sharkster77

And during a Viking ship swap, don't you end up in the same numbered room as on the original ship?

YES---we would probably sail again with Viking, where aquarium class cabins are 150sf while french balcony cabins are 135 sf! I point that out but get no traction from it! All we did was change our clothes and sleep in the cabin---all sightseeing was from either the lounge or top deck. Oh well, gotta pick your battles.....................!

I too am an overplanner but use a TA because my problems become THEIR problems to solve. It's embarrassing when you know more than they do. My TA jumped up and down insisting that the Blue Lagoon is a natural phenomenon. It uses the effluent from a geothermal plant. But she insists it's natural!

In our case, I drink an occasional beer, and wife will occasionally sip on a glass of wine, so cruise lines that include full bar do not interest us-----wine and beer at lunch and dinner (Viking and others offer this) is perfect for us. Same thing with spas, butlers---no need.

@franski, I wish you could talk to my wife. She insists that if we river cruise again, that we would have to spend $$ for at least a french balcony, as she could not see out of the windows in aquarium class. I remind her constantly how LITTLE time we spent in our cabin, yet she is adamant. River cruising again is going to be a more expensive proposition...........happy wife happy wife I guess.

On our 2019 Viking cruise, a few folks got dressed to the nines for dinner, and frankly, they really stood out. The "uniform" for men was a polo or button down shirt and chino-type pants, and a top and slacks for the women. A couple of days time was tight so I went to dinner wearing the LL Bean hiking pants I like to wear when touring (they look good and take up almost no space in luggage) and my attire fit in just fine. We cruised in October, but I have heard those who cruised in the summer say that in hot weather, nice shorts were common. Jeans in good shape are fine as well.

We did a land tour in Canada and came down with COVID 2 days after getting home. I think it's the chance any of us take when travelling in these times. Fortunately, we are double vaxxed and doubled boostered, and our symptoms were very mild. If I hadn't had a weird chest cough for a day, my wife wouldn't have even tested herself.

The clock we ordered from Hotguf Sternen, the place Viking brings you to , is labeled made in Germany. It shipped to the US for what we thought was a reasonable cost. We assumed that would be the better option than trying to carve out space for it in our luggage---not a small trinket!! There were some folks who ordered on site and had the clock shipped home, but as I mentioned in my original post, we didn't want to spend our limited time there dealing with an order. Besides, when Viking buses pull up, any place gets super-busy super-fast!

Wife uses a curling iron. We bought a dual-voltage model at Target for around $10. No need for an adapter. Any decent hotel will provide hair dryers. 3 trips to Europe, NEVER came across a hotel room that didn't have one.

We purchased one from the Hotguf Sternen (the shop you will be visiting) website after we had gotten home. There was a lot we could do at that site (cuckoo clock talk, black forest cake demo, glassblowing demo, a hike in the Black forest) that we didn't want to rush the process. On the website you can look at all the options, like 1-day vs 8-day wind, dancing figures vs none, level of intricacy of the carvings, etc. There are sound files you can listen to of the music.

That the younger generation is the computer generation is somewhat of a myth. I retired from teaching 5 yrs ago. My students could TikTok, etc., like there was no tomorrow, but ask them to convert an assignment to a PDF, edit a photo than insert it into a lab report, etc., for every kid that was a wizard, there were 2 who had no clue. Use a scanning app on a phone to digitize and submit a problem set? One student consistently pinned down her paper with her feet and pointed her phone downward to photograph it-----I could describe every pair of socks she owned!!! Use technology as a toy---sure, they're good. Use technology as a useful tool in life/work/school---not so much. (end of my old-man rant)

We have two sets of adapters, one for UK and one for rest of Europe. Each adapter is only $1 each, from ricksteves.com. They all worked fine.

To add, we used to use our Cap One Quicksilver card overseas all the time, but summer of 2020 they arbitrarily reduced our limit from 15K to 5K. We always pay off our full balance. When I questioned it, the answer was that too many people were defaulting on their payments--BUT WE WEREN'T!! The company had to reduce its risk, at my expense. I stated that we needed a high credit line in case we had to purchase airfare because of an emergency. They told me, a good customer, 'too bad'. So on a recent trip to Canada, the Barclays card got heavy use and the Cap One card stayed in our wallets. What a great way to treat a reliable paying customer!

The AARP Mastercard from Barclays also has no foreign transaction fees as well.

We recently took a land tour in Canada, and a few passengers had the red leather Viking tags on their backpacks--made for a nice conversation starter, sharing common experiences!!

Yup, that's the way it works, $50pp to pick your own flights and $100pp deviation fee to arrive early/leave late. Even with both fees, we found that Viking air was still cheaper than what we could find for fares.

One way to look at it is that on the ocean, it's all about the amenities on the ship--on rivers, it's all about the ports. The ship is basically your hotel/restaurant that follows you up or down the river. Usually one dining room, everyone eats at the same time, minimal evening entertainment (we were too tired to stay up late anyway!), beer/wine included with lunch and dinner, usually no spa or pool. You are usually off the ship by 9AM for the morning excursion, return for lunch, and then either free time back in town, or off on an optional excursion. Back in time for dinner usually around 7PM. Your cabin is used for sleeping or changing up--during scenic cruising (middle Rhine castle area, Wachau valley on Danube, ex.) the best views are in the two-story lounge with full windows, or up on the top deck. From the Viking website, but pretty much true of all river cruise lines:

Since our room was basically used for changing up and sleeping, being rafted for us never really became an issue. Only once (in Cologne) did we have to cross over the top deck of another ship to get to ours.

Since full vaccination is required to enter a foreign country, even someone does contract COVID, most likely: --their case will be relatively mild --they will shed much fewer virus particles than an unvaccinated person would --they are traveling with other fully vaccinated individuals. I read where many sports teams were getting around the test rule by flying to a city very near the US-Canadian border, then boarding buses to drive into the US, negating the need for tests.

I knew buying those proctored Binax test kits would do the trick!!!!!!!!

Are you saying the pdf will not open? If so, let me check if I uploaded it improperly.

Go up a few posts---I shared a pricelist from 2018 that will give you a rough idea.

The showers do have built-in clotheslines for drying items. We have quick-dry LL Bean hiking pants that we washed in the sink and that were dry the next morning.

It's from 2018, but I've attached a price list to give you a general idea of the costs. We did 2 mens shirts and my wife did a couple of blouses for a reasonable cost. viking laundry price list.pdf

If left on bed in a designated bag by 9-ish AM, back prior to dinner. On hangers or folded.