Delays because if IAN?

[Queenmom1947]

Anyone who is delayed returning to port or departure from planned cruise?

[skibeav]

We had our Viking Star (Ocean) boarding passes for the CANADA & NEW ENGLAND SCENIC SHORES trip departing Montreal, Canada 9/30/2022 and our Air Canada booked tickets purchased through Viking.

ALONG CAME IAN WITH FLORIDA IN ITS SIGHTS.  The Monday before our expected departure i tried contacting Viking with absolutely NO SUCCESS.  They seemed totally oblivious to an impending natural disaster affecting our travel plans from Orlando, Florida to Montreal, Canada.  On Wednesday, September 28 I tried contacting Air Canada several times. Twice I was disconnected and the third time, after trying to explain that we needed to change the embarkation port and date the agent told me she would try to see if she would be able to switch our tickets.  By this time, very nervous as Vero Beach was in Ian's sights and tired of the Viking run around, I told her to forget it, called Viking and they issued us a cancellation letter. In addition, Canadian rules set to expire October1,2022, we were required to have a covid test within hours of our departure and we had to get a note (for our insurance verification claim) from the Doctor's office stating that they were closed due to the hurricane and did not know when they were going to reopen.  The Orlando airport was also closed, as well. We had Trip Mate insurance (purchased through Viking which I would not recommend) as well as the airline tickets, also purchased through Viking (which I would also NOT recommend doing).  Trip Mate ran us through hoops and we finally got a bit of money reimbursed but lost two $500 Viking Vouchers from an awful experience we had in Geneva.  We would ABSOLUTELY NOT RECOMMEND CRUISING WITH VIKING OCEAN.  Acquaintances from Vero Beach who were in the higher echelon of Viking, got their port of embarkation changed to Quebec and went on the cruise.  We had stupidly booked another Viking Ocean Cruise (Iconic Iceland, Greenland & Canada departing Orlando, FL on June 09, 2024) before we knew how wretched the Viking Ocean staff was, again stupidly paid Travel Mate insurance upon booking which we didn't have to do, got our required cancellation letter from Viking, applied to Trip Mate for reimbursement of the insurance and deposit for the trip and got a letter from Trip Mate that our clam was denied.  Is this how Viking stays afloat by not refunding trip insurance even though the trip was 240 days away.  My thoughts for anyone interested are: DO NOT USE VIKING OCEAN, DO NOT HAVE YOUR AIRLINE TICKETS BOOKED BY VIKING, AND DO NOT BUY TRIP MATE TRAVEL INSURANCE THROUGH VIKING...GET YOUR OWN INSURANCE!  In the light of the national disaster, Viking was totally unhelpful and disinterested!