CCWineLover

You'll never know unless you try it. Depends on how adventurous or risk-taking you are.

I also think planning and being spontaneous can co-exist. For example, in the preparation for a trip, especially far from home, I agree with others that the detailed planning and logistics and research are some of the best parts of enjoyment ahead of time. Certainly in these days, one needs to have things carefully put together and doing that research to make the various decisions that need to be made ahead of time (in a Viking cruise: air flights, pre or post?, getting to/from airports, cabin, excursions, etc. These are the sort of logistical decisions require detailed planning - and to me that is fun! However, there is another element that for me does not need to be planned out until the trip or cruise actually happens. This is to me where the spontaneity comes in if you let it - and can also be a fun and interesting element to a trip. I've seen people on both extremes of the spectrum. Each to his own. For me, this is about going to a city or a port and not necessarily have it planned out what you will do - going with the flow (above and beyond pre-planned excursions). It is about not planning out every meal you are going to onboard ship and exactly when you will have it. It's about going with the flow, meeting new people, watching a lecture later on TV because the sun was out and the pool was calling, right when the lecture was scheduled indoors. You get the picture. So I do think one can have both aspects: detailed planning and spontaneity. And for me at least, they both provide their own enjoyment.

Same thing we do. Steve is great at TripInsurance Store!! Great web site he has as well with tons of information.

I am so sorry for you. I have heard just SO many of these type stories, sadly.... That again confirms why we always do our own air - always. Just too much aggravation and hassle and unknowns - and that assumes on average the cost might be the same.

Too many newly retired travelers with too much time on their handds! I totally agree with you. For me, half the fun is the adventure and seeing/doing/experiencing things I had no idea about before they happened. Love to go with the flow. Sadly, post-COVID that has not always been possible as far as booking trips, as with the pent-up demand, everyone is booking up cruises, hotels, planes, national parks, and more way ahead of time. I miss those times when you could just "wing it" on a trip. Not so anymore.

Amazing. Good thing I follow this thread. We've done so many Viking cruises, and always sign up for promos, etc. We have NEVER received any emails or postal mails from Viking regarding promos of any kind. Wonder what their marketing department is doing? Perhaps they figure we travel so much they can ignore us? 🙂 Someone (Clay?) had let us know about his promo several weeks ago, thankfully, so we were able to take advantage of it.

Certainly. We stayed 5 nights at the Doubletree Kensington and 1 night at the Doubletree Greenwich (so we could have a day to wander around Greenwich and see it). The Kensington hotel was an extremely great location - across the street from the Gloucester Road tube station. It was an OK place for the money. We had tried to stay at Doubletree Tower of London but it was full. Our friends stayed at the Marriott Kensington a block away from us. It appeared nice as well. Suggest you research via TripAdvisor. As for Greenwich, the Doubletree there was outstanding! great location for walking and near the Observatory. We took an Uber from there to board the Viking Venus around 11 AM. Reasonable. We also took an Uber from Kensington to the Greenwich Doubletree - surprisingly reasonable, although we could have taken the tube, the Thames River cruise, and then another tube. (too much hassle with luggage).

I saw that! See you in NYC June 7th!

You might also take into consideration whether the PV room is a slider or a door. We've had both. The room with a door is a little tight to balcony. Here's a shot we had that show's a bit of that. There are lists of rooms that show sliders and doors for PV's. And yes, the balconies on PV's are indeed longer (same depth) Hopefully this will give you a feel. Enjoy your trip! Decks 4-5-6 with Sliders.pdf

CurlerBob - This was our cruise too! Somehow we missed you! We were with friends from NY. It was a great trip - and we made all the ports - even Orkney and Shetland. We went on to Oslo on July 30. And pre-cruise the four of us did London for 6 nights! In the heatwave. 🙂

It also does not cover voucher amounts used. It also cannot be transferred to another cruise, should the one you have it for be cancelled by you or Viking. Premium lost. Many 3rd party insurance companies cover vouchers and transfers. I don't think we can mention names however. It does not cover your own do it yourself pre and post days however many, for your cruise, only if you do the Viking supplied pre-/post- extensions. I don't personally see any advantages of Tripmate over using a 3rd party for insurance, except perhaps if you are a much older age, and it generally costs a higher % of total trip cost than 3rd party insurance. I don't know how it compares to the others as far as ease of filing claims and getting money back, as we've not ever had to file. We always "decline" the TripMate and use an insurance broker to help us find the right insurance company/policy to fit our needs. Ours has a forum/thread on Cruise Critic.

