SM77

American Airlines had canceled part of our flight home back to Dulles telling me to figure it out with my travel agent. Luckily I had Viking Air and was able to email them (while I was in Bali) and I was re-booked on a much better flight, flying nonstop on Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong to Dulles. We flew Garuda Air from Bali to Hong Kong (about 5 hours). We loved flying Cathay Pacific - I would imagine that Emirates would be stellar.

late Feb - March 2019.

We just came back from Viking's Panama Canal Cruise and missed Cozumel due to winds. Got an email offering $250 future cruise voucher pp. Was very surprised, have missed ports on other Viking/non-Viking cruises with no compensation.

I know you are limiting your time frame to 15 days - others have mentioned the Buenos Aires to Santiago Southern American cruise that I thought was simply wonderful, especially going around Cape Horn, the Falkland Islands and seeing penguins. If you have time, we did a B2B from Auckland to Tasmania, Australia to Bali Indonesia. It is lengthy, about 35 days and expensive. New Zealand was a real surprise for me, it is such a beautiful country, wonderful climate and great towns to visit. Australia was a bucket list for me, just loved Sydney, but it does get very hot as you head up the coast. And visiting Komodo Island, Indonesia is incredible - definitely prehistoric.

We usually prefer the slider but on our last cruise on Viking Sky, 5035, Panama Cruise that ended right before its world cruise departure, the slider was hard to open. I think next time we will try the regular door configuration.

In general, Viking food has been very good but this time, my experiences have been less than stellar @ the specialty restaurants. The chefs working the Chef’s Table may not be as experienced with the Asian Panorama menu as the ones on Neptune. I am also Chinese so I’m very experienced with how certain items should taste. I’ve had a lot of dim sum & Peking duck over my lifetime and in many parts of the world.

We are on Sky right now returning to Fort Lauderdale after doing the full Panamá Canal transit( loved going through the original canal!) Was very disappointed with the Chef’s Table this time - Asian Panoramic w/ the lobster & chicken shui mai(not as good as before), Peking duck crepe - sliver of duck skin & the duck meat was over cooked. We canceled our second reservation since it was the other Asian menu - figured that it would not be great either. Our first meal @ Manfredi’s was just OK, the caprese salad - great buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes were too green, I tried the seafood ‘stew’ - octopus was good, mussels & clams were tiny. I wouldn’t get it again. Last night’s meal was better, had the calamari & prawns, linguine w/ prawns, & the new Viking ribeye, cooked perfectly & thick. World Cafe is as good as before. Headed to tea for scones! I have noticed some minor cost-cutting changes. This is our first VO since Dec 2019 on the South America cruise.

Yes, definitely write to Tellus. We had a similar situation coming home from Santiago Chile when we did the South American and Chilean Fjords in December 2019. The hotel area reserved for those of us who had evening flights was just not big or comfortable enough for the numbers. It was way too crowded and cramped. I suspected that this was an issue since it was close to Christmas and they just couldn't find or reserve a space large enough to handle the crowds and it was a new market for Viking at the time. Viking gave us a very generous OBC to be used on our next cruise for providing detailed information on all the things that went wrong on disembarkment that day.

We did sail on the Riviera in 2018, loved the food especially Toscana & the Terrace Cafe, but it was showing wear at that point and the decor was dark & heavy. I know that Riviera has been refurbished since then but I was hoping that Vista being brand new would be the Oceania ship to try. I just don't remember whether the sea views were lacking, a detail that I hadn't focused on at the time. We just love the sea views on Viking and Scandinavian design & interior of the ships. And your fair and detailed review clarified for me what I enjoy so much on Viking. Thanks again!

Thanks for your great review of Vista & your comparison between Viking & Oceania. We love cruising w/ Viking & will depart in a week for their Panama full transit cruise. However we did the Mediterranean on Oceania Riviera, had a great experience & loved the food. And I wanted to try Vista if an itinerary appealed to us. Pointing out the lack of ocean views on Vista has me pause now because we love the ability to see the ocean when sailing on Viking. Thanks for making that observation.

When you say “paid for Viking Air”, do you mean paying the up charge for Viking Air Plus? I was under the impression that the only way to speak to someone directly was to pay additional for this? Yes, I always pay for Air Plus - I like to be able to talk with someone when finalizing our flights.

If you paid for Viking Air, you can call the number and ask about upgrades to PE or business class and they will tell you the price. What I did this time for our Panama Canal cruise is that we are flying free through Viking and American Airlines offered upgrades in the main cabin(it's a short flight between Miami and Panama City ) so I looked on the AA website and upgraded using miles to the front of the main cabins, easy to do. We plan to do the Viking Elbe river cruise in late March 2024. I worked with Viking Air to book the flights from Dulles to Prague, Berlin to Dulles, switching to an earlier flight from Dulles to Frankfurt to give us plenty of time for the connecting flight to Prague. I went ahead and ticketed the flights since I was satisfied with them. Then I contacted United and asked about upgrades to business &/or PE. The upgrade to business is 20K & $550 but there is no guarantee that you will get a business class seat; this is how United does it now. However the United agent suggested if I upgrade to PE(only costing 20K & no $$) she could already assign the outbound seats. It was a little more challenging doing the return flight from Frankfurt to Dulles, I had to request the upgrade to PE myself on the United website since it was a Lufthansa ticket (but it is a United flight) and right now it is still a request but she thought by mid-December the upgrade will be granted. We have sat in PE this past Spring for our Cities of Lights river cruise. It's not business but fine for a European flight from Dulles.

