Live from the Viking Sky (Ft Lauderdale to London) December 20, 2023 - May 6, 2024

[Twitchly]

On 1/13/2024 at 1:40 PM, Clay Clayton said:

Special delivery to our room this morning IYKYK😀

Wow!! Next time we run into the Tragedy of the Missing Pistachio Buns, we’ll just tell them we’re close personal friends of Clay Clayton. 

[odblnt]

@GTXgal01

Hope you made it back to the ship ok and met up with your cousin (?). It was good to help a fellow CC member.

 

Pete

Edited January 15 by odblnt

[Clay Clayton]

I have it from a somewhat high authority that the parts for the inoperable dryers on Deck 5 are expected in Auckland 😢

[Clay Clayton]

Reminder that we will play LCR tomorrow at 4 pm (and I promise I’ll show up ) at the long pool bar table. Bring three $1 bills and have some fun. We will also determine how often we want to play moving forward. 

[Wavetripper]

Query as to who is the Skys Wildlife Lecturer is? Last year on Neptune we had Robin Petch aka the whaleman, he was excellent. Is he on the Sky? He is not Neptune this time. 

[Clay Clayton]

He is not currently on Sky.  Ours is Dr. Ann Carroll Burgess.  Sadly, haven’t made it to any of her talks.  Just too much to do on our sea days!

[f.razmus]

17 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

I have it from a somewhat high authority that the parts for the inoperable dryers on Deck 5 are expected in Auckland 😢

Deck 3 has two inoperable dryers as well.  It will be nice to have all of them operable.

[cruising denise]

20 hours ago, odblnt said:

@GTXgal01

Hope you made it back to the ship ok and met up with your cousin (?). It was good to help a fellow CC member.

 

Pete

Hi Pete, We ran into Pam at lunch today who told us about their chance encounter with you, and your kindness in walking them to the Long's Pharmacy!  

[cruising denise]

On 1/12/2024 at 3:54 PM, Heidi13 said:

 

That's an excellent question, with key factors possibly being:

 - breaking up long stretches of sea days.

 - loading reasonably priced bunkers, as the price can vary significantly by port

 - where they can pick up stores, replacement crew, guest entertainers, etc.

 

I'm going to assume that Cape Town would be a definite port, so the Mumbai to Cape Town  leg requires about 10 - 11 days steaming. I'll suggest at least 1 port is required to break up those sea days.

 - Seychelles is fairly close to the mid point and is a minimal deviation from the direct route, so my crystal ball thinks Seychelles is an option, if they have space.

 - Mauritius requires a deviation from the direct route, but would split the remaining days to Cape Town, so it is a possibility.

 - Madagascar is possible, but I don't follow that area, so not aware of potential security issues.

 - Durban is also a potential stop, as they could offer tours driving along the coastal route to rejoin in Cape Town

 

After Cape Town:

 - they could stop in Namibia (Walvis Bay)

 - then I'll suggest the next potential port is Cape Verde islands, which is about 10 days from Cape Town, or 8 from Namibia.

 - Next islands would be Gran Canaria/Tenerife

 

More options are then available, possibly

 - Cassablanca

 - Gibraltar/Cadiz

 - Porto/Lisbon

 - Le Havre/Dover

 - Greenwich

Andy, so nice to "hear your voice" on this thread, and as always, to pick your brain for some  very educated guesses as to what might happen.  We're on for the adventure, no matter what.  Thanks again for generously sharing your expertise.

[cruising denise]

On 1/12/2024 at 4:50 PM, cnd crsr said:

 You have given some superb choices for the probable changes, if need be.

 

All these choices especially the ones before  Cape Town are ports I would definitely enjoy a second time around. The approach in early morning into Cape Town with the 'tablecloth' lifting is as impressive as Sydney in a different way.

 

Thank you to Steve & Debby and Eddie& Denise  for the blogs.

 

 

 

Glad you're enjoying our blog - it's been a fun experience and if for no one else, we will enjoy rereading it when we want to review our great memories in the future.

[FetaCheese]

1 hour ago, Wavetripper said:

Query as to who is the Skys Wildlife Lecturer is? Last year on Neptune we had Robin Petch aka the whaleman, he was excellent. Is he on the Sky? He is not Neptune this time. 

Just off Star.  We had Robin Petch.  Very interesting guy.  Hosted daily wildlife sightings with logbook in EL, deck 8

[GTXgal01]

21 hours ago, odblnt said:

@GTXgal01

Hope you made it back to the ship ok and met up with your cousin (?). It was good to help a fellow CC member.

 

Pete

Pete,  It was such a pleasure to meet you in Honolulu and to have your help locating the drug store.  It was truly a serendipitous meeting.  Our cousin found us and we had a great time visiting with her in Kaneohe.  Thank you, again.  Pam and Dayne

[cruising denise]

So sorry for the very belated posting of these photos from last week's Meet and Greet!  It seems that Sea Days are even busier than port days, and then we are competing for our "two device limit" for internet!  But thanks again to Clay for organizing our very large group for the Meet and Greet on Jan 10th.  It was held in Wintergarden with nearly 100 in attendance.  I'm wondering if the reason hardly any officers showed for this one is because they were all there for the one we held after Ft Lauderdale embarkation???  In any case, it was great to meet so many people.  I had a hard time getting good pix because it was quite crowded, but enjoy the few I got!

This is the only one where I can identify people!  From left to right:  Debby ( @Penspack), Tom and Joanne ( @tomv2950) and Cory ( @UWDawg).  So far my others are loading upside down.  If I can fix them, I'll load them below....

 

Gr.  Sorry folks.  I've tried a number of things to pull in the other photos in a reasonable way with no luck.  Suffice it to say it was a really fun time.

