Viking Sun World Cruise ongoing review/comments

Tom

 

Not on the August 2019. We are on the 2019 Jan-May. Are you starting a roll call for the first part of the 2020 - 245 day WC starting in August 2019? Or maybe the whole 2020 WC?

 

Connie

 

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We are on the 2nd half of the 245 day 2019/20 WC - LA to London. I started a roll call for this segment about 4 months ago.

Further to Jim's response. When purchasing binoculars, especially for use at sea I suggest paying attention to the technical numbers. Traditionally at sea, we used 7 x 50.

- The first number (7) is the magnification factor, as I will explain later, at sea higher is not always better

- Second number (50) is the field of view, or how much of the horizon you can see in horizontal plane

 

Magnification - a salesman will probably try to sell you more powerful binoculars, which on land might be OK, but on a ship, vibration causes high magnification to be blurry. I suggest 7x to a maximum of 10x for comfortable viewing. Depending on how steady your hands are, you may go to 12x. Personally have used 20x demo, but not recommended.

 

Field of vision - higher is better, especially when looking at smaller targets. Suggest getting at least 35, preferably 50.

 

Focus - suggest getting a pair with auto-focus, perma-focus, or whatever the various companies call the technology. They do not require a focus ring and from reasonably close to infinity, they instantly show a clear, in-focus picture.

 

If money is no object, I personally would go with Swarovski, but they are serious $$$$. When I completed a life-cycle analysis for ship binos the Swarovski's were virtually indestructible. Unfortunately, couldn't justify the cost so we selected a cheaper brand for supply to the ships.

 

Since we travel extensively, I opt for a cheaper binocular, which we are happy to replace, if it gets damaged. We have:

- Bushnell 12x50 perma-focus. Great for long distance viewing from cruise ships, but probably won't focus at objects closer than about 50-70 feet (don't know why we need binos for that close) Excellent wide viewing angle for picking up wildlife. Probably limited if viewing fast action, say car racing or airshow.

- Much smaller 7x35 (brand unknown)

 

Any brand will work, big differences are usually price and weight.

 

Good luck finding binos that work for you.

Thank you both. I found a pair of Steiner Safari UltraSharp 10x26 Binoculars on Amazon and have them in my cart. We like how compact they are. We have a big Bushnell pair, but just to heavy for carrying on day trips. We travel quite a bit, too, and these look good. I think the magnification is more important to us than the field of view to us, but on safari, maybe not. My husband will be carrying his camera with a very big, heavy telephoto lens, so these are for me!

That’s exactly the ones we have for travel. Good quality overall viewing.

That’s exactly the ones we have for travel. Good quality overall viewing.

Well, if you liked them for your WC then I’m sure we will like them for ours. I just bought them and they were a great deal. As Heidi says, if they get eaten by a rhino or something, we aren’t out a bundle. And, they will arrive in time for our trip to San Francisco and wine country in 2 weeks!

And like Andy said the binoculars in the desk are terrible. Too cheap for words😳🍸😎😎

Yes, just give everyone a $5 OBC and do away with them!

agree...I came home thinking I needed cataract surgery....actually we only used the pair that we brought. I will have to ask my husband to figure out the specs but they served us well on safari too!

- The first number (7) is the magnification factor, as I will explain later, at sea higher is not always better

- Second number (50) is the field of view, or how much of the horizon you can see in horizontal plane

 

Magnification - a salesman will probably try to sell you more powerful binoculars, which on land might be OK, but on a ship, vibration causes high magnification to be blurry. I suggest 7x to a maximum of 10x for comfortable viewing. Depending on how steady your hands are, you may go to 12x. Personally have used 20x demo, but not recommended.

 

Field of vision - higher is better, especially when looking at smaller targets. Suggest getting at least 35, preferably 50.

 

Just a small correction:

The second number is the diameter of the objective lens in mm. and does not necessarily correlate to the field of view.

