Queen Victoria - Royal Viking Adventure

Background

Having cruised in 2013 on Queen Victoria and loved our first cruise to Norway, it appeared that the Royal Viking Adventure would be a fantastic second cruise on the same ship. For our first cruise, we paid the full fare and received a small amount of on board credit. This time we made the decision to take the Early Saver option with no OBC, no cabin choice and dining allocated on board. I was slightly disappointed to find out that this also means that where a shuttle is required, Cunard charge people who received Saver fares. This is not expensive, but quite unnecessary and gives the feeling that we are considered second class. Are Cunard going down the route of Easy Jet and starting to charge for everything separately.

As cruises go, I think that we must have had one of the calmest crosses across the North Sea and Baltic. We might well have been on a lake.

Tours

The only organised tours we took were the two day 'Simply St Petersburg', the Ballet and the Archipelago Sail at Helsinki.

The Simply St Petersburg tour was excellent. The young tour guide was very knowledgeable and gave an detailed look at life within Russia as well as much detail on the many sites of interest. The tour included a packed lunch on the second day and was advertised as a restaurant lunch on the first day. The reality was very much different and wasted two hours of our very busy day, with extremely poor food. Overall though, an excellent tour.

We had planned to book the ballet before we left home. However, for a number of reasons we didn't get round to it. When we asked at the tour office we were told it was fully booked. The tour office kindly said that they would check with the ballet to see if they could get additional tickets. This they achieved, although we only received our tickets and knew we were successful when we returned from the day tour at 5:30 making it a very short turnaround. I must say that I am not a Ballet fan, but apart from a very num backside, it was well worthwhile. My wife thoroughly enjoyed this tour.

The Archipelago Sail tour was on a 1947 sailing boat. This was very scenic and my only criticism was that there wasn't enough actual sailing and the crew only put up two of the five sails.

For all other ports of call we did our own thing. Possibly our favourite visit was the Vassa museum in Stockholm.

Dining options

For our previous cruise we opted for the early seating in the Britannia. This time we were allocated late seating (which was our preferred option). This worked much better for us and I would always take this option given the choice. Whilst we did enjoy the food and the service provided, I don't think the food (particularly the first few days) was quite as good as I remember from our previous cruise. We were assigned a table of six on deck 3 (Britannia upper level) where we enjoyed the company of all our table companions.

Throughout the week we made use of the other dining options (Coriander, Bamboo and The Veranda. All were excellent and were well worth the supplement.

For daytime dining, we used the Lido. The standard of food and service here is very good and with the exception of the comments at the end, we enjoyed eating here.

Entertainment

We visited the Royal Court Theatre most evenings to see the show. We both enjoyed the variety of the shows and I think they are performed to a very high standard.

I also attended the talks by Mick Testoni regarding the RNLI. The talks were very entertaining with some humour thrown in as well. This was very entertaining to me, but some other guests may not be as well entertained by jokes regarding 'She who must be obeyed'.

The not so good bits

Well there always has to be some, but unfortunately there were more than I would expect.

• Rudeness from other guests was my No 1 annoyance. To the main, this was in the Lido restaurant. Some guests appear to believe that there is no problem with pushing into a queue using elbows etc. where others are politely waiting.

• Quite a number of guests seem to think it acceptable to leave the evening show the instant the act has finished and before the entertainments director had thanked the act and guests for attending. This seemed to cause a mass stampede to get to the lifts before others could get there.

• Whilst on the subject of lifts, why do some people feel the need to press both the up and down buttons. Then when they get in the lift, complain it is going down when they wanted to go up.

There are plenty of other things that wound me up whilst on board, but having been home for 24 hours they don't seem quite as important as they did at the time.

Summary

Would I cruise again with Cunard? Definitely yes!

Would I do another Early Saver fare? Not sure. I think I would have to seriously look at just how much I was saving.

Thanks for the review!

There was a discussion some time in the past about charging for the shuttle buses. Did you have to buy a ticket in advance for the shuttle bus or how were they able to distinguish between those who had to pay and who did not?

... There was a discussion some time in the past about charging for the shuttle buses. Did you have to buy a ticket in advance for the shuttle bus or how were they able to distinguish between those who had to pay and who did not?

I asked this question a little while ago on QM2, I was told (and have no idea if this is correct or just a version of the facts) that they scan everyone's on-board card as you board the shuttle bus using a small hand-held card reader. Those who should be charged, are. Those who shouldn't be, aren't! At least that is what I was told.

All best wishes to you :)

Hi Scrapnana,

 

I asked this question a little while ago on QM2, I was told (and have no idea if this is correct or just a version of the facts) that they scan everyone's on-board card as you board the shuttle bus using a small hand-held card reader. Those who should be charged, are. Those who shouldn't be, aren't! At least that is what I was told.

 

All best wishes to you :)

Quite correct.

Hi Scrapnana,

 

I asked this question a little while ago on QM2, I was told (and have no idea if this is correct or just a version of the facts) that they scan everyone's on-board card as you board the shuttle bus using a small hand-held card reader. Those who should be charged, are. Those who shouldn't be, aren't! At least that is what I was told.

 

All best wishes to you :)

Spot on, everybody scanned and then those with cheap tickets billed.

It reminds me of a new car I tried to buy a number of years ago. After telling the dealer the spec, colour etc I required they quoted a price. When I attempted to negotiate the price, the dealer spoke to his manager and came back and said they could do it fore that price. When he started to fill in the paperwork it transpired that I now wasn't getting the same spec, or the after care deal. In effect no discount, just a lower spec car for the lower price.

Hi Scrapnana,

 

I asked this question a little while ago on QM2, I was told (and have no idea if this is correct or just a version of the facts) that they scan everyone's on-board card as you board the shuttle bus using a small hand-held card reader. Those who should be charged, are. Those who shouldn't be, aren't! At least that is what I was told.

 

All best wishes to you :)

This is exactly what happened to us on our recent and long voyage on the QM2. I asked about the charge at the tour office and they said to ask for a print-out of our bill from the Purser's office. We did this and found that the shuttle charges had been deleted.

Hi Scrapnana,

 

I asked this question a little while ago on QM2, I was told (and have no idea if this is correct or just a version of the facts) that they scan everyone's on-board card as you board the shuttle bus using a small hand-held card reader. Those who should be charged, are. Those who shouldn't be, aren't! At least that is what I was told.

 

All best wishes to you :)

Thanks, Pepper. I am glad that we did not have this as it sounds a bit of a pain (especially if you are standing in the rain or cold to get on the shuttle:eek:).

Kathi