toolworker

This particular Risk-Free Guarantee only applies to bookings made from March 1 to May 31, 2021. So just another week. 

On 5/24/2021 at 9:37 AM, Peregrina651 said:

 

Don't guess on the refund thing; ask Viking. Better than spending two years second guessing.

You were guessing. I was reading the Terms and Conditions. But I did check and Viking confirms that for these particular vouchers, if they are not used within 24 months they become valueless. There is no cash refund. There are other vouchers, issued for a cruise cancelled by Viking, that do have a cash refund.

These are transferrable and there is no prohibition on selling them. Viking discourages it but does nothing to make it difficult. If you have a buyer (or lucky giftee), you email Viking with their name and email and a transfer request, and Viking emails the reassigned voucher to them. 

Actually I can now answer that myself, following a nice chat with an agent at ACL.

They require pax to be vaccinated when required by the state, which is the case in Washington (Puget Sound) and Alaska but not in Oregon (Columbia River) and I believe on the Mississippi.

She said all crew are vaccinated on all their ships, and most pax on the Columbia River are vaccinated.

4 hours ago, lesliedrew said:

All passengers were vaccinated so didn't seem very worried and were just happy to be traveling again.

 

Thanks so much for your report!

How did you know that all passengers were vaccinated? Was it a requirement? Did ACL check?

Current policy - unlike most other lines - is to allow unvaccinated passengers who test negative. NCL told my TA that all of the crew are vaccinated on cruises departing from Oregon and Washington.

We need to decide whether to keep a Columbia River booking in July, and are concerned about the shipboard experience with COVID protocols.

Will we be able to converse and dine with other passengers that we don't know?

Do passengers observe masking and distancing? Does the crew enforce it?

How much do the protocols impact the cruise experience?

Thanks for your reply. Different vouchers have different terms. The cash refund sounds like it might apply to a voucher for a cancelled cruise at a higher face value than taking an immediate refund. The Terms and Conditions for the program for bookings from March 1 to May 31 says "Voucher must be redeemed by the expiration date prior to final payment," and doesn't mention refunds.

My thinking is that I'd book a cruise hoping and expecting to go. But just in case, I would have the option to cancel up to 14 days before departure and get the voucher. Then I'd expect to use the voucher, but just in case, could probably sell it. And if they're going for 50 cents on the dollar now, they'd probably be worth more in 12 or 18 months.

No guarantees here, just playing the probabilities. 

Has anyone ever tried to sell a transferable Viking cruise voucher? Is there a market for them?

I'm tempted to book a cruise for later this year before the current Risk-Free Guarantee expires at the end of this month (May 2021). The vouchers are transferable, so if we had to cancel before 14 days out and couldn't find another cruise within 24 months, I could try to sell them.

Lots of NCL vouchers are listed on eBay, and are actually selling (completed listings) around half of face value even in today's uncertain situation. But I don't see any Viking vouchers listed and wonder if there's a reason.

17 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

Actually, for the Welcome Back cruises, it is generally well known that going ashore can only be done in the Viking Bubble (i.e. in a Shore Excursion).  It is in all rules and procedures, and quite frankly, our Travel Agent let us know this immediately before we considered booking.

 

The item that, if true, is a real issue for us, would be for Malta to not be able to arrive ahead of time bya few days.  For BOTH the Bermuda and the Iceland cruises, people are allowed to arrive early and tour around themselves before reporting to the ship (with some caveats).

 

I would assume that this "ruling" if it is true, comes from Malta government, who is afraid the Viking vaccinated passengers will get into trouble the days ahead of getting on-board.   Bermuda and Iceland, obviously, did not have that concern.

Thanks @CCWineLover. I'm relieved that it is generally known. That said, I read the COVID pages on vikingcruises.com pretty thoroughly, including the Health and Safety Program, and didn't see this other than deep and somewhat ambiguously in the terms and conditions fine print. Is it clearly stated somewhere that I missed?

I would think there are two reasons you can't arrive early under current rules. First, if Viking doesn't let people reboard if they go off on their own from a shore excursion, then that would apply equally to people who go off on their own in Malta.

Second, from the Maltese government's side, the U.S. is on their red list. So you can't enter, except as Viking arranges permission for direct transit from the airport.

We just discovered the prohibition on going ashore on our own. Is this generally known?

I had looked very carefully on the Viking website for COVID restrictions and hadn't seen it anywhere. But it was confirmed in three different phone calls by our TA and me. It is in the fine print of the COVID-19 Policies and Procedures section of the terms and conditions, a full page of fine print including "(8) additional restrictions during shore excursions depending on local conditions, including but not limited to denial of disembarkation at destinations unless participating in only Carrier-approved shore excursions".

Anyway, it was a surprise to us, and we cancelled our reservation on the July 11 sailing from Malta. We were looking forward to wandering around during our 5th visit to Athens, 4th to Rhodes and 3rd to Santorini, but have no interest in tours.

We'll be sailing on Mariner.  A Regent phone agent said that the TVs are Bluetooth equipped and can play through a Bluetooth headset.

Can anyone confirm this?

Were the Sirens passengers with flu isolated in their cabins?

I find I have the best time when I worry about how I feel and not others.