A larger number (diameter) will let in more light, which would be better for low-light conditions and astronomical viewing, but is less important if only used for day viewing.

Generally speaking, binoculars with greater magnification (the first number) tend to have narrower fields of view (FOV), which is the apparent diameter of what you see when looking through the binoculars. *It is defined by the width in feet or meters of the area visible at 1000 yards or meters.*

So you can find 7x50 binoculars and 12x25 binoculars. The former has much lower magnification, but will be much larger and have a wider FOV.

In my opinion, FOV is important when picking a pair of binoculars, but you'll have to dig into the specifications to find the values.

Happy viewing!

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agree...I came home thinking I needed cataract surgery....actually we only used the pair that we brought. I will have to ask my husband to figure out the specs but they served us well on safari too!

Well, looks like I might have to have cataract surgery before we go. But I am almost looking forward to it. I hate not being able to see/read.

The surgery will not help the Viking DVcavin binoculars but I understand that the upper level cabins' are much better.

Is anyone else covered up with binocular ads????:eek:

The surgery will not help the Viking DVcavin binoculars but I understand that the upper level cabins' are much better.

Maybe in the Qowner’s suite. Ours in PV were worthless!

Is anyone else covered up with binocular ads????:eek:

We've enjoyed our Nikon Action EX 8x40 binoculars. While heavier than some (Nikon Acuron), they're fogproof and waterproof. Sold by Amazon, although I don't know that they are the cheapest site.

Just a reminder that the 2019 World Cruise (Jan-May) roll call "Viking WC Jan 3, 2019" is active at https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2598035 Many of those signed on for the 2019 world cruise are posting there. The roll call album for the 2019 World Cruise is in progress so if anyone on the 2019 WC or segment wants to be included the information to be included with a picture is

Name:

CC User Name:

Cabin Number:

Email Address:

Residence:

Cruise: Full World Cruise or Segment (which one)

Occupation:

Comments:

Send your information to mfischer5@cfl.rr.com and be sure to sign up for the Meet & Mingle. The more the merrier. Thanks.

Connie

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Viking Sun is really piling up the miles as the World Cruise ship. :cool:

I re-read the 'Posting Rules' on the side of the page and assume I am not breaking any (hopefully !) .. :)

 

This is them -

 

https://baschieltz.blogspot.com.au/

 

https://wordwrite.wixsite.com/passepartoutparttwo

 

http://ourwideworld.com/

For reasons I won't go into, I am "DivaFeather" on this board.... but I am REALLY "wordwrite," aka Passepartout and PassepartoutPartTwo, as listed above. Please, just call me Susan ! See you all Jan 3 !

This is a question for the veteran World Cruisers from 2018. I have browsed this thread a bit, but it is a bit tough to find a broad answer to my inquiry.

Background: We will be "through cruisers" going on the Grand Pacific Explorer in 2019 (93 days Auckland to Vancouver. Some on board are taking one or more of 6 sub-segments). After researching, it appears that about 1/3 of our itinerary will be "first time visits" for Viking (places never visited by prior cruises.) We know from our experience on the Star during VO's first Baltic summer that they later changed some port excursions etc. as they learned what worked and what didn't. We also enjoyed some beers with the gentleman from Viking who had researched and set up all the excursions. He explained about his research and port visits to plan the excursions. We were, however, never in the very FIRST group of passengers Viking had taken to a specific port. We were on the third sailing of that first summer itinerary.

So the question: Do you have any advice for those going to a port with Viking for their very first time? (I know you did it a LOT.) How did they handle the inevitable snafus?

Thank you for your help!

As you said, lots of first time arrivals on the WC. Generally things went as planned other than missing a couple of ports for weather reasons and Halong Bay for political reasons. The most noticed thing about being a "newbie" is that if other ships were in, Viking got the lesser dock space. Not always but fairly regularly. At new ports we did get a lot of "dignitaries" coming on board for a lookout and free meal. Usually a short plaque ceremony for the increasing number of city crest plaques on display. In all it went very well for a first time .

