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UK Only Viking Venus Cruise


NeilP57
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42 minutes ago, arlowood said:

Surprised you've not been able to book, particularly as you are on the first cruise. We're on the 3rd cruise (5th June) and I had no problem booking our embarkation slot about an hour ago.

As Dave W 10 says above - I'm really surprised at the times being offered for embarkation slots. I think the first one on the 5th June cruise was 8am to 8.30am. At that time I would have thought the previous cruise would still be disembarking.

Anyway I'm sure Viking know what they're doing

It may be that the "dedicated waiting area" will be in the cruise terminal (is this the P&O ferry terminal or something different?) or even some sort of marquee. Otherwise, as you suggest, Viking are going to have be pretty canny in terms of keeping boarding and disembarking passengers apart. 

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1 hour ago, Dave W 10 said:

Did you receive instructions from Viking on the procedure.

 

Official instructions have just arrived by email from Viking, along with information about the health questionnaire:

Your health questionnaire will be available for you to complete via your MyVikingJourney account, from 7 days prior to departure, and we ask that this is completed prior to travel to avoid delays at embarkation.

 

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As Viking haven't got to do any airport transfers due to everyone making their own travel arrangements I would imagine they can set an early disembarkation time.  Also helps with only 50% capacity.  Of course the embarkation time isn't necessarily when you can access your cabin.

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3 hours ago, Janet&David said:

Hi Neil

It may have been fixed by now but when we tried to make advance reservations in the Restaurant for our May 29 England cruise using MYJ it wouldn't allow reservations for V1/V2 cabins. See my post #124 on 13/4/21 on how to sort out reservations by phone.

David

David

 

Many thanks for this, I have sent my contact at Viking a question on the MDR reservations.

 

Neil

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2 hours ago, NeilP57 said:

David

 

Many thanks for this, I have sent my contact at Viking a question on the MDR reservations.

 

Neil

 

After a little confusion, now all sorted, Viking have clarified that they can make dinner reservations for the MDR for us lowly V1/2 passengers and provided me with the times currently available which were all reasonable. The only glitch is that I had to request my preferred times via my TA, which just adds another opportunity for confusion. (For the avoidance of doubt, I am booked onto the Iceland welcome back cruise but David was very helpful in answering my question - generally us Brits prefer a slightly later dining time to the US passengers so a mixed passenger demographic like we have the Iceland cruises will be helpful in getting the times you want)

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18 hours ago, NeilP57 said:

The only glitch is that I had to request my preferred times via my TA

Neil

Is there any benefit booking through a TA for UK customers? I have always dealt direct with Viking and found them very efficient and helpful.

Just wondering if I'm missing a trick somewhere.

Edited by Dave W 10
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1 hour ago, Dave W 10 said:

Neil

Is there any benefit booking through a TA for UK customers? I have always dealt direct with Viking and found them very efficient and helpful.

Just wondering if I'm missing a trick somewhere.

David

 

i booked my first cruise direct with them because at the time I don’t think they were offering TA discounts back in 2015 for the inaugural Ocean cruises. Since then I have been booking through a TA and receiving not only the Viking past passenger discount but also a TA discount as well. 
 

I use a well known cruise TA near Chesterfield and they share additional discount. 
 

The only downside is that any communications to/from Viking get routed through the TA but the additional discount softens the blow. (Or covers the cost of the drinks package, depending on how you look at it!) 
 

Hope this helps. 

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2 hours ago, NeilP57 said:

David

 

i booked my first cruise direct with them because at the time I don’t think they were offering TA discounts back in 2015 for the inaugural Ocean cruises. Since then I have been booking through a TA and receiving not only the Viking past passenger discount but also a TA discount as well. 
 

I use a well known cruise TA near Chesterfield and they share additional discount. 
 

The only downside is that any communications to/from Viking get routed through the TA but the additional discount softens the blow. (Or covers the cost of the drinks package, depending on how you look at it!) 
 

Hope this helps. 

Neil

I wasn't aware of that. Very interesting.

Would your TA be a certain cruise club that starts with a B?