 

 

[UWDawg]

On 12/31/2023 at 12:05 PM, UWDawg said:

Here is the list of the Viking Sky World Cruise 23/24 blogs that I think are currently active:

 

@cruising denise #2524

https://eddieanddeniseworldcruise.blogspot.com/

 

@Penspack #2527

https://drsla-wc.blogspot.com/ 

 

@tomv2950 #2443 

https://www.travelswithtomandjoanne.com/

 

@Mschaecher #2496

https://mandmtouchettravelers.blogspot.com/

 

@Clay Clayton Instagram @ClaynMike https://www.instagram.com/claynmike/

 

@Lk1961 #2440 daily blurb on Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.keeling.3

 

There are now two Viking Sky 23/24 World Cruise Critic Pages:

World Cruise planning and coordination:

• https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2880934-viking-sky-december-20-2023-world-cruise-including-la-jan-6-2024/page/102/#

Live From the Viking Sky [onboard activities and excursions]

• https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2979887-live-from-the-viking-sky-ft-lauderdale-to-london-december-20-2023-may-6-2024/page/4/

 

Additionally, folks can enjoy the ventures of our sister ship, the Viking Neptune 23/24 World Cruise, which is following behind us by three days

• https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2901317-live-from-the-viking-neptune-world-cruise-2022-23/

 

@Clay Clayton asked that I post an updated list of blogs that are currently active for the Viking Sky 23/24 World Cruise:

 

@cruising denise #2524

https://eddieanddeniseworldcruise.blogspot.com/

 

@Penspack #2527

https://drsla-wc.blogspot.com/ 

 

@tomv2950 #2443 

https://www.travelswithtomandjoanne.com/

 

@Mschaecher #2496

https://mandmtouchettravelers.blogspot.com/

 

@Clay Clayton Instagram @ClaynMike https://www.instagram.com/claynmike/

 

@Lk1961 #2440 daily blurb on Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/lisa.keeling.3

 

@TwoLeos #3093 Instagram posts:

@twoleostravels https://www.instagram.com/twoleostravels/

 

Peter Van Demark #3102  Substack blog and SmugMug photos

• https://peterhvandemark.substack.com/archive?sort=new
• https://peterhvandemark.smugmug.com/Travel/Viking-Ocean-World-Cruise-2023-24

Edited January 16 by UWDawg

[UWDawg]

On this afternoon's wildlife watch I only spotted a few sea birds.  Here is one of my better photos of a Masked Booby taken from the deck in front of the Explorer's Lounge on the 7th deck.

 

[Clay Clayton]

Moving forward the LCR group has decided to meet on the first and last sea days of any sea day segment four days or longer. So our next game will be this Friday. It was also decided to move the time to 3:30 so that anyone who wants to attend tea or a 4:30 lecture can do so. 
 

Hope you can join us-the more the merrier!

[WhereInTheWorldIsKarla]

From Honolulu I took the “Waikiki Whale Watching Tour”.  It was great. We saw spinner dolphins, at least 6 pods of whales and sea turtles. We also had great views of the island. Here are some pics.

[WhereInTheWorldIsKarla]

As we were leaving Honolulu, I took these pics of the Humpback whale(s) that was  breaching on the starboard side of the ship. 

[WhereInTheWorldIsKarla]

From Kauai’s  “Waimea Grand Canyon” excursion.  The canyon, the lighthouse as we entered port Nawiliwili, and at the “Spouting Horn”.

[WhereInTheWorldIsKarla]

While I watched whales in Honolulu, Mike went on the “Diamond Head Hike” excursion. He really enjoyed it. It climbs 560 feet in 0.8 miles on its way to the top of the crater. Here are some of his pictures.

 

 

 

Edited January 16 by WhereInTheWorldIsKarla
Photos didn’t upload correctly

[OneSixtyToOne]

6 hours ago, WhereInTheWorldIsKarla said:

As we were leaving Honolulu, I took these pics of the Humpback whale(s) that was  breaching on the starboard side of the ship. 

While aboard the Octantis we learned about Happy Whale, a community science website that tracks whales based on photos of their tails submitted by users. Each tail is like a fingerprint and once identified, you can track your whale as it is sighted around the world. 

https://happywhale.com/home

 

Edited January 16 by OneSixtyToOne

[HUNKY]

Karla!

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your AWESOME pictures!

[annxstitch]

10 hours ago, WhereInTheWorldIsKarla said:

From Honolulu I took the “Waikiki Whale Watching Tour”.  It was great. We saw spinner dolphins, at least 6 pods of whales and sea turtles. We also had great views of the island. Here are some pics.

Fabulous photos

[Clay Clayton]

Wonder how this bodes for us?

https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/ports-destinations/msc-cruises-cancels-three-grand-voyages-avoid-red-sea?NL=ST-004&Issue=ST-004_20240116_ST-004_772&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2&utm_campaign=STRADE_News_Seatrade Cruise News Weekly Headline_News_NL_01162024_5543&utm_emailname=STRADE_News_Seatrade Cruise News Weekly Headline_News_NL_01162024_5543&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eloqua&utm_MDMContactID=db60c4e4-0afe-4832-ad88-83806cef368f&utm_campaigntype=Newsletter&eM=fe6114d63ee1af637c116a68ad60731963dbb02f790981a727f86217fc60c39d&eventSeriesCode=ES_SEATRDCRSCTNT&eventEditionCode=MTM00SCC&sessionCode=S_STRDCRSNEWS&sp_eh=fe6114d63ee1af637c116a68ad60731963dbb02f790981a727f86217fc60c39d

[Jim Avery]

Look at the bright side, the dollar is very strong to the Rand. Lots of bargains 🥃🍷🍺