LIVE from "Iceland's Natural Beauty" -- All Sailings, 2021

[gramfrog]

40 minutes ago, superwife said:

We are also sticking to our reservation for August 24 sailing.  We are also hopeful that all will be well.  We will deal with whatever comes.  We are so looking forward to getting back into traveling and the cruise was perfect for us.  We did Into the Midnight Sun several years ago and loved it.  We have used Oceana but now only Viking.  No contest.

 

Hope to see everyone's smiling faces...oops, smiling eyes at the airport in Iceland.

 

PS Viking just put out an upgrade offer for this cruise you may want to check out.  We upgraded our cabin today.  

Superwife, please PM me the details of upgrade. JacquieSkurla@mac.com. Thx 

[tmccaleb]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I originally said our cash refund would include excursions, gratuities, and transfers, but then Viking informed me when I asked that transfers were non-refundable. And of course the travel protection plan cost is non-refundable.

 

I have now filed a claim with TripMate under the Cancel for Any Reason clause, and that should result in a voucher equal to the cruise cancellation penalty, which at this point equals the entire cruise fare. Unlike the two-year vouchers issued by Viking under the 14-day risk-free guarantee policy, the vouchers issued by TripMate under the Cancel for Any Reason policy are only good for one year. I just filed the claim today so I do not have those in hand nor any confirmation from TripMate, but I have read the policy carefully, and I have no reason to believe that they would deny this claim.

 

The bottom line is that if it works as I think it should and if we are able to use the vouchers within the next year, we will be made whole except for the cost of the travel protection plan. We started to cancel two weeks ago before reaching the 14th day, then decided there wasn't enough difference between the risk-free guarantee and the cancel for any reason policy to justify not waiting until "the bitter end". By Monday, we were no more comfortable with the idea of having a partially aborted cruise or possibly being quarantined outside the US than we had been two weeks previously; hence, we cancelled on Monday. Reading the posts on this message board, of which I had not been aware, during the last two weeks helped us make that decision, so thanks to all of you for that.

[gramfrog]

1 hour ago, dcl999 said:

We’re sticking with our August 24th cruise. Yes conditions have changed since we booked. We’ll be wearing our kn95 masks as much as possible. We’re approaching this as a hope for the best and a guide to future land vs cruise vs on our own travel decisions. We are both retired, our bucket list is long and we’re not getting younger. We’re vaccinated with Moderna and under 80 so we not likely to end up dead or in the hospital. 
Hopefully all our fellow cruisers will take the necessary precautions and be able to enjoy themselves on a wonderful Viking cruise. 

The eleven of us will see you there!  We are all over seventy and enjoy having fun. 

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

55 minutes ago, gramfrog said:

The eleven of us will see you there!  We are all over seventy and enjoy having fun. 

I'm sure all of you will have a wonderful time, and will also be impressed with the steps that Viking, and the vast majority of passengers on board, are taking.  It's a wonderful cruise, a beautiful country, and I'm sure you'll love it. 

 

[Chicagocruiser919]

We had our travel agent exercise our Risk-Free cancellation today in advance of our 9/7 cruise. Contrary to what Viking told me last week that excursion cancellations would be refunded to the original means of payment when I cancelled our shore excursions on the My Viking Journey website last week, my travel agent was told today that under the terms of the Risk-Free cancellation, all monies paid — the cruise, the excursions and the transfers — will be converted to a Future Cruise Credit. Disappointing.

[hodges97]

My TA cancelled our excursions 10 days or so ago.  We were told we would get credit in full for them to our credit card.  That hasn't happened yet.  I too am disappointed in Viking.  Their lack of transparency is making me wonder if we want to ever use them again once we use up the credits that I hope are coming.

 

[Bookworm114]

On 8/16/2021 at 11:41 AM, JM0115 said:

We got on board around 11am.  I was also concerned that we would have an issue booking the spa (thermal suite) and went there right after the muster. Had no issues getting what I wanted.  Later on during the journey I could not get the thermal suite for extra bookings, but we were on the Sky that had the missing ports which made it more crowded as we had extra "sea" days. We had no issues getting extra Chef's Table reservations but did not get the exact times we wanted.  

