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Viking vs Oceania help


terrydtx
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We are booked on the Sept 21, 2020 Viking Sea, Venice to Athens cruise. We are trying to get our best friends to go with us. They are experienced Oceania cruisers and swear by them. Oceania has a similar itinerary but it is in July 2020. I need some help from those who have cruised with both Viking Ocean and Oceania for comparisons we can show our friends. Thank you for any help.

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Concerning the weather, which can certainly have an impact on your cruise experience, Viking is the best choice. Though it may be crowded in some ports, we did the Med. Odyssey cruise on Apr,/May of this year and couldn't imagine what it be like during peak travel time for the area. Found the bigger touring cities to be very crowded then. Must be impossible later, or that would be earlier in the time period you are speaking of.

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We are booked on the Sept 21, 2020 Viking Sea, Venice to Athens cruise. We are trying to get our best friends to go with us. They are experienced Oceania cruisers and swear by them. Oceania has a similar itinerary but it is in July 2020. I need some help from those who have cruised with both Viking Ocean and Oceania for comparisons we can show our friends. Thank you for any help.

 

We have cruised on both. If I had a choice between Oceania and Viking and if the Oceania cruise was on the Riviera or Marina I would choose Oceania. Please note that the 2020 itineraries for Oceania are being released on October 17 so you might be able to find something in September on Oceania. I would avoid going in July. Food is much better on Oceania in my opinion. We like both lines and have a cruise booked on Viking for 2019, but I prefer Oceania.

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Oceania excels in food, service and ship comfort over Viking. Viking specialty restaurants are close in quality to Oceania specialties. Other dining venues are a notch or two below O.

Viking throws in a few extras and there is an included excursion per port. These tours are very basic. It depends on the port and your expectations whether this is advantageous or not. If you don’t take the tours you won’t get full value for what you pay.

Viking and Oceania ships are beautiful and well maintained. Viking lacks shaded outdoor dining venues and the pool deck roof is kept closed more than we like.

 

Investigate Viking final payment policies which we dislike. Our Viking trips have been booked closer to sailing date to bypass this policy.

We never use Oceania air but we’ve done Viking air twice. Viking has more gateway cities and their air deviation fee is much less, I think it was $50. Viking includes free transfers if you book their air. Viking Air itineraries were pretty good.

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We are booked on the Sept 21, 2020 Viking Sea, Venice to Athens cruise. We are trying to get our best friends to go with us. They are experienced Oceania cruisers and swear by them. Oceania has a similar itinerary but it is in July 2020. I need some help from those who have cruised with both Viking Ocean and Oceania for comparisons we can show our friends. Thank you for any help.

You might choose to pose the same question on the Viking Ocean website. Answers may be very different!!!

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It is a matter of personal taste. We have cruised once on Oceania Riviera in the Med. We have not rebooked. After that we returned to Azamara for many cruises. We have another Azamara cruise booked in May 2020. We have our third Viking cruise booked for December 2018.

Whichever you choose you will have a great time. Why not encourage them to join you but promise to try their favourite on a subsequent cruise.

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Our friends decided to book with us yesterday and try Viking. They also got the last PS1 cabin on our cruise. When we booked our PV1 it was the one of the last cabins available in that category. Our friends booked because our Viking cruise is almost sold out two years ahead of time and some of the very informative comments from this thread that we shared. They said if Viking can sell out two years ahead they must be worth the money. I think its more that Viking must have some very loyal satisfied customers. Thanks everyone for your help.:cool:

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We’ve done both in the last two years.  The Specialty Restaurants on Oceania were great but it ended there.  We were not wowed by their MDR.  Viking also had very good to great SRs and easier to get into.  Entertainment goes hands up to Viking.  You can’t even compare the drink packages, again Viking.  Our cabins were on a similar level and Viking won there also.  Our only complaint with Viking was afternoon tea as it was a total zoo, just went once.  We’ll be back on Viking on a New Year’s Eve cruise and can’t wait.

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Dauntless, my wife and I booked are on the the April 2020 Vince to Athens Viking cruise. April wasn't our first choice but it was a scheduling decision. Would be interested in your experience with the weather on your cruise April/May of this year.

Thanks

Jack

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1 hour ago, Jack E Dawson said:

Dauntless, my wife and I booked are on the the April 2020 Vince to Athens Viking cruise. April wasn't our first choice but it was a scheduling decision. Would be interested in your experience with the weather on your cruise April/May of this year.

Thanks

Jack

April is not a bad month to visit this area. I have experienced some storms in the Adriatic, but they were only Jan/Feb.

I would expect temperatures of about 20C/68F. Might be a little lower in Venice and warmer in Athens/Piraeus. If you are late April add a couple of degrees to those average temps.

You could get more rain than July/August. I would figure on rain < 20% of the days.

Water temps will be cool.

Benefit is significantly less crowds than June to Sept.

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