CCWineLover

I can verify that it worked for me - good deal - for the Feb 2024 Italy, Adriatic, & Greece Itinerary, as we booked today. $25 deposit and no final payment until summer. Our TA said she's been absolutely swamped since yesterday - super high demand. I guess Viking's promos are working. The 2024 dates were particularly popular as Viking usually doesn't give the promos a year or more ahead of time.

We've done that exact thing - book 1 way KLM and 1 way BA from SFO. Works just fine. In the old days 1 way tickets were often way more than half the roundtrip. Nowadays I've found it is nearly always exactly 1/2 of the round trip fare. That also gives you flexibility to pick different airlines each way.

Best advice - contact Viking directly and ask how the situation would be handled. And/or email to tellus@vikingcruises.com Regardless of what Cruise Critic says, you'll have to deal with someone (or your TA's will) at some point to find out.

Lorna - well stated. Couldn't agree more. It always pays to check both options (Viking Air and on your own). We've seen it greatly favor one or the other many times. One additional consideration if it is important to you: If you book on your own, you can get ticketed and then immediately get your seats and/or have opportunity to upgrade direct with airlines (miles, added $). This can be helpful if your flights are a long ways away. With Viking Air, you'd have to wait, potentially until good options are gone, until they ticket you (seems to vary between 60 and 75 days). You may think you are guaranteed to have the seats that show on your reservation via Viking Air, but not so until it is ticketed. By that time good seats and/or upgrade options may be gone. Not only that, you may have paid and booked for Prem Economy or Biz class with Viking Air, and by the time it is ticketed, the airlines have downgraded you (probably because they got higher paying regular customers to pay $$). So you really aren't even guaranteed your PE or Biz class section with Viking Air. If seats and upgrades are not important to you, then it's probably a moot point.

I don't think the Nov 2023 Barcelona to Buenos Aires cruise is viable for the WMD23 code however. If you price and build, it says invalid code for this itinerary.

We have left the ship at Bergen dock several times and walked. Once to the Bergen Bors, which is a little closer than Hotel 13, in May. The other time to Hotel Rosenkrantz, which was closer, in July. If you are dragging luggage, it will be a decent walk for you - but if it is a nice morning, it is actually a pretty walk. Only you can determine if you are up to it! (or if you have too much luggage to shlep!) There were NO shuttle buses at the pier/dock. There were plenty of taxi's so that wouldn't be a problem for you.

Passport required if you are a U.S. citizen. Don't know about other citizenships.

On our recent Viking Star cruise, they ran out of the usual coffee paper cups and instead just had the very tiny small water/juice paper cups that were not viable for hot liquids. So used the ceramic cups. Only issue is that they are sometimes cold, so have to put hot water in them first, then coffee or whatever hot liquid, and then transfer to the insulated cups. It becomes a process.

Azulann - Well stated! I agree totally. Planning ahead of the trip and Spontaneity while on the trip! Best of both worlds. We do some "planning" for activities during the trip, but always have Plan B and a Plan "Go with the Flow." I don't think it's an either or - it can be both! I do think most people (or a least one person in a couple) do planning ahead of time. I think the difference among people is more how regimented they are during the trip and/or how flexible they can be. (Go with the Flow). Seems most of the complaints can come from those who do find it harder when things don't go as planned during the trip. Travel is an adventure and we've experience so many interesting things that were a result of things/events changing during the trip. Happy cruising to everyone, regardless of which camp you fall under.

Port arrival/departure times have always been on about page 3 of the Viking invoice document that every Viking cruiser gets when they even just put down a deposit. Go back and look at that document. If u don’t find it ask for another copy.

Thank you. Hmm. Didn't realize there was a Viking Voucher and a Tripmate voucher and that they were different. Didn't know the Tripmate also could give vouchers out and that they were different from Viking vouchers and had different legal implications. something to think about.

Linda - I always wondered as well. They tell you not do do certain things with the outlets, but I'm sure people do them anyway. People still bring hairdryers for example. from the one site, it appears something like this might have happened: "We can confirm that a small fire occurred in a guest stateroom on board the Viking Orion while the ship was docked in Sydney the morning of February 3 (local time), .... early reports indicate the cause of the fire was electrical, possibly from a corded device."

Our tradition is to try to board at 11 AM. Do the safety briefing. Then head to the World Cafe. If it is nice weather out (like we had in Ft Lauderdale and also San Juan), we can eat outside. Tradition on Viking is that they always serve the best salmon, always, at embarkation lunch. One of our favorites! 2nd choice is the Pool Grill, which we've also done.

Perhaps it is best to go to the source - call Viking and / or Tripmate and explain the situation. Will be interested to hear what they say, so hopefully you can report back to us all.

Yes. Flew them from Lisbon to San Francisco non-stop last summer. Very very good. Food exceptional, service also. Very helpful and friendly. Was on their new A321neo - nice plane too. Pleasant flight - and yes, no luggage lost for us either! The name stands for Portuguese Aereal Transportation (Transportes Aéreos Portugueses) and the company was founded all the way back in 1945. The company quickly started operating international flights. In fact, its inaugural flight took place back in September of 1945 from Lisbon to Madrid.

I can also confirm that we cancelled a cruise that would have given us $16K vouchers. Our TA worked with Viking, who said that they could split the vouchers into two vouchers as long as a voucher was not more than $10K. So we did two $8K vouchers apiece - which made things much more manageable as that is about the amount now for many of the Viking 14/17 day cruises. Note - this was done fall 2022.

Here is a picture I took this past summer, showing where the Viking Ship anchors near the Cutty Sark/Greenwich River Cruises docks.

Viking does not dock. They anchor off Greenwich, and you take a tender to/from the ship from where the Thames River ships dock (which is right by the Cutty Sark). You can take a tube (slightly arduous) to downtown London/British Museum. We took an Uber from Kensington (much farther than British Museum) and it was very reasonable and quick. You can also take a Thames River cruise down towards Westminster and take the tube from there.

We asked, on the Star in Dec/Jan 2022-2023. Were told that this ship, at least, was not doing Pistachio buns for the forseeable future. They were sorry that we were disappointed. I said that we weren't the only ones. At least they didn't make up some excuse like "supply chain" 🙂

Simply Amazing!!

You were lucky. In our two Viking visits to Barcelona, we've been docked way way down the other pier south of the World Trade Center. Not walkable. But taxi service was not too bad.

Sadly, Clay, you got us hooked. So it was disappointing to learn they didn’t serve them anymore - at least on the Star. This past Dec-Jan. Maybe that was an aberration. Or the specific ship chefs decision.

And we LOVED your great pictures as well !!

Jill - what wineries or wine region did you go to? Sad for New Zealand.

We just recently got off Viking Star. I had the same thoughts you had. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the tables at Manfredi's and Chef's Table were laid out exactly the same as all our other many post-COVID cruises. It was for us very reassuring to see especially that there were many tables for 2 at Manfredi's for instance, and they were nicely separated. Even Chef's Table had their tables widely separated. Can't say the same for The Restaurant, where the twosome tables were jammed together like the old days. I was also told by the Hotel Manager that Viking is seriously planning to modify their current internal policy of setting aside more than half the tables for on-board booking, which has been in place since COVID. possibly by this summer - which would bring things back to where they were pre-COVID.