Does Viking ever upgrade?

[eddieg07410]

Does Viking ever upgrade cabins. We are booked into a deluxe balcony but was curious if Viking ever offers free upgrades. It would seem in this post covid world cancelations have become a way of life. And consequently was wondering if Viking might upgrade us at some point. And under what circumstances do they offer upgrades?

[Mich3554]

Best I’ve gotten is a good price for a higher level cabin.  Sometimes I’ve taken it, sometimes not.  

[austinetc]

57 minutes ago, eddieg07410 said:

Does Viking ever upgrade cabins. We are booked into a deluxe balcony but was curious if Viking ever offers free upgrades. It would seem in this post covid world cancelations have become a way of life. And consequently was wondering if Viking might upgrade us at some point. And under what circumstances do they offer upgrades?

We were upgraded last August on a river cruise. First from the worst level of stateroom to the second worst. But upon boarding we found ourselves moved from the main deck to the second deck. This was probably entirely due to Covid. The ship was 60% full and I was told that the main deck's rooms were used by the crew for distancing purposes.

[Paul73]

We were upgraded on a Duoro river cruise in Oct.  It was a nice surprise.  The ship was only 60% full.

[philw1776]

Into double digits of Viking cruises. Yet to be offered an upgrade.

[Heidi13]

We were offered an Explorers Suite 1 (cabin 4000) from a DV4. Possibly something to do with only having 8 pax onboard.😁

 

All pax received the same offer.

[FetaCheese]

5 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

We were offered an Explorers Suite 1 (cabin 4000) from a DV4. Possibly something to do with only having 8 pax onboard.😁

 

All pax received the same offer.

Booked a GTY V1, Dec. 2021, received a DV4.  No extra cost.  Venus had less than half pax on voyage.  Heidi, you were very lucky !  May I ask What ship, and date?

[CurlerRob]

1 hour ago, FetaCheese said:

Booked a GTY V1, Dec. 2021, received a DV4.  No extra cost.  Venus had less than half pax on voyage.  Heidi, you were very lucky !  May I ask What ship, and date?

 

Can't wait for Andy's reply ... 👿  (@FetaCheese, the circumstances were a bit unique).  🍺🥌

[Orator]

I found that on other lines that upgrades usually go to first time cruisers on the line. Hope that is the case as I’m taking my first Viking cruise in December.

[aungrl]

42 minutes ago, Orator said:

I found that on other lines that upgrades usually go to first time cruisers on the line. Hope that is the case as I’m taking my first Viking cruise in December.

That's interesting.  Our good friends took their first Viking Ocean cruise - In the Wake of the Vikings - in 2019, and they were upgraded to a forward Explorer Suite from, I believe, a mid-ship PV.  Unfortunately, their particular sailing caught all kinds of bad weather, so the benefit of the upgrade in their particular case was mitigated by the number of times they bounced up in the air from their beds at night.

[Orator]

It’s a marketing device to try to win new customers. I’ve been on another line for 106 cruises and I‘be been upgraded once, by mistake. First time bargain cruisers seem to be upgraded . Once you have a record of loyalty, they seem to feel that they have you!

[Heidi13]

5 hours ago, FetaCheese said:

Booked a GTY V1, Dec. 2021, received a DV4.  No extra cost.  Venus had less than half pax on voyage.  Heidi, you were very lucky !  May I ask What ship, and date?

 

Haha!! We were certainly very lucky, but it had nothing to do with the cabin upgrade.

 

Personally, having suffered fwd cabins and 8+ hrs per day on the Bridge, for too many years, I don't buy into the marketing hype that upper decks & extreme ends are best. When they taught me ship stability, upper decks and fwd & aft cabins are the worst locations on a ship for comfort. My first cabin at sea was about the size of a Viking bathroom, and we had 3 of us in it for 4 months, so for 2 of us, I find the DV cabins extremely spacious.

 

The ship was the Viking Sun and date was March 2020. We were on the 2nd half of the 2019/20 "Ultimate World Cruise", which was curtailed due to what some people now refer to as a bad cold. Viking took the ship to Dubai and decided to cancel the cruise, flying all pax home. Since Dubai owns the National Airline, they demanded everyone departed the country on an Emirates flight, but they ceased operations when we still had about 90 US/Canadian pax onboard.

 

Viking arranged a charter flight from Dubai to Newark, then connecting flights for everyone. However, the United States Govt refused to accept the 8 Canadian pax. All of our US friends were disembarked and flew home on the charter flight that certainly wasn't business class, while Viking retained the 8 Canadians onboard indefinitely, until some port would accept us.