There is a Roll Call already started for your itinerary (May 23). Please check there and introduce yourself. (Note: We are on the following itinerary and get on as you get off in NY)

And may I say, we thoroughly enjoyed your blog posts of the TA you took. We lived it again vicariously!

Hmm... we were also on the Viking Sea Transatlantic Nov 29-Dec 13, 2021. Barcelona-San Juan. Dec 3, 2021 the Sea was in Gibraltar (as Casablanca had been cancelled). We also had 6 sea days that we thoroughly enjoyed! There have been many posts on the trips from LA to Hawaii as well. We are doing that cruise in the future too. edited: I realize you probably meant "2022" 🙂

Good point. So many just ask away without seeking other quicker sources of answers to the questions. That being said, yes Viking provides umbrellas - be aware they are huge and don't fold though. We always bring our own smaller portable umbrellas.

Absolutely stunning pictures and tales, Joe! So many thanks for helping us all live vicariously! Sounds like you are having a fabulous anniversary trip. Kent

From this article (although who knows which cruise lines it applies to?) Who Gets the Gratuities? From the passenger perspective, the gratuity amount is simple — pay a set amount per person, per day, and be done. So you might be charged $15 in tips for a day. On the cruise line side, that money gets cut up to be distributed. The tips are spread out between the room steward, dining staff, and others. For example, of a $15 charge, $7 per day may be distributed to your room steward, $5 to the dining staff, and the remaining $3 is spread among other customer-facing positions on the ship. Some lines also pool the tips altogether and then distribute them throughout the year. The good thing for passengers about automatic gratuities is that this breakdown is done automatically by the cruise line instead of having to give tips to several different staff members at the end of your cruise.

Do you really believe that poster? Everything I understood was that the room stewards were NOT singled out to be neglected in the overall pool, as this poster stated with no evidence. As for the room stewards working hard . . yes they do! But then so do many others who you don't see or interact with every day. Not just the cooks - think about the tough job the Guest Services people have down on deck 1, having to listen every day to people complaining about this and that (I've stood in line and heard some of the complaints and demands), and having to be nice about it all the time.

Wow! Have a fabulous time! We did this Jupiter South America cruise in Jan 2020 before COVID. It was easily one of the best we've taken!! The Chilean Fjords to me were even more spectacular than Norway (OK - they were equal). Safe journeys!

On the Viking Oceans website, you can filter on Month/Year. Doing so for Dec 2023 shows 15 cruises. You'd have to look at each one to see if they span Dec 25. I checked them all. I did find Mediterranean Antiquities : Athens-Barcelona 2 weeks Dec 20 Viking Saturn Athens-Barcelona 2 weeks Dec 22 Viking Venus These appear to be the only cruises that span Dec 25 and are in the Med. You'd have to do a transatlantic, Caribbean, or Panama Canal (or South America or Australia) for the other 14 itineraries. We just finished a FLL-FLL Christmas Cruise Dec 21-Jan 4 to Panama Canal and back. Loved the holiday spirits and atmosphere. But I understand not wanting to fly much during the holidays.

Yes, you have to pay an additional $75 to cover the penalty for cancellation. It has happened to me the first go round last year with the $25 deposit. Others have also commented that buyer beware. The way around that is NOT to cancel but instead do a "transfer" to another future cruise, thus keeping the same booking #. No charge to do that if greater than 120 days.

The person talking about the $1000 non-refundable deposit is from Australia. They appear to often have completely different terms and conditions that USA customers. Maybe they don't have that $25 deposit offer.

It might not be what happened in that specific case (which you don't say which itinerary), but I'll share with you what happened on our cruise, which is at least one logical reason for this happening. Some excursions were showing SOLD OUT by the time we could sign up. I had thought it odd that the suites alone could have filled them up. However, in our case, I learned that Viking was having issues with getting tour operators (post-COVID) with some excursions - which is to be expected. Sadly, they did not remove the excursions from the list, but just put the SOLD OUT tag on them, while they continued to work on getting tour guides. Suddenly a couple weeks before the cruise, they were able to offer the excursion and the SOLD OUT tag was removed, and they could be booked. I let Viking know they should put a different tag (like PENDING) or have a better explanation so people would not be frustrated. Lesson: Don't give up - keep checking. This may be happening a lot these days as COVID had a huge affect on the tour operators and many left the business.

This is the cruise that the Viking Sky is doing to get it to FLL in order to begin the 2024-25 World Cruise. My guess is there might be folks onboard who say on through to London!

Cool! (Oski gave it away - only Cal folks know)