Viking Cruises 2017-2018 World Cruise Video Recap

www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Rc9ZKysNw

I just found this video on YouTube. While not on the Viking site, it's produced by Viking and is 7+ minutes long. It''s beautifully done with The Traveler in the background, so be sure you have the sound on.

We were only able to cruise the Miami to LA segment but vicariously enjoyed the remainder of the WC via the posts on this thread. Watching this video has put a nice visual presentation on what we missed.

If the link above doesn't work, search YouTube for the title of the video.

Enjoy.

Wow, beautifully done and a lot of fun to watch. Can’t wait for our 2019 WC, only 100 days out, now. Thanks for sharing.

Try http://www.tomsportguides.com for ports all over the world!

On 9/23/2018 at 1:12 PM, Jim Avery said:

As you said, lots of first time arrivals on the WC. Generally things went as planned other than missing a couple of ports for weather reasons and Halong Bay for political reasons. The most noticed thing about being a "newbie" is that if other ships were in, Viking got the lesser dock space. Not always but fairly regularly. At new ports we did get a lot of "dignitaries" coming on board for a lookout and free meal. Usually a short plaque ceremony for the increasing number of city crest plaques on display. In all it went very well for a first time .

Aloha Jim (and anyone else from the WC),

Question for you: How long was your ship docked in Cairns? For our upcoming Bali to Sydney cruise we are only in port from 8 am to 6 pm which pretty much precludes booking an independent snorkel trip to the GBR. The Viking GBR tour filled up before most of the cabin categories were able to book excursions so there is now much venting and unhappiness on our roll call. I don't remember seeing anyone from your cruise report this problem so I'm wondering if you were in port longer. Viking clearly grossly miscalculated the amount of interest there would be in seeing the GBR this time! 

Fortunately, I snagged us spots on a half-day heli/snorkel cruise months ago, thanks to the suggestion of someone on this thread (whew and thanks!). I'd be pretty bitter (like my future shipmates) if I was going that far only to be forced to miss the GBR. I'm just wondering why things seem to be going so badly for Viking at Cairns this time. Perhaps a larger percentage of WC travelers had already spent time at the GBR during previous trips so your fellow travelers were less inclined to want a snorkel tour? Or were you there long enough for people to be able to schedule their own? It also sounded like Viking offered two snorkel options for the WC instead of reserving only one snorkel boat for us. It seems strange. I'm just was curious about your experience in Cairns and any thoughts you might have on this. 

Thanks much!

Karen 😃

Hola Karen,

The times you list are very much what we had in Cairns.  We took the Viking tour to GBR and it was one of the few disappointments on the World Cruise.  I must say ALL disappointments were "off ship" issues.  No disappointments at all with the onboard experience.  Ok, back to Cairns.  We had to do a "short" walk to the excursion boat.  Turned out to be 1.2 miles by someones FitBit!  Then, the boat was really crowded.  Over 300 on this tour.  The float we went to on the GBR was too small for this crowd.  We had to get into (and worse) get out of stinger suits.  Bad jellies supposedly in the water.  I would never take this tour again.  For not much more $$ we could have taken a helicopter to a much more private float and enjoyed it way more.  I would not recommend the Viking boat trip to GBR.

I agree with Jim unless, like me, you are certified scuba.  For a few extra dollars I got 30 minutes on the reef.  Crowds in scuba area were not a problem.

Tom

Agree with Jim and Tom.  Lorraine and I are certified divers and were frankly disappointed with the GBR as noted above.  Visibility was fair and the shallow dive was 30 minutes (at best). The additional cost of diving on top of the relatively pricey excursion itself is not something we would do again with Viking.  We are signed up for the dive at Mauritius and keeping our fingers crossed.  P.S.  the snorkeling in the Red Sea was spectacular with visibility 60+ feet.  We are doing a Viking cruise to Egypt in 2020 and will extend to dive near Sharm el Sheikh.