Considering Viking Ocean for Med Cruise

[1985rz1]

19 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

Azamara Quest is one of the old R ships (R-7).

Yes, like the Oceania R ships.  We just cruised the Journey and it did need some refreshing, but nothing serious. Service was great: food was good (not WOW).  Still, if one is interested in itineraries, the selections were excellent.  No line is perfect, so one needs to decide what's important. To us a slight step down from Oceania, but with more interesting itineraries.

Edited March 16 by 1985rz1

[Mrs Miggins]

8 hours ago, 1985rz1 said:

You might want to look at Azamara.  Their ships are the same size as Oceania's R-ships...about 650 px +/-

 I would recommend Azamara.  They have more interesting itineraries and the age range is slightly younger.  Lovely crew.  Usually about 50% from North America, many from the UK and Australia/New Zealand.  Excellent food, not quite as formulaic as Viking ie Chefs seem to have more leeway to do their own thing.  Would recommend a CC suite which gives many benefits and the price point would seem to be similar to an ordinary balcony room on Viking.

The ships are older but well maintained.  

The Captains seem to have more leeway in terms of changing ports.  ie reversing the Mykonos and Santorini stops due to congestion in Santorini.  We were disappointed on our last Viking trip to miss Monaco due to weather - every time we have been there with Azamara we have docked - with Viking we tendered (we also docked once with them).  We have had  a weather issue on Azamara and they immediately re routed to another port.  I did speak to the Viking Captain who happened to be getting coffee in the Atrium - he more or less implied it was too much bother.

 

Actually the passengers on Azamara seem to be more cheerful ! 

[fredflint]

On 3/14/2024 at 6:31 AM, TwinMamainMN said:

Hubby and I are in our mid-late 40s. We are curious about the average age of Viking passengers (obviously they must be over 18). We would do a Med cruise in May/June 2025 and figure with such a port intensive schedule a small ship with limited venues and activities would suit us just fine. We envision touring during the day, coming back to the ship, having dinner, and getting ready for the next day and going to bed at a decent hour. We like to see and do things on our own and aren't much for bus "hop on, hop off" tours with very limited times to actually see and experience things, but we also recognize with limited port times that might sometimes be the best way to see a port city. Viking has an included excursion in every port. What do they typically include?

I have to disagree with the HOHO bus we usually take the bus all the way around and then decided where we want to stop on the next round, it allows us great flexibility,  also some offer free wifi too!

Edited March 16 by fredflint

[CDNPolar]

17 hours ago, fredflint said:

I have to disagree with the HOHO bus we usually take the bus all the way around and then decided where we want to stop on the next round, it allows us great flexibility,  also some offer free wifi too!

 

The Hop On Hop Off bus is a standard for us if we are self-touring a city.  In Barcelona, this gave us the view of what we wanted to invest our time in the next day.  We bought a 2 day pass so that we could target our tour locations for the next day and use the bus to get there.

 

In Malaga Spain, we saw beautiful areas of the city that we would not have otherwise.  

 

In Sydney Australia, the bus got me to Bondi Beach which I would not have traveled to directly, just for that.

 

I could go on and on...  If we have the time in a city, this is one of the first things we do.