Viking Star 2015 Cruisers List

[LouFlorida]

Roy also thanks for creating the list. We are taking the Empire Cruise on April 11. We are leaving from Miami on April 10. Our only other cruising experience has been two Viking River Cruises. We are looking forward to a wonderful experience.

[Wandering Westminster]

Great idea! We are booked on the Empires of the Mediterranean Oct 6-15 and then continuing on Mediterranean Odyssey from Venice to Barcelona Oct 15-27.

 

Jack and Sue Majors

[Carol From California]

Great idea! We are booked on the Empires of the Mediterranean Oct 6-15 and then continuing on Mediterranean Odyssey from Venice to Barcelona Oct 15-27.

 

Jack and Sue Majors

 

We are on the Empires of the Mediterranean, the one before you, departing Venice on September 27, 2015. Will this be your first cruise with Viking? We just completed two river cruises with them. One was in China and the other was the Romantic Danube.

[juliesaddiction]

so...we are on the May 16, 2015 cruise in the Baltics and still have no flight info or information on the excursions. today I bit the bullet and booked our own air and cancelled Viking Air. Just too uncomfortable with the timing. The one excursion that I am most anxious about is St Petersburg so I took another step to ensure that we would get to see what we wanted without waiting to see what Viking has left after implementing the tier system for excursions. We booked with Alla, and we are doing the Comfort Tour, its a two day tour, will be a small group and is reasonably priced. If anyone is interested get in touch with Anna at Alla tours.

[TERRIER1]

so...we are on the May 16, 2015 cruise in the Baltics and still have no flight info or information on the excursions. today I bit the bullet and booked our own air and cancelled Viking Air. Just too uncomfortable with the timing. The one excursion that I am most anxious about is St Petersburg so I took another step to ensure that we would get to see what we wanted without waiting to see what Viking has left after implementing the tier system for excursions. We booked with Alla, and we are doing the Comfort Tour, its a two day tour, will be a small group and is reasonably priced. If anyone is interested get in touch with Anna at Alla tours.

 

Thanks. We did the same for our July 25th trip. When we booked this trip we were under the impression it was open dining and not a tier system. We were also under the impression we could use Viking custom air and get the flights we wanted even if there was an up charge. We also had no idea that you have to book everything through your TA such as excursions and dining preferences. Add this to the fact that Viking will not release the port schedules and I am wondering if this whole trip is worth it.

[guka244]

We have had a different experience with Viking. We got our air itinerary beginning of the week which has us booked on United from Buffalo on April

8th at 2:35 to Dulles, leaving Dulles on Lufthansa for Frankfurt, arriving April 9th morning, then to Istanbul arriving 1pm. We booked a two day pre-board through Viking at Conrad Istanbul. We have direct flight back from Stockholm on May 30th to Newark and then onto Buffalo, arriving 5pm. Compared this same flight arrangement through United and surprisingly Viking was better priced as well as including transfers. As to dining, our TA advised that you can have traditional sitting, reservations, or walk up (with possible wait time) at main dining room. There are a couple specialty restaurants. I guess our experiences are luck of the draw as to who we are dealing with at Viking?

 

Now really getting excited about being on the inaugural sailing.....

[Love2Sew]

We also have had a good experience in preparing for our Viking Empires cruise - beginning in April, 2015. We go through our TA - and have received good information. Paid the extra $100/person fee to Viking for flight preferences. We have had our non-stop flights booked for several months - including seat assignments. This includes JFK to Istanbul, Stockholm to Iceland (post trip), and Iceland to JFK Also we were advised several months ago of booking dates for dining reservations and excursions based on our room. Meeting with TA today to give him our choices as we will be in Mexico for most of January and February. Our TA seems to have an excellent relationship with a Viking contact person. It would be nice to know port times and excursion costs, but since it's the maiden voyage, we're willing to be flexible.

[Bear_Music]

We've had no problems booking flights either. We paid the extra fee and got the dates/times we wanted and the seats we wanted, no problem. We're vaguely discomfitted by the lack of hard info on excursion costs and port times, but not about the food part: THAT will work itself out, no problem. We're not going to go hungry :-)

[kathy9]

Who contacted you with the flight information your TA or Viking? Still have not heard from either one.....

Thanks Kathy

[Bear_Music]

We don't have a TA. We called 'em up and said "Let's get'er going!" and they did. I agree it's a little weird they are not reaching out, but take the initiative and go after them yourself and they'll take care of you...

[rjscott]

FYI, if you have a TA, Viking will not contact you. The TA's are compensated well by Viking, and so if you book with a TA, Viking will (nicely) refer you back to your TA for any issues or questions. ;)

 

Becki

[captainmcd]

I'm glad to hear that Viking is working well with some passengers and travel agents. I was worried about their communication. For our April 11 sailing I canceled the Viking Air a couple of months ago and booked on my own pre and post cruise hotels and air. Since we have been to many of the ports between Istanbul and Venice I decided we would simply take the included tours in each port. My reason for booking was mostly to see how they handled a new ship on a new itinerary. I expected to see some start-up glitches. I have been happy with Viking Rivers tours in the past, and have been on a number of Azamara "Azamazing evenings" for the entire ship of 800 or more passengers. They seem to handle it well, of course those who pay for suites get the first bus on departure, but they seem to be well organized and it is possible to have a nice time with a ship load of people.

[Fairfield Nana]

Finally, a voice of good reason!

 

We are booked on our first cruise with Viking to see Scandanavian ports in July 2016. So far not concerned or alarmed by all the anxious commentary about a ship that is still months away from its first sailing. Seems like 90% of the traffic on the links pertaining to Viking Oceans and almost all river cruising is by Viking customers. All our river cruising has been on Uniworld, which we like quite a bit.

