Viking Air and business class

[selwind]

Is the excursion to Berlin on a 4 hour train ride to and from worth it? I don't see getting back to Berlin in the future.

[Dauntless]

Is the excursion to Berlin on a 4 hour train ride to and from worth it? I don't see getting back to Berlin in the future.

 

Ours was 3 hours each way. Is it "worth it?" Depends on your perspective. I was 68 at the time. Had not always wanted to go to Berlin but was familiar with all that had happened there. It was an included tour so "worth it". Equals "included" equals free. I too doubt if I will get back and had never been so I said yes to the trip. The train is comfortable but not the "Orient Express". Easy to move about and 'good' seats. If your excursion is like ours you will have about 4 hours of free time after the included bus ride to acquaint yourself with city.

If you plan to have lunch and DIY, there is time for that but I thought it was a long way to go and not see more. Be aware that you arrive at one station and depart from another and the drop off and meeting place is another, centrally located. TellUs@vikingcruises.com should be able to give you this info. They may try to hem and haw about things may change but they do have past experience with this so ask for that if they don't give you an exact answer. Not doing complete research caused me to miss what I really wanted to see. If I had gone into more detail I would have known that it was only 2 blocks from where we left and could have just met the train at the station without trying to get back to pick up point.

Another thing to consider is other options with a fee. "Worth it" or not is for you to decide. Some people arranged for a guide to meet them at arriving station and get the to the departing station. Viking has some other 'fee' excursions. If it's an 'over all" view you're looking for on your trip there, I would suggest the one that was offered on our cruise. Same train trip but there is the panorama tour, lunch on the Spree as you cruise and finish with another bus tour of other areas. You are constantly on the move and you don't have to worry about doing and coordinating with transport. These bus trips did have a couple of stops(wall and gate) to take pictures and stretch. There are other options also offered that might be more to your liking.

That about covers it. There is a lot of traveling but since you are docked in Germany, it's relatively close, as compared to US. Mobility or temperament may also be factors that need to be considered with your traveling party.

We have a beach about 150 mile from where I live so I didn't need to experience that but if it's new to you, there are options closer to the ship for those experiences.

You be the judge of what will work for you.

[palermo22]

2 upgrade questions.

When Viking shows an upgrade price, is it the total price or is it a suricharge added to the regular price?

If you are already booked and not ticketed, can you add an upgrade and or custom air?

Don't trust Viking answers on a holiday weekend and I have a final payment due this week.

 

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The easiest way to explain the procedure is they may show the regular coach fare at $1,000 - but a promotion price of $500. They also will show the business class seat at $3,000 - when added to the $500 - that business class seat will cost you $3,500.

[Vineyard View]

Hi

We're from the UK and have booked Business flights with Viking for March next year with Emirates to Sydney via Dubai. Doing the Sydney to Bali cruise on 10th March. Got good flight times and the price was cheaper than going direct through the airline even with taking into account if we booked own air taking off the 'airfare' element than we would have been deducted from our cruise fare. So 'one happy bunny' here looking forward to going 'down under in style' :)

 

If you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing Emirates BC you are surely in for a treat! It is an amazing over the top experience of you are on one of their A380 aircraft.

You will be going in style. We travelled on them to Africa out of SFO a couple years ago and they quickly bumped up to our favorite. Enjoy!

[azdrydock]

The easiest way to explain the procedure is they may show the regular coach fare at $1,000 - but a promotion price of $500. They also will show the business class seat at $3,000 - when added to the $500 - that business class seat will cost you $3,500.

 

Ok... I booked a flight that the is on sale with free air and the Premium Economy in the Booking T&C's is $999 so I should expect to pay $999pp. Now if I wait until after the sale ends to add the Premium Economy should I expect the fare to remain at $999 or at the then current air promo price + $999?

 

Nothing has gone smoothly on all three previous Viking Air bookings so I am preparing to do battle one more time.

