Any Winos Sail Viking?

[CCWineLover]

1 hour ago, MikeyB said:

Hi, stop the madness.  On my current cruise there are 46 wines from all over the world that are $8 US dollars.  Reds white Chilean Australian etc.  Lots of choices. Some are $9.  My complaint is theire are not better wines selling for lets say $13 or $15.  For the average wine drinkers there are lots of choices.  I suggest bringing your favorite on board and not complain to others.

A little harsh Mikey...did we get up on the wrong side of the bed today? 

Not complaining - I'm a big viking fan, as you'd know by my frequent posts.

AND  I did already say "We now always try to get some for onboard and in ports."

Time for a glass 🙂

 

[MikeyB]

1 hour ago, CCWineLover said:

A little harsh Mikey...did we get up on the wrong side of the bed today? 

Not complaining - I'm a big viking fan, as you'd know by my frequent posts.

AND  I did already say "We now always try to get some for onboard and in ports."

Time for a glass 🙂

 

Having a glass now thank you.  I said it in a loving manner.  Didn’t mean to be so harsh.  You do know I love you?

[deec]

Having a glass of Malbec as I browse and count down the days to our first Expedition Adventure..hoping for great wines from Chili and Argentina!

[notjaded]

OP here with a post-cruise update: My wife was able to find included reds to her liking, which was a pleasant surprise. Our cabin attendant kept stocking our PH with her most recent favorite. 
 

we had $80 of OBC left toward the end of cruise, so in true Ms  Notjaded fashion, she ordered a $180 bottle of wine. 
 

Thanks for all the help. 

[duquephart]

5 hours ago, notjaded said:

OP here with a post-cruise update: My wife was able to find included reds to her liking, which was a pleasant surprise. Our cabin attendant kept stocking our PH with her most recent favorite. 
 

we had $80 of OBC left toward the end of cruise, so in true Ms  Notjaded fashion, she ordered a $180 bottle of wine. 
 

Thanks for all the help. 

 

Thought you had to go to Napa Valley to do that.

[notjaded]

16 minutes ago, duquephart said:

 

Thought you had to go to Napa Valley to do that.

Nah, look at the wine list someone posted up thread. The last item in the first page is a Napa cab for $180. Somehow my wife noticed it.  🙂

[RobEsson]

I had a most unpleasant experience with Viking on the Viking Jupiter in the Restaurant on Christmas Day. My wife and I decided that, being Christmas, we would celebrate with a very good bottle of wine, and chose the Chateau Leoville Barton 2013 St Julien. I think it was $115 or something very close to that.

 

A very young (should have been my clue) wine waiter opened the bottle and offered to decant it. I said yes please. So he begins to decant it and then when it gets to the end, he up-ends the bottle vertically over the decanter, thereby sending all the sediment into the decanter. I yelled out as he did so, but he then tried to claim that there was no sediment (unlikely in a 2013). We left it a while to see whether things would settle, but they didn't, so I called the wine waiter back and told him that I wanted it sorted out (in my mind, I rather expected that they would filter the wine through e.g. cheesecloth and give us a discount) but he then disappeared and no-one came to our table for probably 15 minutes. I put our food order on hold (we'd already had our starter).

 

Then someone told me that it was being discussed with some senior person as it was an expensive bottle and would affect revenue. But no-one from Viking, certainly not anyone senior, came over to discuss it with us. I actually became concerned that they would charge the young wine waiter for the bottle and expressed that concern when told about the discussions with whomever it was that was senior.

 

We then waited and waited and waited. After about 45 minutes, which was MASSIVELY too long, a more senior wine steward came over with a new bottle and decanted it (badly, as it happened, as he kept stopping the decanting and twirling the decanter, which meant that we wasted far more wine than necessary as he disturbed the sediment by not decanting in a single motion). It all made for a thoroughly upsetting and unpleasant Christmas dinner.

 

My take on it was two fold. Firstly, if Viking is going to offer bottles of wine like that, they need to either train their personnel on how to treat the wine OR restrict those who serve wines like that to only the senior wine personnel who might possibly know how to treat the wines. Secondly, if there is a problem, the senior dining room personnel who make decisions should come and discuss the issue in person with the guest, not leave the guest hanging for 45 minutes. 5 minutes should be the maximum. 

[CCWineLover]

5 hours ago, RobEsson said:

Then someone told me that it was being discussed with some senior person as it was an expensive bottle and would affect revenue. But no-one from Viking, certainly not anyone senior, came over to discuss it with us. I actually became concerned that they would charge the young wine waiter for the bottle and expressed that concern when told about the discussions with whomever it was that was senior.

 

We then waited and waited and waited. After about 45 minutes, which was MASSIVELY too long, a more senior wine steward came over with a new bottle and decanted it (badly, as it happened, as he kept stopping the decanting and twirling the decanter, which meant that we wasted far more wine than necessary as he disturbed the sediment by not decanting in a single motion). It all made for a thoroughly upsetting and unpleasant Christmas dinner.

 

My take on it was two fold. Firstly, if Viking is going to offer bottles of wine like that, they need to either train their personnel on how to treat the wine OR restrict those who serve wines like that to only the senior wine personnel who might possibly know how to treat the wines. Secondly, if there is a problem, the senior dining room personnel who make decisions should come and discuss the issue in person with the guest, not leave the guest hanging for 45 minutes. 5 minutes should be the maximum. 

Sorry for your inexcusable experience!

I do wonder though - who was it who told you it was being discussed with a senior person.  It couldn't have been a Viking person since you say "no one from Viking came over to discuss it".  Just curious - was it a fellow passenger diner who might have had the same experience?

 

We had something similar happen (not with decanting, but with a gone bad bottle).  Waiter disappeared to get a different one, never came back.  After 15 minutes I got up and went to the front desk and asked to speak to the head of Manfredi's.  That got quick action.  I don't think I'd have had the patience to wait for 45 minutes without taking matters into my own hands.

 

Certainly since COVID things have changed - I can only assume they've had problems, like everyone else, hiring qualified people who want to work.

 

I hope that you gave complete feedback to the Beverage and Restaurant Manager verbally and in writing and followed up with an email to Tellus@vikingoceancruises.com

 

I do think Viking does try to change things but I find you have to be persistent.  If they don't know they don't make a change.

[Peregrina651]

2 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

Tellus@vikingoceancruises.com

 

Tellus@vikingcruises.com  if @vikingoceancruises.com bounces

Edited February 1 by Peregrina651

[duquephart]

5 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

Sorry for your inexcusable experience!

I do wonder though - who was it who told you it was being discussed with a senior person.  It couldn't have been a Viking person since you say "no one from Viking came over to discuss it".  Just curious - was it a fellow passenger diner who might have had the same experience?

 

We had something similar happen (not with decanting, but with a gone bad bottle).  Waiter disappeared to get a different one, never came back.  After 15 minutes I got up and went to the front desk and asked to speak to the head of Manfredi's.  That got quick action.  I don't think I'd have had the patience to wait for 45 minutes without taking matters into my own hands.

 

Certainly since COVID things have changed - I can only assume they've had problems, like everyone else, hiring qualified people who want to work.

 

I hope that you gave complete feedback to the Beverage and Restaurant Manager verbally and in writing and followed up with an email to Tellus@vikingoceancruises.com

 

I do think Viking does try to change things but I find you have to be persistent.  If they don't know they don't make a change.

 

Tellus will throw you a $500 pp bone.