Thanks

Dave

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6 hours ago, Dave W 10 said:

Neil

I wasn't aware of that. Very interesting.

Would your TA be a certain cruise club that starts with a B?

Thanks

Dave

 You could say that but I couldn't possibly comment......... (yes)

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A word of warning for those travelling on these cruises ... Viking are asking that a health questionnaire be completed online 5-7 days before departure of the cruise. The last question asks if the passenger has been completely vaccinated.

 

For the purposes of THESE cruises, one vaccine jab is all that is required and so qualifies as "completed vaccinated" so the answer is Yes.

 

(I emphasise the word "these" because Viking's vaccination requirements may well change for future cruises ...)

 

I mistakenly selected No (as I've only had one jab while my wife has had two) but I'm currently on the phone with Viking to get that corrected.

 

I wouldn't want anyone else to get caught up in that slightly misleading/confusing wording.

 

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Just managed to complete the "Comfort Check-In" successfully this morning. Took pseudo passport pics using my Samsung phone and transferred them by Bluetooth to my PC. I was then able to crop them with my Picassa software and upload them in My Viking Journey. Within that process the uploaded pic is shown against an ideal size template and you can manipulate it larger of smaller to fit within the template. Seemed to work fine for me and I have now printed out our boarding passes with the QR code that will be scanned at embarkation.

Also received a warning email about the Health Questionnaire but that won't arrive for us until 29th May. Thanks to @pccolmer for the heads up about the questionnaire. Perhaps less relevant for us as we have both had our 2 vaccine doses.

Hopefully all this work done by us pre-cruise will mean a smooth and seamless boarding process

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Managed to check in on my Viking journey successfully. 
Has anyone received the health questionnaire yet? If so what questions are there please? 
Also are Viki g requesting proof of insurance. My husband and I both have a policy with All Clear which includes COVId cover and cruise cover so assume that will be sufficient?

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Amazingly the update of the NHS App has appeared today on schedule. The home screen has a link 'Check your COVID-19 vaccine record' which brings up a very clear and simple summary of vaccines administered, including date, vaccine type and batch number. It seems highly likely that this will be all that Viking requires. If they need anything in advance it would be easy to send a screenshot, although there would be no proof that it was of your own data.  

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3 hours ago, Janet&David said:

Amazingly the update of the NHS App has appeared today on schedule. The home screen has a link 'Check your COVID-19 vaccine record' which brings up a very clear and simple summary of vaccines administered, including date, vaccine type and batch number. It seems highly likely that this will be all that Viking requires. If they need anything in advance it would be easy to send a screenshot, although there would be no proof that it was of your own data.  

The app also lets you save quite a neat pdf summarising the information in a form that could be printed to give to Viking and/or emailed to them.

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Sorry Neil, wasn't inferring you were ignoring us - our health boards here use a different site again from the rest.  All I can do online is order prescriptions. It's time they were all singing from the same hymn sheet especially with regard to vaccination records.

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With all the chat about the NHS App I steeled myself and downloaded it earlier today - not expecting great things with the poor track record this Government has with IT projects. Went through the registration process which was less onerous than expected and received the message that my approval would be sent as soon as possible but also with the warning that they were experiencing heavy traffic on the registration of the App.

Within 2 hrs I had the email confirming success and was able to connect through to my GP records without a problem. I now have my vaccine status available by an officially approved route.

I just need to repeat the process for my wife on her phone with hopefully the same success.

I do have a print out of my vaccine status from my GP records just in case.

It will be interesting to hear what the "guinea pigs" experience this coming Saturday when the first Venus cruise is due to set sail. I'm hoping that someone will enlighten us how things went.

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I was wondering if french fishermen were gathering again and the government had requested Ann Diamond wielding her viking axe to go in and fend them off😂🤔

Pictures starting to appear of yesterday’s naming ceremony.

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8 hours ago, Janet&David said:

Today Viking Venus appears to be en route to Falmouth via the Channel Isles - perhaps they could include this detour on our cruise.

Perhaps that will be the scenic cruising on Friday. Not far from Portland to Portsmouth, I was wondering where we would go!

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