pinotlover

Viking has a selection of very bland food for dinner if you don't want to be fancy. I would just say as a true foodie, don't believe all that you read on the menus. On our recent Viking cruise in Sept., many of the menus were hyped up to be far more than they turned out to be. Example: They advertised Beef Wellington, but what one got was a tenderloin with a puff pasty sitting on top with absolutely no pate anywhere on the plate. Or, Beef Burgundy that in no way resembled the name sake, but was more of a beef tips with mushrooms. When you ask about a dish, one typically gets "Oh, this is the chef's interpretation of that dish". Just saying that you shouldn't be scared by what you read on the menu. The chef's interpretation of Steak Provence vis vie minute steak may not be that great!

Has anyone asked Mike Moore if he worked on the original ACA website before the new O one? :D

We've decided for sure to make one of our 2016 vacations the Tibet and China "river" cruise. The question is when? We know to stay away during the summer months for multiple reasons, so that leaves Spring and Fall. We've heard horror stories on going to Tibet to early or to late because of weather, so we are pulled into May or September. So for those of you with experience how does the seasons compare from Bejing to Hong Kong considering:

weather, smog, river conditions, other

for going either in mid May or mid September?

Ed&Frank;

Thanks; I'm entirely aware of that option, but not being "retired" yet, I find it to be a pain in the butt and a waste of time to go the drill for what little money in OBC is actually on the table.

Our TA does know what we're looking at, but since we get the early notification from O on released cruises, we may well know it's open before she does. If the 4th is the date, we get off the ship on 2/28 and back home from Auckland on the 3rd! Brain dead and back to work! :eek: Maybe they'll let us sneak in the reservation a little early, or we'll just deal with it.

I'll restate that I'm not talking from my own experience in that the only Carribe cruise I have ever done was on a barefoot sailboat. I will probably never do a big ship cruise in the Carribe. The only O cruise that maybe interests me is the one up the Amazon.

That being said: Oceania has a fairly consistent demographic clientele base. They are not Disney, Celebrity, HAL, etc. Because of several factors, Oceania runs quite a few Carribe cruises, on several ships, throughout the winter months to maintain some income during those months. When one expands that clientele base, over the number of available cabins, out over a number of years, I don't find it hard to believe that O will have trouble filling its multiple Carribe cruises. I would do multiple Med cruises in the Fall, or even (near) repeats of past ones, before I did any Carribe cruises. Our 30 something year old children might give you a difference answer, but they wouldn't be sailing Oceania either, that demographic thing.

We have found the putt putt course to be fairly popular on "at sea" days and rarely used on port days. If the weather is good and the seas not to rough, many people are often clamoring for things to do on multiple b2b sea days! ;)

If can be fun trying to putt while the boat is rolling around in large waves however. One never knows where the ball will go! :D

Hmm, I'll be onboard the Marina the last two weeks of February. I wonder if O will allow me to sign up, while on board, and get the benefits while on board, for a summer 2016 cruise?

Mura;

Not doubting the story, but I have seen several people denied entry for dinner in the GDR and specialties for attempting to wear shorts and tee shirts. Guess it depends upon who's on duty.

Good Luck;

As I posted earlier, saver miles on many flights NEVER become available for several reasons.

From your picture, you appear fairly young, so it may not matter as much to you, but the longer one waits to book these days, the more the better seats disappear.

You may well be waiting for saver awards that never appear, and then be stuck paying for a seat in the middle section of economy. You need to watch how the plane the plane is loading, and set an end date to pull the trigger on buying your ticket.

Without beating the dead horse, whether in Europe, the South Pacific, or even Miami, many cruisers choose to ignore their assigned embarkment time. Unnecessary chaos, at embarkment, often seems to be the norm because of this. I love O, and am normally a cheerleader (not so much O Air), but O's decision to allow their customers to board at will creates several problems that abiding by the assigned boarding times would avoid.

Depends upon how flexible you are. Have a very close friend that tried the game, and within a week the University of XYZ Alumni Association had booked every remaining single cabin in the category. Ends up they had been waiting to see how many cabins became available on that cruise versus another one before they booked. He lost.

Unless the cruise in very early Spring, or very late Fall, I wouldn't count on much of a price decrease. These are high risk times because of either lack of, or to much, water in the rivers, along with more unpredictable weather.

If you have a cabin you like, at a time you want, at a price you find acceptable the risks of playing the game may not be worth the rewards.

Betty;

What I meant was that my hair is grey AND I wear it that way (what's left of it). As opposed those whose hair is grey and .....:p

Might make a difference in one's choice of shampoo! :p

We're planning a cruise in 2016 on a R ship in a PH. Most of the PH1s appear to be Quads. There is only the two of us. Do the quad rooms look any different from a standard PH? I see if has pull down beds, what does one lose with that layout? I haven't seen an O illustration on a Quad room. Pros and cons?

root123;

I'm waiting to until I hear reviews from actual customers, before I decide anything about using Viking over Oceania.

As a side note, I was talking to a gentleman on our Viking river cruise last Fall that had already booked 3 Viking Oceans cruises! :eek: I am rather brave hearted, but would never book three cruises on a line with zero history!

