charmed1959

My latest luggage is llama print. No one else has it yet…

I wouldn’t call Viking and ask. My husband has an infection in a knee replacement. They wouldn’t let us postpone the cruise, not would they let us substitute anyone for him. If he didn’t show up they would charge $8.5K for a singles supplement, though we already paid for the room. So then he said he would go but maybe he could bring a scooter. They said absolutely not. Wheelchair? No. They told us he couldn’t even bring his walker, which they did not ask any dimensions. We thought perhaps we misunderstood, so we had our Travel agent call and ask again about the walker. They again said no, and now said he couldn’t board without a note from his doctor saying he could cruise. Now it was in our records. However, once on the cruise there were indeed folks with walkers, a few wheelchairs, and at least one electric wheelchair. I asked one of the people with walkers if they had by chance asked about bringing one, and they said no. So don’t ask. Just bring what you need. Once onboard the crew does everything to help out. They carried his food at the World Cafe and reserved the front seat in the coaches so he could get on.

My husband and I appreciated the smaller portions in the restaurants. At first we were skipping the restaurant as we didn’t want that big of meal, so we headed to the cafe. One night we just wanted to sit and have things brought to us and noticed the portions were small. Went to the restaurant every night after that.

We flew back SAS to London, Virgin Atlantic to Orlando. The passport control for SAS was less than 5 minutes at 7:15am. For our 7:55 flight we got to the airport a little before 6am, and spent much of the time in the SAS club. The security line was also about 5 minutes. If you have priority boarding you have a bit more leeway. And no, the SAS business class seats didn’t lie flat, or even go back as far as the Icelandic air seats. Not even domestic first class, they were the same seats as the rest of the plane, but you got a box breakfast. And you got priority security lines.

Nailed one from the top landing today, and I’m terrible at cornhole. Earned that mimosa. I have coffee in the atrium every morning. I don’t mind the classical background music but it’s not what I would choose. A few days ago a couple came down to play cards with their own music. I was just far enough away the music was clashing. I much preferred their music, and was trying to decide if it would be too creepy for me to move really close to them. In the end I moved farther away so I could only hear the classical, but if I were to voting.

The Rock and Roll one had some songs from Journey, Queen (but not Bohemian Rhapsody), Beatles, Alabama, Kansas. A few more “power ballads” slow songs than high energy Rock, but not bad. Our assistant CD is a former ballroom dancing champion, and claims he does not sing, so that is probably where the Viking Vocalist solo show came in. (She was good, sound mixing needed work.). I agree, I skipped the pianist, and sat in the back for the Opera singer as I wasn’t sure I’d like her show. It was short, 45 minutes, and included “Summertime” and “Moon River”, which are some of my favorite songs. I’m not sure I’ll go to her next one. Our cruise director had quite a few Opera songs in his show, and even the Duet show had the Celine Dion/Andrea Botticelli song “Prayer”. (As did the cruise director.). I think I’m tired of that song now. I’d love a comedian.

On our Iceland/Norway cruise thus far we’ve had Duets and Rock and Roll. Tonight is the West End musical one called Stage Door. Other entertainment was two nights of a piano virtuoso they brought in. An Opera Singer that was last night and will again perform tomorrow night, a deck dance party around the pool, and two solo shows, one by one of the Viking vocalists, Tina, and one by the Cruise Director, Damian. I don’t know how common that is.

We walked back to our rooms after her show and they were already pulling the mooring ropes. We actually pulled away from the dock at 9:56, a couple of minutes before the “everyone on board” time. Apparently, everyone was on board. The Opera singer will be performing again tomorrow.

We are on a Homelands cruise right now and the free excursions range from great to not good. It often depends on luck of the draw, as some buses on the same excursion have much better guides than others. The ports are busy, and having a hard time hiring buses and guides. We had a guide in Longyearbyen with a very heavy Italian accent that was hard to understand, though some folks had great guides. Going to CapeNord we had tag team room mates that worked out who was covering what and were wonderful, while others said their guides on the way up and back did not coordinate, so they heard the same things twice. In Tromsø they brought in extra buses, and ours was a city bus that was not comfortable for the long bus ride. Neither the driver or guide knew the route. The guide was either struggling with English or what she was supposed to say. And the tour didn’t reflect the description of the tour we signed up for. Others had better buses and guides. Others had worse (one couple changed to our bus halfway through and said our guide was much better than theirs, who said nothing on the tour and then cut it short.) If we paid for these tours I would be disappointed when they don’t go well, but either way you do get a lay of the land for what else you want to do in port.

If he could fit a collared shirt under them he would be skinny enough to bring his long sleeved dress shirts. So, we’ll go with camp shirts and polos.

Now that we are in the midst of packing for our Viking Ocean Cruise I ran across this thread and am a bit puzzled about the “collared shirt rule”. My husband has a few cashmere pullover sweaters he was planning to bring for fancier dinners, since his collared shirts tend to be short sleeved and less formal. It sounds like the sweaters wouldn’t be allowed, and we should just leave them at home. Is that true?

Is there any dress code for the dining room on these Iceland/Norway cruises? Or will the leggings and sweaters we are wearing on the tours be okay for dinner, or should we bring dressier clothes. We will be on the Saturn on the 19th out of Reykjavik, and I’m already packing.