CCWineLover

Unless you are like us, when our Viking cruise had Casablanca cancelled, so we went to Gibraltar instead (on the Viking Sea). We had a couple excursions. And yes, the monkeys were amazing, and very forward. Enjoyed Gibraltar very much - fantastic little place!

Hilton! Loved it and the location

Yes indeed! That is why we were so glad to have the new Excursion Director on Saturn now who is easy to understand. Just a very "soft" South African accent. Also - much more fact oriented with amazing details about everything you'd want to know, as I said, including number of steps, number of stairs, the slant of the slope you might be walking, how much standing time, how much walking time, how much riding time, how much toilet time and when . . . an extremely helpful excursion "itinerary"...

You must have been totally unlucky. On 16+ cruises I've never seen just Carlsberg. Viking has always been fully stocked in Norwegian beers (IPA, Amber, Stout) so never had a problem. And never had them run out, like they do sometimes with the various wines.

Totally agree, Joe. Viking has definitely listened to constructive feedback over the years. Our last Excursion guy went into great detail about ALL the excursions. It had NOTHING to do with selling anything. The assumption was that everyone in the room wanted information on what they were going to be doing on their excursion. Viking used to be somewhat limited in the info dispursed, but this time, it was very detailed - literally with items like how many steps you'd take, how many stairs, what amount of time walking, standing, riding; when bathroom breaks would be; what/if any food or snacks; how much time for shopping-plus who should not go (such as... if you cannot climb 20 stairs you should stay on the ship or the bus) - in otherwords, what to expect on your trip. Viking also implemented on nearly every included tour that was a walking tour - a special leisure group (like the River cruises) - which were quite popular.

NEVER had any sales pitch. They have talked always about ALL the excursions, full or not. My issue is that I wish they had the excursion details, photos, etc available (YouTube?) before we booked excursions. Would have changed my mind a few times. Other issue is until this last cruise of ours when our Excursion Manager was South African and we could understand him, most of the excursion speakers had such a thick accent, the excursion talk was worthless.

I agree - many included tours are quite good - and are NOT panorama bus tours. Especially in the Mediterranean. On our past recent cruise we had some absolutely excellent included walking tours in the following cities: Barcelona - wonderful - 4.5 hours lots of walking around the city after a short bus ride Sete (France) - stunning - all walking - got to see so much of this city Pisa - above expectations - decent walking, learned a lot Naples - again a great, demanding walking tour around Naples downtown Cortone (Italy) - a see Cortone walking "tour" on your own - decent Chioggia (Venice) - wonderful walking tour through the center of the "little" Venice town Sibinek (Croadia) - excellent guide - decent amount of walking. great. Split (Croatia) - another excellent guide - another major walking tour - Diocletian Palace too Dubrovnik (Croatia) - lots of good walking through the old city walls - excellent Kotor (Montenegro) - the best walking tour through the old town w/ excellent guide Olympia (Greece) - another good walking tour through the ancient Olympics site Note - NONE of these were that old traditional panoramic bus tour.

They must be hurting to fill spaces this summer on the River Cruises....

Looks fantastic, Clay! Can you take a picture of the "new" menu? Wonder which one(s) of the many trial Manfredi's menu will wind up being the standard? Or perhaps there will be several used at all times.

100 % agree !! YOU have to decide what ports you want to see in the Med. There are quite a number of choices - and there certainly are other itineraries than the 4 segments mentioned above. (Note - we just got finished with Legs 2&3 Rome to Venice to Athens of the 4 segment cruises). Ahh the age old issue - we want to explore ports but via a cruise there isn't much time in a port.... We also always make it a point to stay many days ahead of time and many days afterwards when we take a Viking cruise. If you have that time, it can allow you to see so much more! Even if you don't, I also heartily encourage you to arrive at least 1 day preferably 2 days early - there've been too many snafu's with airlines cancellations and delays. Relative to the whole cruise spending, the cost of another night or two is not that much. So - take a look at the various Mediterranean itineraries offered on Viking's web site. You can filter by location like "Mediterranean", plus others such as month/year and length of cruise. Happy hunting! You'll enjoy and never look back. You sound like perfect Viking cruisers! Tour all day, rest and get ready in the evening, and ready for another fun day!