Prdancer;

I believe it is possible to get an early seat assignment on LA; but

1. LA may require you to go through Viking for any such request since they bought the ticket.

2. You will have to pay a fee to LA to choose your (any) seat.

3. You will then have to additionally pay for any upgrade in seating you choose.

Airline Rules for seat assignments are changing rapidly. It is hard to keep up with it all. Added to the difficulty is who the purchaser of the ticket (in this case Viking Air) actually buys the ticket from. They may have bought one leg from United directly, and the other directly from LA, which will further affect seat assignment choices.

As an older grey haired gentleman, I believe that the furnished shampoos do fine. My wife brings and uses her own.

I will comment that the provided shampoos would not be considered "volumizing" by any stretch of the imagination. :(

We are arriving in Sydney 4 days before our cruise. We fully expect to pick up some wonderful wines there, which are rarely if ever seen in the US market, to enjoy at Jacques and the Polo Grill. Paying the corkage will be a minor inconvenience, and will give us exceptional wines, to go with the great food, at far below total ship prices.

As with many higher end restaurants, O's on ship prices are typically 2.5 - 4.0 times retail prices. With the lower priced wines $7-$15, the market will typically run closer to 4 times.

Waiting to book any cruise on them until I can accurate feed back. We love Oceania, which Viking seems to "maybe" partially copy. I just wonder if Viking will attempt to match Oceania's incredible food. Our last river cruise on Viking found the food to be Ok, not great. We put most of that blame on Viking's attempt to feed 185 passengers all at the same time in one sitting. Can they do better with a regular restaurant setting? Viking list prices for cruises is very reasonable and a lot lower than their targeted competition. Wondering what they may be giving up, if anything other than profits, to achieve those lower prices.

We don't mind the caste system of the cruise ships in that they have to manage embarkment chaos in some matter, and the caste system works as well as any, if people abide by the rules and times.

We're very interested on how the Midnight Sun cruise turns out, since that is the one we are most interested in. With the 2016 cruises for that trip now pretty well booked up, it will be 2017 before we could do the cruise with them. Hopefully, we will get lots of reports before we have to reserve that cruise.

The issue seems to be a bit more than just a website problem. I posted this on the Roll Call, but will place it here also. I received our Blue Packet for our upcoming cruise. It had numerous errors and omissions on it. I had our TA call O to clarify some of those issues. O admitted to having computer problems and reminded her that we would also receive the email instructions within 21 days of the voyage that should have all the correct info on it. That 21 day period is now just 8 days away, so I hope they get all this worked out soon.

crusingxpert;

Perhaps the system has changed, but on our last cruise there was no set package. The ship had a collection of wines that they were rotating out and bundled those wins into several packages of seven (7). One could pick and choose the package they preferred, as long as supplies lasted. There were not "set" wines in any packages, nor any claim that those wines would appear in any future packages. The PJ you referred to, for example, was not even offered on any of the ship's wine list, as it must have been sold out or replaced with other bubbly for awhile.

Check out Viator.com. They are a pain in the butt to deal with, with absolutely no concept of customer service, over the internet and in scheduling the (any) tours. However, the guides do a very good job once you get there.

We took our wine bottles with us to the sun deck and for dinner. We filled our glasses in our rooms when we went to the lounge. If we wanted more, one of us went back to the room to refill the glass(es). Not sure if it was a rule, but seemed the proper thing to do, and was practiced by many.

The Aqua Terrace was a no-man's land. Some followed the Lounge's protocol, while others brought their bottles and had the staff bring them mixers (if drinking liquor) or just drank from their wine bottles/glasses.

In June, I would start South and trek North. June, particularly early June can still be a bit cool and rainy in Amsterdam. In July, it won't really matter.

Haven't looked at the Tauck schedule, but you may want more time in Budapest than one day. Same goes for Amsterdam. The Riechs (sp) museum can be a full day in Amsterdam.

A couple of pre-statements:

1. We always take the Premium Drinks Package, but we drink primarily wine.

2. We always fly into the embarkment port a couple of days early;

Now;

If one is travelling to Europe, or as we are Oz, the wine package is not a special deal. One can find far better wines, at far lower prices, than what is offered in O's wine packages. For higher caliber wines, one can pay the corkage fee, so to enjoy with dinner, for an outside bottle and still pay far less than O's prices. Even O's package price for the wines are often 2+ times retail.

However, because of tarrifs/duties, etc. this is typically not the case if one embarks in the middle of the S. Pacific, Carribe, or certain other areas.

A simple example of the above. A really nice $40 bottle of wine (retail) will often cost $100-120 on board. If one pays the $40 + $25 corkage, they are well ahead of buying on ship. If the bottle of wine retails at $15 + $25 corkage, one may break even or save very little over buying it on-ship. The greatest prize comes from buying many great wines for up to half price, in the country of orgin, over what they pay retail in the States. The savings can become pleasantly startling.

So the answer primarily lies on where you get on the boat, and what quality of wine you normally drink.

Lyn;

Just went through that drill not long ago. The answer was around $400, but that is on top of a standard economy class ticket, not the bulk rate ticket.