CCWineLover

From Australia Cruise News . . . https://cruisepassenger.com.au/news/worried-about-covid-on-ships-heres-how-the-experts-say-you-should-handle-it/ https://cruisepassenger.com.au/news/all-carnival-brands-reinstate-mask-policy-amid-covid-mayhem/

Thanks, Clay! Good news there. But some bad news on the previous article. Shows that it isn't always a guarantee for going there. Two People Die In Quark Expeditions Zodiac Accident In Antarctica https://cruisepassenger.com.au/news/two-people-die-in-quark-expeditions-zodiac-accident-in-antarctica/

Hi Maria - yes, I forgot that there are some huge mega ships involved with us. However, we're still really looking forward to meeting you both and to this hopefully wonderful Christmas/New Years cruise! And yes, much better than sitting at a resort! Happy Thanksgiving and see you for the December holidays! Kent

Yes, the Star and Neptune are in port in Cozumel together on Dec 24th! We are on the Star and we have good friends on the Neptune, and we've made plans to get together while in Cozumel! The Neptune is on the first leg of the World Cruise.

Yes Clay, I wondered as well about Rhode Island to FLL in 2 days! Looking it up, it is 1019 nautical miles. Viking Mars leaves Newport 2 PM Sat. and arrives 7 AM Tue in FLL. (41 hours). That means averaging 25 nautical miles/hour, or nearly 29 mph. Don't think that's likely. Will be interesting to see what happens!

Clay - we are on that Montreal to FLL cruise next Sept. Was going to cancel and rebook, but Viking said their software now will not allow you to do that old trick of cancelling and rebooking the same cruise (when the savings are greater than the $100 pp penalty). Anyone else hear about that new thing?

I totally agree with you and your assessments re:Viking Air and AirPlus. The airlines are indeed changing things right and left all the time now, and I've heard from our TA that Viking is not getting the kind of contracts from airlines they had before COVID. You merely pointed out some of the pros and cons of using air through Viking. We've now taken the stance of doing our own air all the time. We consistently get better pricing and have more control. But even if the price was more, we'd still do our own - with the main reason that we can at least truly pick our own flights AND get our actual tickets and seats and/or upgrades many many months ahead of when Viking Air would allow it, thus having higher availability probability. We love Viking cruises, but not Viking Air due to what the airlines have done to them.

Dee - We are so sorry, but wishing Patrick a full recovery! Saw his pictures on FB. Give him our best. We use the TripInsuranceStore with Steve to insure our cruises - specifically because you can get insurance for cruise vouchers. He only works with a limited number of insurance firms, so you also don't have to sort through things. We've been using the IMG-SE plans. Very easy to deal with on the front end. Have never filed, so don't know how that end is. Good luck! You'll get to Antartica eventually - positive thoughts. Kent

Ouch! If its any consolation, a month ago we had our DV room day for reserving dinner reservations and similar thing. Nothing available. I spoke with Viking and told them I'd never been shut out of dinner reservations before. She said reservations now are full before any DV's can do it because: 1. Viking now sets aside many more tables than before (50-70%) for on-board booking (left over from COVID) and 2. The high end rooms can reserve so many reservations (6-10) that they fill them all up. Take heart, most of those folks cancel many if not most of their reservations. They just book them all to give themselves options. There's a good thread somewhere that poses ideas for Viking to change this and cut down the number of pre-book reservations that the high end rooms get.

Ah yes Joe. I remember you were on that cruise with us when we met Russell. And don’t forget his Mona Lisa lecture! Quite imaginative!

Don't miss Russell Lee, one of the lecturers on the new Neptune. I believe he and his wife Gail are on for quite awhile (into the Pacific?). Both great people, and Russell is by far the best and most entertaining lecturer we've had in 10 ocean cruises! He always puts on a great show.

Hi Maria . . Actually, we are postponing our Southern Crossing until 2024/25 and moved it instead to the Lisbon-FtLauderdale Transatlantic in Dec - so that we can go tour around Portugal for a week or more ahead of time!