[rpfin]

In the US we use Viking Air Plus and pay the $50 pp fee to get the flights gets we want. If they are offering a flight price incentive we pay the difference for our upgrade. All this should be done before they ticket. You or your TA work with Vikings Air agents. We use a TA and have been happy with the results. The air offer for our upcoming trip was $395 and we upgraded to Comfort Plus seats. Here they invoiced:

 

Airfare $1,595

- Air discount $1.200

+ Air Differential $244

+ Air Plus Confirmed $50

Adjusted Air Total = $689

 

I hope this helps.

 

 

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[noe4laj]

We will be using Viking Air Business. Does anyone know what the baggage/transfer situation might be for the way home if we are on an evening flight. I’d really prefer to see something on the city than sit at the airport for 12+ hours waiting for our flight.

[tinaincc]

We love using American Express platinum travel to book our business class fare - they are always the cheapest. We are doing PHX to Athens and back from Rom to PHx for $5000 for TWO

 

 

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[theduffys]

We will be using Viking Air Business. Does anyone know what the baggage/transfer situation might be for the way home if we are on an evening flight. I’d really prefer to see something on the city than sit at the airport for 12+ hours waiting for our flight.

 

 

 

I am curious about this as well. Our flight out of Bangkok is late evening and we wondered if we be forced to sit at the airport all day or, if some other arrangements could be made for touring.

 

 

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[Parsley Cruises]

We will be using Viking Air Business. Does anyone know what the baggage/transfer situation might be for the way home if we are on an evening flight. I’d really prefer to see something on the city than sit at the airport for 12+ hours waiting for our flight.

 

Maybe your best solution could be to take the transfer from the ship to the airport and then either try and see if the business lounge will stow your bags for you, or put them into a luggage locker yourself. This would then give you freedom to visit anywhere you wish, providing of course you are back at the airport at the appropriate time to commence pre-flight procedures.

[noe4laj]

I would do that in a heartbeat but my traveling companion would never go for it. They’re always sure we’ll have trouble getting back to airport and miss our flight.

 

Maybe your best solution could be to take the transfer from the ship to the airport and then either try and see if the business lounge will stow your bags for you, or put them into a luggage locker yourself. This would then give you freedom to visit anywhere you wish, providing of course you are back at the airport at the appropriate time to commence pre-flight procedures.

[broker1217]

I would do that in a heartbeat but my traveling companion would never go for it. They’re always sure we’ll have trouble getting back to airport and miss our flight.

 

What city will you be departing from? Folks here may be able to point you to a day-storage solution for your luggage. The logistics will depend on distance from port to airport as well.

 

When we arrived in Barcelona at the end of our transatlantic, we did a semi-private day tour.

They picked us up at the port (around 8 AM) and our luggage was stowed in the van. We did a full day tour. We ended up being dropped (with our bags) at our hotel around 4 PM.

 

You could use this method for a day-of departure. You may prefer to go private tour since that will give you the ability to specify what you want to see and the time you would like to be dropped at the airport.

 

You may want to start a separate thread that includes the city in the title---this is being lost in the Business Air thread. That way you might get more helpful responses and suggestions for tour companies in your city.

[jetwet1]

Interested in hearing your evaluation of Norwegian air Premium class. We have booked this LAX to Fco for December cruise and the cost is great. Also, to book one way fairs can be more than return. Norwegian’s one way is half the return. Now, to see how it compares, 😐

 

Just to drop in on this thread....

 

Norwegian air Premium Class is not a business class, I just want to say that to get it out of the way, they initially tried to sell it as a business class and got a lot of heat for that, what it is is a premium economy product, but think of EU airlines, not the premium economy that US airlines try to sell....Confused yet ???? :p

 

Now that things are less clear, let me try to explain the product.....

 

If you are traveling as a couple, select 2 seats to the side, the 3 middle seats are the same seat, but it's better for couples on the side....Yeah that sounds wrong, but you get what I mean....

 

The seat itself is a nice recliner, very similar to a domestic US first seat, just with more legroom. The IFE is good, though honestly the selection can be a little limited, you will get a decent pillow and a nice blanket (I actually wanted to steal one to use at home on cold winter nights) and two meals...

