British Isles Explorer June 17- July 1 thoughts

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As always we enjoyed our Viking cruise and booked a couple more onboard. We are going to pay much more attention to distance from ship to sightseeing in the future. 

There are lots of reports online about this cruise and I’m not going to repeat port experiences. 

We ate most meals at the buffet. Dinner sauces and preparations and desserts were frequently not to our taste plus it was much easier to get a nice piece of fish that wasn’t overcooked at the World Cafe. There was not a problem getting reservations at the specialty restaurants. We had made them during the early booking window but wanted to change some when we saw the chef’s table menus. We did it on the first day but there was no problem making changes or adding reservations later. 

We had one afternoon and night of rough seas. Talked to one woman who got seasick at night and cabin steward changed her sheets in the middle of the night. We missed Dublin because the water was too rough for the tenders to be safely used. Tender time in Dublin is generally 15-30 minutes after you board the tender and then a 45 minute shuttle to the east part of Dublin, not far from some museums. 

We had mostly colder than normal but dry weather most of the rest of the time. 

Edinburgh requires a tender-about 45 -60 minutes including wait time to boars, loading and unloading of the tender. We took the train into town and an Uber back. We went to the Holyrood distillery on our own. We did one regular tour and one enhanced tour. Good tour with lots of information and enough samples. The enhanced part was 4 additional pours that included a couple of cocktail shots. It was easy to book online. 

Orkney port only had the included tour. There was another Viking ship in port. We were told that they don’t have the resources in the community to handle anything but the included tours since there were so many passengers in port. We had made arrangements for a taxi tour with Craigies taxi tours and had purchased admission tickets online for Skara Brae. Very nice tour with Paddy. The company sent us a detailed email with suggestions for places to see and which needed advance tickets. 

The included tour in Holyhead was about two hours (total) on a bus and an hour wandering around a small town. 

Liverpool, Greenwich and Bergen were the only docks that we felt were convenient. The included walking tour in Greenwich had one of the best guides we’ve ever had. Mad day out Beatles tour was fabulous. He has a very uniquely decorated vehicle and knows a huge amount about the Beatles and enjoys sharing with his customers. He books up about 4-6 months in advance. Good museums were within walking distance in Liverpool. 

The magician they had for two performances was fantastic. Much better than normal Viking entertainment. There onboard singers have updated their performances to appeal to a different audience. Most people we talked to did not like the updated versions. They lost sight of the fact that most passengers had grown up with the originals. 

(I also posted this as a review of the ship)