Maria - didn't know you were also on the 9/26-9/10 MTL-FLL cruise as well. So are we, so we'll see you on both these cruises. And yes, interesting to note that we are affected by both Bar Harbor and Key West. We also wanted to just tour around Acadia. We probably won't know anything "official" about Bar Harbor until before sailing. Kent

GO FOR IT! Quickly. You didn't mention any cost so I assume it's just a trade. If not, how much extra do you need to pay? You don't say which itinerary so have no idea of potential sea movement. But PV's are pretty nice and your DV is aft facing the wake. (Of course, maybe you like the wake, but it will be a long walk from 5106 to anywhere).

Ha! Good point Maria. Well, we aren't late nighters, or huge drinkers, and couldn't sleep in if we tried, so I guess we'll be OK. Hadn't thought about that. Wonder how many on the ship will actually stay up until midnight? (On our S.America cruise for 2020, I think we heard there were about 50 )

You know, Gaz, I hadn't even thought about that. Maybe I should have. We did 2 Viking snorkel trips since COVID - Bermuda and St.Martin. Very popular. They were both quite nice and as I remember the masks were indeed disinfected (they said 🙂 ) Guess we are just lucky, or have good immune systems.

We were looking at this and chose instead the Catamaran Snorkel tour. Have been on several of these with Viking and we enjoy snorkeling. Always has been a good time. We'll have to see. It will January 1 for us in Jamaica. Have been to Montego Bay - my recollection is that it was not really that memorable. Hoping it's different this time. Wondering if the tour operators will be working on Sunday Jan 1?

Thanks, Phil! We are doing NYC-Reykjavik in June, which has the 2 Greenland spots. I saw this excursion listed, so your thoughts are appreciated! We might just do this very unique outing, as we've certainly done plenty of city walking tours on our cruises.

Haworth - agree with you! We are on the Dec 21 Panama/Central America cruise on Star. Will be doing the same thing - eating most/all meals outside of the World Cafe. Will also do a CT or two (or three) once on board to see the menus. Will be odd though to have warm days that end at 5 PM !!

Thanks. That helps explain why, combined with less reservations open to start with, that reservations are often "full" before DV people even have access. Perhaps like Peregrina says, just a tweak in their programs/processes would help - and it is up to us to let Viking know how we fell about it. I plan to communicate this several times in the upcoming weeks and on our December cruise. Hopefully others will as well.

You know - I don't know Peregrina. I had thought this was the case too, but twice we've had this situation where there were non available at 60 days for our DV rooms. This is no doubt left over from before COVID. As noted, post COVID, they have so many tables open upon boarding, and have closed off the pre-boarding booking availability so much, that their web statement no longer seems to apply. Wondering if it is staff issues? Or they wanted to space people about (not ever have a full restaurant) or whatever . . . Again, I asked Viking when on board and they told me they only do about 30-50% of the tables for pre-booking. No wonder it fills up before 60 days. They also said that about 50% of reservations do get cancelled or have no-shows. That is why there is never an issue getting in.

You might also try Viking directly: tellus@vikingcruises.com They would likely have the info you need.

We had a free air cruise a few years ago, and it was indeed back of the bus. Sadly we wanted to upgrade but for the itinerary, Viking said their contracts didn't allow for anything but economy. So it really depends on what their current contracts are and how much space in those exist, as to whether you might get to upgrade or not - just as you have seen. Also keep in mind that Viking's upgrades, if available, only apply to the overseas flight, not any "connecting" flight within North America. For those of us on the west coast, or who take feeders, you'll be in economy until you get to the flight overseas and vice versa. And with Puerto Rico, there are never any upgrades in our experience since it is considered North America we were told. Some of the reasons why after COVID we no longer use Viking Air.

Great news! We will be trying that for my wife, as she uses her iphone paired via bluetooth to her Starkey hearing aids anyways. Glad to know it works easilly. We will still contact Starkey to make sure.

Hi coljack - we are sailing along with you. Thanks for asking the question. However, I did a forum search awhile ago and found all kinds of information on Iceland excursions from the many Viking cruises that went there in 2021/2022. Might take a look at those. Too many to pick out. I figured I'd do a search again when we get closer else I'll just forget all I read from these many posts of great information.