 

Now the meals are very hit or miss, I advise trying to get seats in the 2nd row if you can, there are 3 choices for the food, but by the 3rd row the obvious good meal is gone, the food itself is a step up from a regular economy meal, but only just, you will get a breakfast meal as well, but it will be something like cold cuts with some sliced fruit, nothing like a true business class meal......BTW, the first row is right by the toilets which can be a little aggravating. You also do not want row 5, this row does not have a window.

 

The service has been good on our flights, nothing amazing but consistently good.

 

At LAX you will have access to the One World Lounge which is very nice, get to the airport a little early and enjoy dinner there.

 

The one thing that did sort off suck with them is they tend to use the remote gates at LAX for boarding (LAX is going through a lot of construction right now) and the bus gates are a hike from the lounge and even when you get one the bus, they will wait until the thing is crammed, not Norwegians fault, LAX control the buses.

 

Anyways, in brief, good seat, good to blah food, but the price is hard to beat, if I can't get flights using miles on other airlines Norwegian would be my first choice.

[Parsley Cruises]

I may be posting in the wrong thread - apologies in advance. We have a cruise booked for later this year, it's a fly-cruise. When we made the original booking, we stated which airports we wanted to leave from and arrive back to in the UK, and we mentioned which airline we wanted.

 

Some time later we discovered that Viking had got us on precisely the flights we wanted, so we telephoned Viking and set about upgrading (and paying for). We have a mobile app each which deals with our flight arrangements (BA), and pretty much instantly we were able to access our flight details and reserve our actual seats for the flights (and pay for reserving the seats).

 

So at that point we were pretty much content with everything, but when we look at the confirmation/invoice, we can see absolutely no mention now of the flights, and when we go into My Viking Journey there's no sign of the flights or transfers.

 

Is this normal? Should we be concerned?

 

There is a thread for our particular cruise on Cruise Critic, but virtually no activity - again I have to ask is this normal?

 

We are not new to cruising, just new to Viking. Thanks for any advice.

[vnb2003]

I may be posting in the wrong thread - apologies in advance. We have a cruise booked for later this year, it's a fly-cruise. When we made the original booking, we stated which airports we wanted to leave from and arrive back to in the UK, and we mentioned which airline we wanted.

 

Some time later we discovered that Viking had got us on precisely the flights we wanted, so we telephoned Viking and set about upgrading (and paying for). We have a mobile app each which deals with our flight arrangements (BA), and pretty much instantly we were able to access our flight details and reserve our actual seats for the flights (and pay for reserving the seats).

 

So at that point we were pretty much content with everything, but when we look at the confirmation/invoice, we can see absolutely no mention now of the flights, and when we go into My Viking Journey there's no sign of the flights or transfers.

 

Is this normal? Should we be concerned?

 

There is a thread for our particular cruise on Cruise Critic, but virtually no activity - again I have to ask is this normal?

 

We are not new to cruising, just new to Viking. Thanks for any advice.

 

I don’t think it’s normal. A couple of years ago we had an included flight that we later upgraded directly through airline. Our air info was updated on MVJ almost immediately. I would contact Viking. Try TellUs@vikingcruises.com. Those folks are very helpful.

[Hockeyump]

I don’t think it’s normal. A couple of years ago we had an included flight that we later upgraded directly through airline. Our air info was updated on MVJ almost immediately. I would contact Viking. Try TellUs@vikingcruises.com. Those folks are very helpful.

You need to check this. We upgraded and paid the extra and MVJ was updated the next day to show our flights.

[theduffys]

So, basically, no one so far has actually experienced a late flight with Viking? Since the ship will be overnighting in Bangkok the day of our departure, maybe they will let us hang out on the ship.

 

 

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[Hockeyump]

So, basically, no one so far has actually experienced a late flight with Viking? Since the ship will be overnighting in Bangkok the day of our departure, maybe they will let us hang out on the ship.

