholeheartedly encourage an online option for the surveys (with the ability to save a copy for my own reference). Last minute packing and travel chores make it hard to give the surveys due attention. By all means collect as many as you can onboard for better response rates but leave the online option open for 48 hours if you really want comments.

We're excited and looking forward to our upcoming cruise but waiting to decide whether ocean or river gives us the best experience. So far they are two totally different experiences. We do really appreciate Viking's destination emphasis. A nice hotel is a nice hotel in any city in the world so it's destination that makes the experience for us.

I was thinking about your dislike of the bottled water. I believe you can get water and ice all day long in the World Cafe. They keep glasses out. We did it for ice for our pop and I think you can get water, too.

Not sure about each ship but on the Sun last fall the WC had no ice available for our two weeks. We had to find a server (easy to do only if we wanted wine) who would then go to the bar and bring us back a glass of ice to use in our water and soft drinks.

We used RomeCabs for our cruise transfer. Nice driver but little English for the long ride although we had requested it. However, we loved Luca from Luke Limousine! The website is http://www.romeandlimo.com He got us to places that would have been too difficult for my husband with walking issues. He even arranged skip the line tickets for us on a day we were on our own. And, yes he arranges guides as well. Can't say enough good things about him. He is why we fell in love with Rome. He has a great sense of humor and is a very good driver who loves to share his Rome. If you want a friend showing you Rome rather than just a driver, Luca is your man. He'll customize to make sure you enjoy your must see list to the fullest. If we had realized how much we were going to enjoy time with Luca we would have arranged all of our transportation with him and certainly will in the future.

Ours was held in the Wintergarden. We found it a little sparse and cold - felt kind of like we were inside a glass display. We weren't a large group and the venue didn't encourage mingling as it was so large. The ones upstairs in the Explorer's Lounge sound more inviting. There were no nametags so recognizing and/or remembering folks wasn't easy. It was our first so looking forward to our next.

Lovely photos. We love Viking's new ocean ships. Yes, awkward closet in DVs. My concern is over staffing and getting new staff up to speed. Uneven service in the buffet was an issue for us on the Sun on our Oct-Nov cruise. Great service if all you wanted was a wine refill. Exceedingly difficult to get anyone's attention to get ice water, coffee, etc. - BTW, they have to go to the bar to get ice for each glass. Eye contact was rarely made except for wine. All the staff were really nice but definitely differences and more training needed. The staff only focused on wine and clearing tables and there was a lot of staff turnover for a 2 week cruise. We also questioned their system of closing one side of the buffet before "official" closing times as it rotated rather than keeping the side with a view open. We didn't appreciate dining with industrial views when there was a nice alternative at hand. All in all, loved our cruise and have booked another. All in all, we'd rather have good ships which Viking has and chose for itinerary which keeps us traveling.

Sorry I can't help with your wonderful cabin but I took a few measurements in our DV on Viking Sun before we got off this morning. I hope they help some others. The drawer measurements are inside drawer dimentions in inches.

Bathroom - 2 drawers, one each side of the sink: 15 1/2wide, 10 1/2 deep, 4 3/4 high

Hall - 3 drawers under the coffee maker and space for the safe: all 18 1/2 wide, all just under 15 deep, top to bottom 4 1/2+, 4 1/2, and 5 3/4 high

Closet - 4 drawers in half of closet with hanging bar above (DH dress shirts take up entire hanging height - top of the rod to top of shelving unit is 38 1/2): all 20 wide, 14 1/2 deep, 3 1/2 high

Bedside - 2 drawers ( one in each nightstand): 10 1/2 wide, 14 3/4 deep, 2 3/4 high

The side of the closet with drawers is 24 wide and the other (about 60 high top of the rod to floor) is 25 1/2 wide.

She's a beautiful ship and we can't wait to hear about her travels and your's.

We just got off Viking Sun in Lisbon today. Wonderful cruise and beautiful ship. Our meet and mingle was moved to the 3rd evening of our cruise (6pm if I'm remembering correctly). It was moved from the 2nd evening to the 3rd acciirding to our Cruise Coordinator because many folks had long excursions on our 2nd day (that was the day folks could go to Florence). We didn't have a large turnout but it was nice. I think turnout might have been influenced because it's the one sailing that I'm aware of that never had an official meet and mingle sign up site on Cruise Critic making it hard to find and confusing. All quasi sign ups had to go thru a 3rd party. Several of us asked more than once according to conversations at the party onboard but it never happened. Hopefully next time.

We realize the policy about posting on only your own roll call but just saying that we find it unnecessarily limiting. We just finished a wonderful tour of Barcelona with about 11 folks made up of passengers from 3 ships. Folks from two of those ships wouldn't have been able to make the minimums on their own. While it worked out finally it also made our own organizing slower and more difficult. Don't understand the need or reason for the policy.

Hi. We're just waking up to our first full day aboard Viking Sun. Last evening we had a fortuitous opportunity to talk with our Cruise Coordinator. She told us that booking onboard for a future cruise carried with it a $200 -$500 discount on the future cruise as well as a $100 shipboard credit on the cruise we're currently on. We'll be looking into this and I'll clarify more details. And, I'll share her name as she's been very helpful (embarrassed but it's after 3am, I'm in bed, and jet lag has overtaken my brain). We are so enjoying our first Ocean cruise after many wonderful river cruises with Viking.

Loved the Daily. Thanks for sharing. Gets me all excited for our first ocean cruise as we board the Sun in Rome. Your destinations look great. Enjoy every moment. :D

17 days till we board but whose counting? Your review is the most helpful and enjoyable review that I've found. Excellent job and thanks for all your time and effort. It's our first ocean cruise but 8 with Viking on the rivers. Some, including the Grand European, we've done twice so you know we've been pleased there. Your video tells me we've made the right choice with expanding to ocean. I'm the planning half but DH likes the discovery. He'll enjoy your video when we return home and it will bring back some wonderful memories. It works for both of us. One thing we've noticed through the years is that Viking continues to become more responsive to customers. You can't please everyone but we really, really appreciate that and we love Viking's approach. Thanks again.

Please do give it a try. It's our first ocean cruise but we've enjoyed 8 river cruises with Viking. We love when there is a mix of passengers to enrich the experience. We certainly hope that the marketing targets which are business decisions don't influence you. The welcoming, friendly atmosphere of both staff and guests is a big part of what draws us back to Viking and we're confident that ocean will be no different. We've never seen anyone treated anything but cordially on Viking. On one cruise we even had a youngster who was in her early teens with health challenges. She was delightful and everyone went out of their way to make her welcome and included. Language would only be a real drawback if you felt you couldn't enjoy the tours or programs. We would love to meet you on your travels and we hope you'll find your adventures and fellow cruisers every bit as enjoyable as we have.

We have always been able to find something off the boat for DH for snacks while touring (9 rivercruises in Europe) as he is diabetic. We also always pack some protein bars when traveling and I make sure one is with us when on excursions. That alleviates any problems with stops or returns to the boat that might not fit his schedule or be delayed or should he start feeling low. We almost always stop and enjoy a morning or afternoon bakery break as we don't have that option at home in our small town.

I know of one website that has published a complete set of the daily schedules for an Oct. 2016 cruise:

 

http://www.beyondships2.com/viking-star-daily-programs.html

 

Details may change, but it looks very similar to our most recent cruise, which was June 2017. On the back page, the hours for all dining locations are listed.

Thanks. This gives some good information that we haven't seen elsewhere and answered a couple of questions I was going to ask.

I'm sure you've all discovered by now that the Sun begins sailing the first week of October. We're on her third sailing October 25 out of Rome. Enjoy.