CCWineLover

I am also surprised! Sounds like the OP is saying you have be "Rude" to get anywhere with the onboard Viking people. We've had our share of issues and NEVER encountered that. I always approached Viking with a smile, being courteous and polite, but firm and stating things in a business and facts sort of way. I've always had good responses and fixes to the issues without ever having to be "rude". Perhaps you had a very isolated incident. I haven't hear the need to be rude so much. Certainly many passengers are rude onboard to the Viking people, but Viking staff seems to handle it well. We always say that to work on Viking you must have thick skin!!

We've been on all the Ocean ships (not counting Sun). The 9 (not counting Sun) Viking Ocean Ships currently sailing are the "Star" class. They are all nearly identical with some slight differences. Viking made changes to improve things as they moved from each group of three - 1st group: Star, Sea, Sky 2nd group: Orion, Jupiter, Venus 3rd group: Mars, Neptune, Saturn There are some differences between the ships you mention Sea and Orion. Orion is really not that much younger than Sea. However, Orion was the first that has a Planetarium on Deck 8 of Explorer's Lounge (Jupiter is the only other one with it. It was cancelled on future ships). Orion also was the first to implement a food "station" in the World Cafe that you walk up to. (Around the corner from the Gelato area and across from the Aquavit Bar in the back). Now it serves Asian dishes Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Quite popular. The first group (Sea included) also did not have drawers in the closets for DV and V rooms - just shelves. They were added on the later groups. As for showing wear, people who've been on VERY recently would have to answer that. Between these two I'm not sure I'd be too worried, but no doubt there will be strong opinions one way or the other from folks.

This is who Steve Dassios put us onto in 2024. They are offering some good plans now as you discovered (Travel Insured International FlexiPax). One big benefit is they are good up to 3 years out and you can transfer from the original cruise to a new one at no charge as long as the new one is 3 years or less from the date you put the insurance deposit down. Flexible is right!

Fyi One “sparkling” is part on the included wines but not advertised. we dislike sweet sparkling but like the include / not too sweet not too dry.

Sadly we’ve seen some trifectas on our recent cruise.

You are right! Always get a chair somewhere. The chairs/lounges by the windows however, on our past cruises, were "booked" really early (like before breakfast), by a newer crowd that "reserves" them by putting towels and personal items on them, and then don't show up til much later if at all. Like placeholders just in case they want to come by. I see this behavior increasing over the past years since COVID.

Yes thanks for your wonderful reports and taking all that time to inform us of your wonderful adventures! We do appreciate it. And glad you got to meet Dobie as well. Where and when's the next big adventure?

We've used tripinsured.com before but over the past 4 years, we've gone with Steve Dassios at TheTripInsuranceStore. Linda posted the details a couple posts ahead of me (#4).

Here here! Love my wines (witness my CruiseCritic handle, where by the way, CC stands for "Central Coast", not CruiseCritic). I envy your job! Great samples would be a plus! Would be fun to get a group of wine lovers together who also enjoy traveling like we all do.

I just asked our TA and they said that OBC's can be put on the account from a TA whenever the TA requests it. Many agencies apparently have a policy of automatically getting that on right away when final payment is handled, and others handle it on an individual case. So yes, it all depends on your agent and your agency. We like them on early and DO see them on the Viking invoice (around page 3 or 4 I believe), where it summarizes vouchers, SBC's, and OBC's and what's available and what's used. We also see it on MyVikingJourney under payment. When on early, if you buy excursions, it will take it from the credits (if allowable) unless you override that.

mwike - we totally agree. We also prefer the World Cafe (which is the quietest of the 4 restaurants to have dinner, other than room service 🙂) And those 2 tops right close together seems to be the style these days. With that tiny gap in between barely enough to squeeze yourself through, it definitely promotes interaction. And if you happen to get seated in the middle seat of the 737 configuration at The Restaurant, watch out then! I hope this is just a trial, but a friend on the Jupiter posted a picture that they just changed the World Cafe seating by separating the 4 some tables into two tables with that tiny gap in between. Apparently there have been complaints of too many twosomes taking up a foursome table (so as to have a more private dinner - guilty as charged). Not a good sign if they don't offer alternatives.

We've had that exact experience. Whether World Cafe or Manfredi's or The Restaurant, most people seem to want to join your dinner conversation. Even if they are well meaning, not everyone wishes that.

We also enjoyed our one river cruise - except we agree with several people. It will be one and done for us. We now have 15 Ocean Cruises from Viking under our belt and will continue. Main reason: Dining. At least on Ocean you can find a quiet place for a more private dinner. On River it basically does not exist. And it did remind me of those cruise dinners you were forced to do back in the 80's and 90's. Each night at 7:00 reminded us of a big wedding dinner reception. And for some that's great, but for some it isn't. At least Ocean gives a choice.

Yeah - hard to hire good help these days, even in foreign countries!!

5091 has a slider. We stayed in 5089 and I personally mapped the Doors and Sliders visually for the end of deck 5 for PV's.

It depends: 1. Are you doing Viking transfers? or on your own? 2. Is it a weekday or a weekend? You'll likely be off ship at 8:00 at latest then, which means if a weekday you are looking at IMHO a 12 noon earliest departure given heavy traffic to the airport. If weekend, possibly 11 AM.

So funny! We just watched again the movie Bottle Shock for the first time in 10years or so. We first visited Napa in 1976 to wine taste so it brought back those memories as well. And don't forget Chalone (down towards us in Paso).... Will have to stop by our next visit to Napa 🙂 Have enjoyed Trefethen (and Freemark Abbey) as well as Stags Leap (which won best red in 1976). Have to put a biased plug in for our region in Paso Robles though. There's some good wines here too 🙂

@Insanityx4 Our travel agent gives OBC's as a perk and they get applied to our Viking Cruise anywhere from 60-90 days out, so we usually have used it for excursions. Didn't know that some people don't see the TA OBC until you board the ship or a few days before.

How interesting! May I ask, what winery in NorCal? I've met so many winemakers who are really more beer drinkers. One told me it takes good beer to make good wine, so to speak!

We do the same thing! (At least with white and sparkling). We like to bring bottles onboard at the beginning and shop for some in some of the ports. For us it is so easy, but I realize many don't want to "lug" bottles onto the ship. I have brought bottles even from California - what is fun is talking about them with the wine steward. Always fun to have discussions about wine with the staff!

.... and tattered jeans . . . . and put their webbed feet on the eating tables and other furniture 🙂

Me too! I can agree that wine lists do vary by itinerary. Having been on several different itineraries on Viking, I have seen different wine lists. There have been a usual group of wines they've likely contracted with for awhile and then there is always a fresh batch of wines. Often they are dictated by the locale (i.e. we just had some wonderful Portugal, Spain, and Italy wines on our recent Rome-Athens cruise, that I had not seen before). Also - Viking RIVER cruises are a completely different story. As Peregrina said, you'd need to look at the CC board/forum. My only recollection on European River Cruise is that it was dominated by European wines, most of which I never heard of and weren't on Viking ocean cruises, but tried them of course!.

Don't beat yourself up. You had to try it to learn this. We went through the same experience (buying it once) and now we just pick out what we want! We felt that most of the Silver Spirits folks were cocktail drinkers (and large ones!) rather than wine drinkers like we are. I think it might have benefited them, but for wine drinkers, it didn't seem to so much.

Glad you had a great time! Yes - this is the hidden unknown value on Viking. We always try to take at least one sea day cooking class. So interesting! Our last one we did California menu (with Crabcakes and halibut).

Bring out the popcorn! Looks like we've stumbled on a topic that people feel real strongly about at both directions - sort of like the elections.