[TERRIER1]

The Viking air issue seems to be with those cruises that "do not have custom air". The Stockholm to Bergen Viking Homelands is one of those. We can change the embark/disembark date for the $100 pp fee but we cannot pick our airlines or flight times. We did not find out about this until it was time to book our air in early December for July. We were told that we would not know our flights or times until Viking about 60 to 45 days before the flight.

[id4elizabeth]

I talked with a rep from Viking today and got some new information. She told me that on Jan 15th, they are revamping the Viking Oceans website, and all the information about port times, excursions, costs, etc will be posted. Also on the 15th, the Suite passengers who have 90 days to sign up, can sign up (that gives them about an 85 day advantage). But all of us will be able to see what’s available and the costs on the 15th. We will get an e-mail on how to sign-up a few days before our respective sign-up windows.

 

On “The Restaurant” reservations, signing up for a specific time is optional. If you do make a reservation (and show up at that time of course), you will not have to wait in line – they will have your table spots waiting. If you do not make a reservation, you will have to wait in line, if there is one. The main dining room seats 468 people at one time, so that’s about half of us, and of course, some of us will be in the Specialty Restaurants and some will be eating off the buffet or eating in port, so the dining room should be adequate. The “al fresco” dining on the Aquavit Terrace is separate and is a buffet and is first come, first served.

 

For those of us signed up for the whole 50 day cruise (that’s us crazies), or multiple segments, we will not be able to sign up all at once, we will have to do it when the respective window becomes available for the various segments based on the class of cabin.

 

Spa appointments have to be made once on board and cannot be done ahead of time. Neither will a list of services be available beforehand (but she said to call about a month ahead of launch and they MIGHT have some info on this). There will be one hairdresser on board. This is critical for those of us crazies taking the 50-day cruise.

 

If you’ve been on-line in the last several days, the links to the excursions are not working very well – that’s because their techies are working on the website to get it ready for the Jan 15 launch. Let’s hope this launch goes better than the roll-out of Obamacare!

 

And finally, you can use regular magnetic stripe credit cards to settle your onboard account. It does not have to be a Chip & PIN credit card. And Amex is fine.

 

That’s all I learned, but I felt pretty good that at least we might get SOME information before we embark.

[Momwelly]

Our first cruise with Viking. Any suggestions for tours in Croatia?

Goodyears/Modesto CA

[AZMembergs]

I talked with a rep from Viking today and got some new information. She told me that on Jan 15th, they are revamping the Viking Oceans website, and all the information about port times, excursions, costs, etc will be posted. Also on the 15th, the Suite passengers who have 90 days to sign up, can sign up (that gives them about an 85 day advantage). But all of us will be able to see what’s available and the costs on the 15th. We will get an e-mail on how to sign-up a few days before our respective sign-up windows. ... That’s all I learned, but I felt pretty good that at least we might get SOME information before we embark.

 

Elizabeth! This is wonderful! Thank you so much for doing all that in-depth reporting!

Nessa

[id4elizabeth]

You're most welcome.

[CharTrav]

Glad I found this post. We're looking to do ocean cruising in 2016 and was annoyed when detailed itinerary listed excursions but no prices. The agent we used last year for our river cruise told me no prices yet. So now I know when the prices will get posted. Thanks!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[algaes]

Anyone else doing the 50 day Apr 11 cruise and staying in an explorer suite? Shortchanging us five days in being able to research restaurants and excursions after the huge $ commiment we made in 2013 is nuts. Better not be the start of other benefits being watered down for maiden voyage passengers.

 

Don't want to come across as a whiner but wife and I made a huge bet back in 2013 that Viking would live up to their customer service and experience promises.

Edited January 9, 2015 by algaes

[Jassy]

I talked with a rep from Viking today and got some new information. She told me that on Jan 15th, they are revamping the Viking Oceans website, and all the information about port times, excursions, costs, etc will be posted. .

 

Good news! Boy, Jan 15 is going to be a busy day -- the Viking announcement plus Regent Seven Seas will be announcing the itineraries for its new-build, the Explorer. Looks like I will be spending a lot of time at my computer that day. Will have to warn DH that he'll be on his own for breakfast and lunch. :D

[id4elizabeth]

We're in the next category down (junior penthouse suite) for the whole 50-days and are supposed to have the 80 day window. It wouldn't surprise me that everyone's window gets pushed back by 5 days or so.

 

You 90 day window folks are supposed to get an e-mail from Viking explaining how to sign-up online several days before your window opens (or so they told me). We're all supposed to get this e-mail several days before our respective window opens, but i would think you should get something within the next several days. After all, if it weren't for CC you wouldn't know anything about the Jan 15 date, so I'm kind of surprised you haven't got some notification. You would be expecting to sign up this Sunday. Did you get such an email yet?

[algaes]

As of Friday evening, we've heard nothing by email from Viking. We've had our PIF filled out thru river website since last summer. Frustrating given we expected to work on our selections starting Jan 10, tomorrow, in the absence of Viking informing us otherwise.

 

We booked through a travel agent and I've asked her to let us know if Viking contacts her about our booking.

 

I can confirm Viking has the correct email as I use custom email addresses per each situation and the email for Oceans has been bombarded with Viking marketing emails since July 2013 when we made a deposit on the Star.

Edited January 10, 2015 by algaes
add a para; typo

[Mariesmates]

I am a travel agent on the April 11 sailing and have heard nothing so far from Viking. .

[Mr Luxury]

I am a travel agent on the April 11 sailing and have heard nothing so far from Viking. .

 

 

I think that Viking are learning as they go along just like the guests.

 

Probably best left alone for six months whilst they find their feet.