 

 

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From other posts I think they want you off the ship quite early. It probably takes on 930 new cruisers later that day. Don't know how far the port is to the airport but airport to central Bangkok is over an hour depending on the traffic so when you factor all that in it cuts down the waiting time. It's not something I would want to risk but perhaps depends what sort of lounge access you can get. We have had the Thai airways business lounge and not impressed with that.

[theduffys]

Flight is at 11:30pm. First segment is on Korean Air (with Delta) and does not appear to have any lounge at all.

 

 

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[Heidi13]

From other posts I think they want you off the ship quite early. It probably takes on 930 new cruisers later that day. Don't know how far the port is to the airport but airport to central Bangkok is over an hour depending on the traffic so when you factor all that in it cuts down the waiting time. It's not something I would want to risk but perhaps depends what sort of lounge access you can get. We have had the Thai airways business lounge and not impressed with that.

 

The new International Airport is to the East of the City, about 60 miles from Laem Chabang. It took us just over an hour in a limo. We also were not impressed with the business lounge.

 

On our SE Asia cruise (Princess), about 10 yrs ago, they offered a Bangkok city tour for those of us with late flights. We loaded the cases in the bus, which dropped us at the airport late afternoon. Hopefully Viking will offer a similar service.

[RJ2002]

Flight is at 11:30pm. First segment is on Korean Air (with Delta) and does not appear to have any lounge at all.

 

 

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KAL uses the Air France lounge for Business Class customers in Bangkok according to their website.

[theduffys]

KAL uses the Air France lounge for Business Class customers in Bangkok according to their website.

 

 

 

Thanks. At least there is that.

 

 

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[sherrar]

Parsley Cruises

We are in almost exactly the same situation as you. Booked for September this year and I knew which flights I wanted (BA due to timings). As soon as flights were out I got my TA to talk to Viking and they got us just what we wanted including upgrade to PE - soon after I received a Viking Air Itinerary confirmation with flights and times etc which showed PE. I then went onto BA website and booked the seats. Soon after I received another confirmation, this time including seat numbers.

 

However, like you there are no flight details on MVJ yet - I put this down to the fact that we have only just paid the final balance (yesterday). We are fortunate in the UK that we only have to pay the balance about 3 months out unlike the USA who seem to pay 12-18 months out. I am assuming they won't confirm flights on MVJ until the balance is paid.

 

I am waiting until I have the final confirmation invoice from Viking before panicking that nothing is on MVJ. Fingers crossed.

 

Hope this helps

[Parsley Cruises]

Parsley Cruises

We are in almost exactly the same situation as you. Booked for September this year and I knew which flights I wanted (BA due to timings). As soon as flights were out I got my TA to talk to Viking and they got us just what we wanted including upgrade to PE - soon after I received a Viking Air Itinerary confirmation with flights and times etc which showed PE. I then went onto BA website and booked the seats. Soon after I received another confirmation, this time including seat numbers.

 

However, like you there are no flight details on MVJ yet - I put this down to the fact that we have only just paid the final balance (yesterday). We are fortunate in the UK that we only have to pay the balance about 3 months out unlike the USA who seem to pay 12-18 months out. I am assuming they won't confirm flights on MVJ until the balance is paid.

 

I am waiting until I have the final confirmation invoice from Viking before panicking that nothing is on MVJ. Fingers crossed.

 

Hope this helps

Huge thanks for that, but I’m going to ring Viking today just to check.

Silly point: we’ve been with the British Airways Executive Club for years and we’re used to using their app on our phones. Pleased to say that all the flight details are there and correct included seat numbers. Hope nothing gets changed. Thanks again , and hope you have a great time.

[HaveDogWillTravel]

Not all business class seats are the same. I’ve found some premium economy seats that are wider with more leg room and with better recline than some business class seats.

Seatguru.com is an excellent site that will give you width, pitch, recline and reviews on every plane. I never book a flight without checking this site. I frequently save money by booking a lower class seat on a different airline with better space.