 

@Bookworm114I tend to worry too much about these things too, but need to learn to relax more 🙂. When we were on board the Viking app kept crashing and was not really useful for making reservations at the restaurants. Hopefully this is fixed now.  Have a wonderful cruise!

Just what I needed to hear. Thanks!

[ruppert18]

We cancelled the September 7 cruise and I understand that we are getting FCC for the cruise, but I cannot comprehend why the excursions and transfers are not being credited back to my credit card. We have been on over 70 cruises and have not experienced the lack of customer service we have experienced  with  Viking.  I understand we are experiencing unusual times but if they want to hold on to their customers and get future cruisers they need to change some of their policies.  I had to cancel a cruise last year on Oceania  and got full reimbursement without using insurance. 

[hodges97]

I did a chat with Viking before I had my TA cancel my excursions.  I have screen shots of what I was told.  I would suggest that all you guys do the same.  Viking is bound to be frustrated by this situation.  But surely they are not at the point of being desperate?

 

[BarbRN]

1 hour ago, hodges97 said:

I did a chat with Viking before I had my TA cancel my excursions.  I have screen shots of what I was told.  I would suggest that all you guys do the same.  Viking is bound to be frustrated by this situation.  But surely they are not at the point of being desperate?

 

Good idea

[MacTeacher]

1 hour ago, hodges97 said:

I did a chat with Viking before I had my TA cancel my excursions.  I have screen shots of what I was told.  I would suggest that all you guys do the same.  Viking is bound to be frustrated by this situation.  But surely they are not at the point of being desperate?

 

Did the chat tell you that you would get a refund for your transfers and shore excursions rather than having it rolled into your voucher?

[Camden lady]

Has anyone else been told that Viking does not have their Verifly verification?  Filled mine and my sister on Aug 11.  Got the "ready to travel" for both of us.   Today got an email from Viking that we needed to do Verifly.  Called Verifly and was told they had a technical problem and they were not being sent to Viking.   Nothing I can do about it.  Said we will have to do the long embarkation process. Frustrating as I spent time jumping through their hoops for nothing.

[BarbRN]

16 minutes ago, Camden lady said:

Has anyone else been told that Viking does not have their Verifly verification?  Filled mine and my sister on Aug 11.  Got the "ready to travel" for both of us.   Today got an email from Viking that we needed to do Verifly.  Called Verifly and was told they had a technical problem and they were not being sent to Viking.   Nothing I can do about it.  Said we will have to do the long embarkation process. Frustrating as I spent time jumping through their hoops for nothing.

Omg that’s awful. Does it ever end

[whipperwilleo]

16 minutes ago, Camden lady said:

Has anyone else been told that Viking does not have their Verifly verification?  Filled mine and my sister on Aug 11.  Got the "ready to travel" for both of us.   Today got an email from Viking that we needed to do Verifly.  Called Verifly and was told they had a technical problem and they were not being sent to Viking.   Nothing I can do about it.  Said we will have to do the long embarkation process. Frustrating as I spent time jumping through their hoops for nothing.

I got a call from Viking, and they sent me an email with a link that allowed me to upload images of our vaccine certificates. Not sure if that will be available to anyone except Viking

[BarbRN]

3 minutes ago, whipperwilleo said:

I got a call from Viking, and they sent me an email with a link that allowed me to upload images of our vaccine certificates. Not sure if that will be available to anyone except Viking

Yikes 

[Gigilovestotravel]

37 minutes ago, Camden lady said:

Has anyone else been told that Viking does not have their Verifly verification?  Filled mine and my sister on Aug 11.  Got the "ready to travel" for both of us.   Today got an email from Viking that we needed to do Verifly.  Called Verifly and was told they had a technical problem and they were not being sent to Viking.   Nothing I can do about it.  Said we will have to do the long embarkation process. Frustrating as I spent time jumping through their hoops for nothing.

Oh no! My Verifly still shows Ready to Travel. So sorry this happened to you.

[stilltrucking]

9 hours ago, Camden lady said:

Has anyone else been told that Viking does not have their Verifly verification?  Filled mine and my sister on Aug 11.  Got the "ready to travel" for both of us.   Today got an email from Viking that we needed to do Verifly.  Called Verifly and was told they had a technical problem and they were not being sent to Viking.   Nothing I can do about it. 

