NanciEA

We are at the Westin Excelsior in a few weeks before we board the Grandeur.

We are booked with Historic and Scenic Tours. 8 people in one van. 7 hrs from Ivergordon. $135 per person.

We are cruising out of Rome later this month and have been assigned the Westin Excelsior.

In reference to what CCWineLover stated, our only complaint on our last Viking Ocean cruise was the shore excursion person who gave the daily talks. Her very thick accent made her talks extremely difficult to understand. Numerous passengers also told us they also stopped attending for this reason. Since most of the passengers on our ship had as their native language English, and shore excursion information would have been very helpful to passengers, I recommended to Viking it would be helpful to have someone whose first language was English give these presentations.

I would book the transfer now with Viking. You can pay extra and they will include you in the transfers if you are leaving the day of disembarkation. Contact them and they will send you a transfer form to fill out and email or fax to them. We are doing this for next year's British Isle cruise. We are flying into Bergen two day early and will find our way on the bus to our hotel. We are not staying on in London but paying Viking to transfer us to Heathrow.

I have registered us for years. It's on my "to do" list before every international trip. It makes it much harder for the US Government to help you if they don't know you are in a country when something happens there. It's really easy to use once you create an account with the State Department.

Does anyone remember if the train had outlets for charging your phone?

Yes, we were happy with the tour. It is a small group, maybe 12? It leaves from right next to where the tender's dock. It ends at the small aquarium, which is just across the street. They used a small mini bus, but you are not on it for long amounts of time. There are numerous stops and all are near the port. The puffins we saw were on a cliff over looking the town.

We saw numerous puffins on a private tour with Eyjatours while in Heimaey.

We took a bus from in front of the Opera House to Bratislava. It was about an hour non-stop. The tour included an hour long walking tour and then free time. We wandered around, had lunch, and did some shopping for a Christmas ornament. We left around 8:30 and were back by 3:00. Very easy and relaxed. I believe there were also options for taking the boat back. The boat I believe takes longer and does not return to the Opera House.

We are looking at In The Wake of the Vikings for next September - Bergen to Montreal. I am hesitant about this repositioning cruise. I am concerned about the North Atlantic at that time of the year, not only for the possible rough seas, but also the possible missed stops, especially the tender ports. Has anyone done this cruise?

Thank you so much for taking the time to write a detailed review. I noticed you did not mention any lectures. I assume you did not attend (or watch in your cabin) any of them? We have taken two Viking Ocean cruises, one pre and one post Covid and one of the many highlights for us have been the amazing lecturers. I agree with you on the included excursions. For our next Viking cruise we plan to book more independent, private shore excursions.

I agree with almost all of the suggestions in this post. I am surprised no one as mentioned the topic of "final payment date". Paying sometimes over a year in advance is my biggest issue with Viking. For a recent booking with Viking they were asking for final payment 13 months out. I ask for something more reasonable (In my opinion.) and they had to put me on hold for awhile while they "asked a manager". I did get 8 months out, but only after I told them (and they looked it up) that I have two other cruise coming up in 2023 which are completely paid for. The agent acted like he was really doing me a really big favor.

We landed at Chicago T5 on June 22 (a Wednesday, which may make a difference.) and there was no wait for Global Entry, which we have. It don't remember the line for non-Global Entry being awful. This was around 2:30pm. We waited maybe 10 minutes for our luggage. The hardest part is the long trek to your domestic flight, which involved the tram/train. Our connecting flight was on the opposite end of the airport. We had three hours. In total 45/50 minutes gate to gate.

How do you purchase the ticket? In advance online, or on the ground when you arrive? We fly to Munich in less than two weeks. We will be there a few days before a Rhine rive cruise which also includes several stops in Germany.