Thanks, me too. I would feel uncomfortable if I were the only person in the room without a jacket or tie, regardless of what other people were thinking.

From what most people are saying, it sounds like I should come along on Seabourn, but pack a blazer and tie for the first time in 15 years, just in case I wind up feeling uncomfortable without them, and though I might offend a few better-bred people, I am unlikely to be voted off the ship. ;)

The very fact that you are in doubt indicates you will not be comfortable. Some people make a point about not caring about dress code. You clearly do.

Thanks for your reply, Tony.

No, I don't care about dress codes. I care about not being someplace where I feel unwelcome.

I fit in fine with the casual dress on Oceania and Regent. But Seabourn's dress code, catalogs and website give me the impression that the expectation of a Seabourn passenger is seriously different. That's what I'm trying to check out.

My question is not about the dress code but about how people actually dress. My travel agent insists I will be comfortable on Seabourn. I think not, but am willing to ask.

We've been on 21 ocean cruises but nothing more upscale than Regent. I haven't taken a sports jacket out of the U.S. in 15 years. Everything I own is wash and wear. I travel with one pair of black shoes - I would call them walking shoes. At dinner I wear a long sleeved collared shirt and slacks or chinos.

What percentage of men would be dressed like that on a normal evening in the main dining room? Would I stick out like a sore, lower class thumb?

If I tossed a blazer in the suitcase, would that be enough to blend in?

If it's warm, I walk around during the day in a polo shirt, cargo pants and sometimes sandals. Again, would I stick out like a sore thumb?

Thanks in advance for any serious advice.

On the X site, under Profile, Immigration Documents, it asks for City of Issue.

I always write "US Department of State," which replaced Place of Issue a long time ago. Been to over 80 countries and never been deported yet.

Just renewed. 18 days from mailing at the post office to delivery in my mailbox June 30, 2017.

Tracking was easy all the way using Priority Mail and the State Department web site.

There was a mistake on my application (what I get for letting Chrome automatically fill in form fields) which they fixed over the phone. There was no problem getting a person on the phone without a wait all three times I called.

Note that they no longer add pages to passports; you have to apply for a new one. So if you travel a lot, check the box for a thick passport when you apply.

Thanks, Bailey.

This Viking booking process makes me feel like a rat in a maze, except that Viking keeps hiding the cheese.

The way we do it on Regent Seven Seas, we book the tours online and pay for them. Then once aboard we cancel, get a refund, and rebook with our shipboard credit.

But with Viking, the tours are nonrefundable on the same payment schedule as the cruise price. Not only do we have to pay real money to insure we get them, we can't get on board, discuss the tours with the shipboard people who know more about them than the phone agents, and then make changes.

So we'll probably take the credit, and then have to make a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't decision about prepaying to nail down tours that we really want, based on the limited info we can get prior to boarding.

Then we will only be able to spend the credit on tours that we don't care enough about to pay real money for, or blow it in the gift shop.

Thanks, Pat!

I can't imagine why Viking wouldn't give me that information.

Does anyone have a list of Viking's extra cost shore excursions and prices on the upper Danube for this or a recent year?

We are booking the Romantic Danube cruise for next May.

Viking is offering a choice of a beverage package, a cancel for any reason voucher benefit, or $200pp shipboard credit. We have to decide before putting down a deposit.

The only thing we'd use the credit on is shore excursions. Viking will only tell us verbally what the excursions are likely to be, and they won't tell us the price for 2017 or even 2016.

Does anyone have that information to share?

(And when did Viking start offering so many extra cost tours? We haven't done a Europe river cruise since 2009, and back then all the tours were included.)

What's the chance we could piggyback on the bus to a post-cruise extension if we aren't booking the extension?

We're on a Budapest - Nuremberg cruise, and then want to do Prague on our own. We could take the train from Nuremberg, but the bus would be easier. Of course we would only try to arrange it once on board.

We've done similar things on ocean cruises, but are wondering how flexible the Viking River onboard staff are.

Just for fun, I saved all our cruise mailings for four months.

I wish there were a way to tell them to just send less, but it's either all or nothing.

We returned April 3 to Terminal J on Oceania Riviera. There was no Global Entry, just two CBP officers and 600 peeved passengers.

There are multiple threads with the same question, including this fairly recent one in which I will post the same answer. I wish people would do a simple search before starting new threads on topics already under discussion.

We returned April 3 to Terminal J on Oceania Riviera. There was no Global Entry, just two CBP officers and 600 peeved passengers.

There are multiple threads with the same question, including this more recent one in which I'll post the same answer.

You can use your emerald club for enterprise - they have a n office near POM.

Not sure they have an Emerald Line though. We'll get off the large comfortable bus at MIA and right into our car. And it's on the way to the Everglades which is our day's sightseeing before flying out of FLL.

Thanks for the help! I made a reservation on National's 800 number, but they incorrectly said there was no shuttle service.

For the real scoop I called the National counter at the airport (305-423-2104, press 5, press 2).

Busses run Friday through Sunday (I think she said Monday too) from 7 am to 2:30 pm. There are three busses running continuously. It's 20 minutes one way without traffic. You need a copy of your reservation to board the bus.

With an Emerald Aisle reservation we'll be able to get off the bus and into the car without any lines.