This happened to me back in July.  Viking had my wife's Verifly record, but not mine.  (Both done on the same Verifly "pass.")  I emailed Viking a photo of my CDC card and they were happy.

[NeilP57]

9 hours ago, Camden lady said:

Has anyone else been told that Viking does not have their Verifly verification?  Filled mine and my sister on Aug 11.  Got the "ready to travel" for both of us.   Today got an email from Viking that we needed to do Verifly.  Called Verifly and was told they had a technical problem and they were not being sent to Viking.   Nothing I can do about it.  Said we will have to do the long embarkation process. Frustrating as I spent time jumping through their hoops for nothing.

In our experience on the 31/7 departure they still did the “long embarkation process” anyway. We did the VeriFLY and did not have any emails from Viking but when we got to the Harpa Concert Hall they still asked to see our UK Vaccination Certificate and asked us the normal health questions that we had also answered online. They also took our picture again despite doing the on line Viking check in. 
 

It’s really nothing to worry about doing it when you arrive, it only takes a few minutes. I think we have all tried our best to do what Viking has asked us to do and when we get asked to do it all again on arrival we all comply because that is how we generally behave. 

[Camden lady]

23 minutes ago, NeilP57 said:

In our experience on the 31/7 departure they still did the “long embarkation process” anyway. We did the VeriFLY and did not have any emails from Viking but when we got to the Harpa Concert Hall they still asked to see our UK Vaccination Certificate and asked us the normal health questions that we had also answered online. They also took our picture again despite doing the on line Viking check in. 
 

It’s really nothing to worry about doing it when you arrive, it only takes a few minutes. I think we have all tried our best to do what Viking has asked us to do and when we get asked to do it all again on arrival we all comply because that is how we generally behave. 

Thanks for your explanation of what happens when you actually get there.   I will just wait and do whatever is necessary at that time and I don't really want to be emailing my covid card out all over the place.  Not really comfortable with it being sent to verifly and not going to Viking but so be it.   We leave tomorrow afternoon and have a 5 hour lay over at JFK.   Now all we need to worry about is a hurricane skirting up the east coast!!!!!    Hopefully we can get out of there prior to it reaching NY.    I am determined to have a good time as I feel as if I have paid my dues just getting to this point!!!! 🙂     

Haven't heard of any covid cases this week on the ships......has anyone else?     

[Camden lady]

9 hours ago, Gigilovestotravel said:

Oh no! My Verifly still shows Ready to Travel. So sorry this happened to you.

Mine shows "ready to travel" but it never got to Viking.   I asked them when this "technical problem" would be fixed and they said they were working on it.   Apparently it has been going on since last week as I filed both on Aug 11.    The guy on the phone said he would submit a ticket with their IT dept in my name.   For REAL?????   

[hodges97]

11 hours ago, MacTeacher said:

Did the chat tell you that you would get a refund for your transfers and shore excursions rather than having it rolled into your voucher?

I was told that if the excursions were cancelled 72 hours before they were used or the trip was cancelled, I would get a refund to my card.  That was August 9.  It still hasn't happened.

[MarkTapley]

14 minutes ago, Camden lady said:

Haven't heard of any covid cases this week on the ships......has anyone else? 

We are on Sky this week and haven’t heard any announcement about any positive tests.

[BarbRN]

29 minutes ago, MarkTapley said:

We are on Sky this week and haven’t heard any announcement about any positive tests.

Happy for you. How many sailed. 

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

If anyone's interested in seeing photos from our August 3 - 10 trip on Jupiter, my photo galleries are here, with captions: https://pbase.com/roothy123   You don't have to sign in or anything pesky like that, just look.  But you'll need to look at separate galleries for each place we visited - i.e., Reykjavik through Heimaey.  And be sure to push the "All" button at the bottom of each gallery to display all pictures for that gallery.  (In other words, there are multiple pages.)  The photos are mostly of places we went on excursions.  I didn't take a lot of photos on the ship. But for those still traveling to Iceland, it may be helpful to get a preview of some of the things you'll see and do.  

[gramfrog]

Packing for next week: YES or NO-- do I need to pack a puffy (down) jacket?????