CDNPolar

The day before at the Port Talk, speak with the Shore Excursions manager right after the talk - don't wait until the day of. If there is room, the port talks generally foster some interest and you may lose a spot if you wait. They will sign you up immediately and charge your stateroom account.

Yes, somewhere there is a discussion about this but we have never seen this happen yet.

I appreciate your concerns about this model, but I think most people would be amazed at how much of our world is outsourced today in this kind of model. This does not mean - if executed well - that the individual crew member that you meet on the ship is not trained and held to the exacting standards that the client company demands. That is all part of the outsourcing. Believe me, every nurse we present to the UK either at least meets, if not exceeds the UK's standard in knowledge, ability, and care. It does come down to can the company do the recruitment, onboarding, training, contract management, scheduling, etc., as well as the specialist that this is all they do? This is not the same contracting model that I believe you are referring to with 50-100% salary increases... in this model no one is being paid more than the cruise company would pay if they did it all themselves. In this kind of model the cruise company or client company is paying a service fee for the services but likely pay rolling the crew themselves.

Yep... many folks have an impression that it is US/Canada but we have only flown to or through the USA perhaps 3 times in the last 10 years. It is expedited security at Toronto Pearson - with TSA Approved so you don't pull your liquids or laptop...etc., and all that BS. When coming back to Canada from anywhere you skip that 300 person line and breeze through immigration only to wait at luggage claim for the next 45 minutes. When you transit through the US - such as Chicago - on the way back to Canada, you go quickly through their Global Entry system. It is a no brainer to us.

Born and raised in the greater Toronto area and Pearson has been my primary airport. I will admit that there are many better airports in Europe and especially in Asia, perhaps I am numb to what Pearson really is. Yes, it is over crowded, and the food outlets suck, but we know that and are prepared for that so I guess we enter with low or no expectations. We pay for the credit cards that give us Maple Leaf Lounge access and this makes the experience a bit better.

I have just read several forums where some say don't worry, but others have been denied boarding. This has been a hotly debated issue on CC - not necessarily around Suffix, but around middle names. My passport has my middle name, and I was finally allowed to board, but many years ago was almost denied boarding because my middle name was not on the ticket. Many have said this does not matter, but since my experience I have always ensured that my middle name is ON the ticket. We cannot assume that because a domestic flight or an American airline may not want or need this, that it is not something that a Chinese or other national airline may deny boarding if it is not there. Did you try in a mock booking to add after the surname? For me on many airlines, I have to put in the first name field if there is not a middle name field. On a couple of Chinese airlines this was recommended because Chinese don't typically have middle names, and they don't have that field, but they still wanted my name on the ticket to match my passport.

We love Ocean and River cruising. On Ocean cruises if we are not travelling with others, then we eat exclusively at 2 tops. On River, we do like the variety of people that we sit with and that is mostly at dinner. We find that breakfast and lunch the people come in and out at different times and tables are not necessarily full. What we have become is the couple that will walk in and scan the dining room and find a different group of people, or an empty table, so that we can sit with new people and not the same as yesterday. Easier to make a variety of friends this way and the conversation is never boring.

I will object to your comment that they offer a pretty lame free tour as a fall back. This has been discussed here many times too. We are very well travelled and we are looking for excursions that are informative and enriching and we probably on any Viking cruise book 30% optional and 70% included and we have very little - if any - negative to say about the included tours. For the most part we find them to meet or exceed our needs. I will say that it would be nice if Viking did offer more than one included choice, but they offer what they offer and we have not found them "lame". And, I would add that we have paid for optional tours that we have not enjoyed and would never do again.

This would be a great enhancement for most people for sure. I understand why folks would want this. Many years ago now in our neck of the woods when "tasting menus" were becoming popular, we were huge fans and the tasting menus that we engaged with were anywhere from 7-11 courses with a paired wine for each course. The FUN of this for us is there was no menu. You basically did not eat the tasting menu unless you had no food restrictions, and some restaurants would make NO substitutions under any circumstances, and you had no idea what was coming next until it was put in front of you. The FUN for us was the wine steward would come just before the next course and pour a wine and tell us the story of the wine. Based on whether the wine was white, rose, or red, and based on the whether the wine was a light, medium, or full bodied we would try to guess what the next course was... sometimes we were right and sometimes not. Then occasionally they would come with a Craft Beer and throw us off all together. We just had a tasting menu where they tell you at the point of reservation, that they make no substitutions and if you have restrictions, then the tasting menu if not for you. I know this would never happen, but we would be fine without a menu, and this is also why we blindly book the CT for each menu change and are not concerned with what the menu is.

Like most things, the shows and the entertainers are subjective. We take them for what they are, and we find all the entertainers on Viking to be a brief diversion and a bit of fun and enjoyment.

The following is my conjecture and my experience, but I am not saying that this is what is happening, but it may well be... I have worked in the "Staffing Industry" and in this industry Globally for over 25 years and this makes perfect sense to me. You might be surprised at how many industries are literally staffed through agencies which allows companies like Viking to do what they do best. Viking have very complex contract and staffing requirements for all their "hotel" roles from the dishwasher to the bartenders, cabin stewards to servers. Contracts start and end mid cruise and individuals are swapped out. We have often gotten to know a crew member that tell us mid-cruise that he or she or they are getting off the ship tomorrow and going home until their next contract. This can be a very complex scheduling game, and when the replacement of a contract backs out at the last minute to meet a ship mid-itinerary, then this agency has a raft of replacement people ready to deploy. In contract operations like this the turnover, no-show, resignations, and terminations are frequent and this agency is ready to fill the gap wherever it occurs. If Viking are doing this all themselves, they would have to have recruiting arms in many countries and be in the "staffing" business and would have a LOT of recruitment offices. My company moves people around the world - not with cruise lines - because we have the experience and expertise in certain industries to certify, and procure the immigration requirements to move these people around. This is what we do and we do it for a lot of companies. My company has moved over 20,000 nurses from the Philippines to the UK alone and we manage everything that they need to do to get to the UK. For this we are "employed" by hospitals in the UK to supply where there is not current supply of nurses in the UK. Most large companies that use staffing agencies of some kind are doing so because these staffing agencies are better equipped to advertise, attract, select, deploy, and manage the whole process on behalf of their client company. This is what they do. I would be surprised if Viking did not have this kind of sourcing and supply model in place. This also does not mean that the crew member does not "appear" to be a Viking employee. They are trained and held to Viking standards and to every outside eye, they look and feel like Viking.

Viking Douro River cruise had two tops, but not many... Others will recommend if there are two tops with other lines, but my understanding is that this is part of river cruising. On Viking you can grab a two top table in the Aquavit Terrace, but you have to sit at it around or just before the port talk. Some put coats or belongings on the tables to reserve before dinner starts.

Yes, please indicate the ship or cruise line. We sail Viking Ocean and there is never a charge for room service. I get coffee delivered every morning as a standing order at 5am.

I have also read that many of the cruise line offered insurance packages do not insure pre and post extensions that you are doing on your own? I think that it is flight there and flight home on the day that the cruise ends?

This is what I asked above and it was answered NO, the captain and officers are contractors. ...and I have to admit, that this shocks me a bit. I have heard Captains say the number of years that they have been sailing and the number of those years "with Viking", so perhaps what they are saying is through a contract with a third party to Viking?