Let us know what you thought of it. We tried this 2 weeks ago while on Saturn Rome to Athens. Will reveal our opinion once you've been there.

Yes. I had them switch out the beer that came with the fridge and load it up with the Aegir Norwegian IPA and also the Amber. Refilled Daily.

If you do, take the Columbus route (Southern route - (i.e. Barcelona, Madeira, etc to San Juan)) and not the Mid-Atlantic route (visiting Azores and Bermuda). We've done both and the chances of foul weather increase the further north your route goes. Our experience was that there were a much larger number of lecturers, classes, and overall activities scheduled - which made the trips delightful!

That had been our experience before, especially post-COVID. However, just got off Saturn in the Mediterranean. Don't know whether the ports lended themselves to this - but we never were staged in the Star Theatre on this cruise. (Maybe 1 or two tours the whole cruise?). Everyone met on the pier at the assigned times. Perhaps because of good weather as well? Was nice since you didn't have to walk all the way up to the Star Theatre, only to turn around and walk all the way back to the gangway 🙂 And you also didn't have to keep listening to the port/Excursion rebroadcast all the time in the Star Theatre. It all seemed to work out just great. When there was more than one "group" for a specific time (like the included tours), Viking staff also did something I hadn't seen in a bit - instead of filling up a group or bus and then moving to the next, they rotated through assigning groups so that each group had the roughly the same number. That is also why they kindly asked people to check in with whomever else they wished to be with. Again - it worked quite well! Another thing - we had several no shows on some tours and there were people who had been told to go to the pier as standby's. Then Viking called the standbys and they got on the tour. So never give up on the included tour times if you want to try for a different one.

Yes indeed! The Norwegian IPA is indeed good - and I'm an IPA lover from California. On our last cruise (Just off the Saturn), I also had the Norweigian Amber and Porter, which were also nice (and included). There were some additional beer items on the menu this time as well - I do remember a Stout (but didn't have it) and another one or two items. As you can bring any beer wine or spirits or whatever onboard for no charge, I often pick up local beers in port and have them on the ship throughout the cruise. (That way you are not tied to the lunch and dinner hours). Do this with wine as well for same reason. Have fun!

Also note that if you have credits it will default to use them unless you manually override to ACH or cr cd . again for emphasis! Choose an excursion and immediately go to your cart, pay for it and so on. Rinse and repeat as often as necessary (option excursions). Included ones get reserved on the spot - no cart)

Wow! Up significantly from our Iceland cruise last June!! Inflation is high!!! fyi we did all of these except did Golden Circle on Saga Tours. Vigur, National Treasures, and Skalenes were all spectacular, especially the latter 2.

When we finished in Buenos Aires, several people did a tour that then dropped them and luggage at airport for eve flights. They booked via Viator. I don’t know where you got the info that’s it not possible. Check multiple sights even trip advisor, of even your travel agent. It IS being done!

No you won’t know til you board on day 1. Go check the menus when you board and pick ones you want.

With this, we may have to look at cancelling an existing booking and rebooking it!

So I keep wondering why people still do Tripmate. There is so much info out there on Cruise Critic and other sites that could easily educate people on the pitfalls.

Interesting enough, this was highlighted in this morning’s Viking Daily (we are on Saturn in Venice (Chioggia). Titled DRESS CODE REMINDER. There apparently have been a number of complaints on our last segment about Vikings lack of enforcement. We shall see. Some people don’t read and some don’t care.

Sorry to hear. What is and "IT Payment" ?? FYI - this happened to me recently, and I immediately used the chat. The person on chat processed the payment and we were done in 1 minute, so didn't lose much time at all. Interestingly enough, I had used one credit card that caused the issue. The chat person suggest I give her a different card or use ACH checking. I did that and it immediately went through. She said sometimes certain credit cards have issues. FYI. Future reference for everyone.

Probably true.