 

We had a brilliant experience, sharing the ship with 460 crew for over 3 weeks. We eventually disembarked in Gibraltar, flying to LHR then onward to our home airports. Great experience, except the cabin. DW didn't like the movement up fwd and I would have been happy staying in our DV4.

 

Our experience is detailed in my daily blog posts - www.AndyandJudi.com

[Clay Clayton]

On 4/14/2022 at 9:12 PM, eddieg07410 said:

Does Viking ever upgrade cabins. We are booked into a deluxe balcony but was curious if Viking ever offers free upgrades. It would seem in this post covid world cancelations have become a way of life. And consequently was wondering if Viking might upgrade us at some point. And under what circumstances do they offer upgrades?

Never received a free upgrade but have been offered upgrade from DV to PV twice.  We took the first one that was offered for $199 per person for a 12 night cruise. We did not accept the same offer for a transatlantic as it would have cost $399 per person.  We didn’t think the slightly larger room, in fridge mini bottles and the ironing were worth that much.  
 

We have several times taken advantage of a promo fare of paying for a V and being booked into a DV (typically a few months before sailing when they are trying to fill the ship). We are fine with a V but why not take the “upgrade” of offered. 

[Mich3554]

2 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Never received a free upgrade but have been offered upgrade from DV to PV twice.  We took the first one that was offered for $199 per person for a 12 night cruise. We did not accept the same offer for a transatlantic as it would have cost $399 per person.  We didn’t think the slightly larger room, in fridge mini bottles and the ironing were worth that much.  
 

We have several times taken advantage of a promo fare of paying for a V and being booked into a DV (typically a few months before sailing when they are trying to fill the ship). We are fine with a V but why not take the “upgrade” of offered. 

Yep, this is our experience too.  

[Let Me Travel!]

I’m hoping we will get offered an upgrade…we are a GTY for a DV…I’m hoping we will get an offer to purchase a PV for a reasonable price…we don’t have any assigned room at this point, we’re going on a sold-out cruise (British Isles) in August….keeping my fingers crossed… I’ve never done a GTY with Viking before.

[molymoo]

We have received two complimentary upgrades we did not request.    Both were from PV to PJS and we received notice of the change about a week before our departure.  Have never been offered an upgrade we would have to pay for but probably wouldn’t consider it unless it was an ES and that might be more dependent on location.

[billygraham]

Yes~ We were upgraded from Penthouse suite to Owners Suite on the Maiden voyage of the Orion a few years ago.  Not sure how! never asked!  It was a wonderful experience. We were treated like royalty.

 

I did celebrate my 60th birthday on the ship. Best gift ever! 

[Let Me Travel!]

8 hours ago, billygraham said:

Yes~ We were upgraded from Penthouse suite to Owners Suite on the Maiden voyage of the Orion a few years ago.  Not sure how! never asked!  It was a wonderful experience. We were treated like royalty.

 

I did celebrate my 60th birthday on the ship. Best gift ever! 

WOW!!! Now that’s an upgrade!  Tell us…what did you like the best?  Come on…spill…

[SM77]

We were upgraded from a veranda to a penthouse veranda on our last Viking ocean cruise Dec 2019 Buenos Aires to Santiago.  Only learned of the upgrade when we were trying to book reservations for dining on embarkation.  It was my husband's 70th birthday cruise - it was our fourth Viking ocean cruise.  We had also done a few Viking river cruises.  It was a really nice treat.

[Let Me Travel!]

Have any of you all been upgraded from a GTY?

[FetaCheese]

10 minutes ago, Let Me Travel! said:

Have any of you all been upgraded from a GTY?

Yes, from V1 GTY, to DV4, Venus Dec. 2021

[Mich3554]

17 hours ago, Let Me Travel! said:

Have any of you all been upgraded from a GTY?

V2 to DV4.  The Viking agent I talked to said that there would be a very good chance we would get upgraded if we went this route as the ship was not fully booked.  

[PatriciaF]

Yes GTY V1 to PV1 

 

[Let Me Travel!]

Great! That’s encouraging!

[Orator]

A GTY is a guarantee that you will be assigned to a cabin at least in the category that's booked. You should expect to be assigned to the worse cabin in the category and that's happened to me. Or, you can get a very, very pleasant surprise. Once a booked a balcony guarantee and was assigned  a Suite! A GTY is really a roll of the dice. As some lines have a "run of the ship" policy when it comes to guarantees I really don't consider a better cabin to be a true upgrade.