We absolutely love traveling with Viking - doing the full Panama transit in December will be our fifth Ocean cruise and we have done four river cruises with a fifth one going on the Elbe next March/April. However we did Athens to Barcelona in 2018 on Oceania's Riviera(1200 passengers) and also had a great experience. Personally, I thought the Oceania food was much better in the World Cafe equivalent and with the speciality restaurants. We traveled in the Fall so minimal number of children. Still prefer Viking but would consider traveling on Oceania as well, especially on the newest ship, Vista. We did Crystal - Asian cruise that covered China, South Korea & Japan in early 2017 and had a incredible experience but found it too formal and encountered a lot of obnoxious, entitled 'ugly American' behavior displayed by some passengers. It was very unpleasant being around these individuals and we couldn't avoid them since we were all traveling together on an optional excursion flying to Xian to see the terracotta soldiers and then flying to Shanghai to meet up w/ the ship.

I asked this question about the Yellow Fever vaccination being required in September and Viking called me back and said that it was not required for Roatan even if we are traveling from Panama, going north on the cruise. We are both over 60 and have heard the Yellow Fever vaccination was not recommended for those over 60. To be sure I contacted a local specialty pharmacy that does administer the Yellow Fever vaccination and they said that they give it to a number of travelers who are over 60. However, most of those travelers were headed to Africa, not Central America. I decided not to stress over it anymore and made sure I'm bringing heavy duty insect repellent.

When we sailed with Oceania from Athens to Barcelona in 2018, I arranged for a car to pick us up and take us to a hotel, and used the same company for a private tour of Athens the next day and then on the third day, had a car take us to the port. Athens is less expensive than other cities to arrange for a private car - it was very nice that our driver spoke perfect English. My understanding is that many Greek cab drivers do not speak English well.

We just did the Cities of Lights river cruise. We had a fabulous time - especially going to Prague and Paris where we add the two day extension to do Musee d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower on our own. The Viking Heidelberg excursion might be different with the lunch with Heidelberg students - the restaurant was excellent that Viking uses: Kulturbrauerei - food, beer, wine were great. You could skip the castle and spend more time in the Old Town. Maybe skip the Residenz in Wurzburg and spend more time in the Old Town or on the Bridge drinking wine. The other German towns you mentioned were great to visit(we didn't do Bernkastel) - I will say this river cruise is very different from the Danube, Seine, and Rhone(which we have been on) in that on the Main, it is not a particularly pretty ride, there are a lot of locks to go through and low bridges so the top deck is closed most of the time. Also there are a lot of bus rides to get to these towns, only Mainz you walk from the ship to get into the Old Town. I will do a review on the ship we were on: Alsvin

Viking may require Covid vaccinations but they are not checking at all. We just came back from Cities of Lights, had a fabulous time and as far as travelers are concerned, there is no Covid, no one was masking. We masked for the airport and flight, but we let our guard down once we arrived. We both came home w/ Covid - a lot of traveling on buses for long periods of time, I am sure that's how we got it. Fortunately it was more like a cold.

We just came home from Prague to Paris and we didn't have to fill out any health form. There is a lot of walking on this river cruise, lots of bus rides where you are dropped off and need to walk to the city centers and the reverse. What comes to mind is the bus ride from Prague to Bamberg, stopping in Nuremberg Old Town for lunch. Same for the bus ride from Trier to Paris, stopping in Riems for lunch and then a visit to the Cathedral. For the Prague panoramic tour, we walked over 15,000 steps on the tour itself, for the day we did over 22,000 steps.

Thank you so much! You will love your Viking river cruise - our first introduction to Viking was on the Danube from Passau to Budapest with a land portion starting in Munich & Salzburg in 2016. I see that you are a very seasoned cruise traveler - you will love traveling on Viking Ocean - we did Auckland to Bali on Orion in early 2019.

Yes, only the overseas portion is in Premium Economy - IAD to Brussels, Paris to IAD - also there are very few PE seats on most flights. We try to travel business class; we thought this time we try PE as an alternative when flying to Europe for a less expensive option. Today we got an email from Viking providing a special number to call for flight related travel emergency issues which is staffed 24 hours, seven days per week. Obviously air travel has been challenging since last summer, so much that Viking felt the need to have something available. I have been checking our flight as to how well the flight has been on time. It has been uneven, especially with some of the weather that we have been having. I am comforted to know that we have a number to call if we have a flight related problem now.

We have always had excellent experiences booking our air through Viking Air. The one time I booked air independently for an Oceania cruise went well flying to Athens & returning from Barcelona. Different story with traveling to Hong Kong for a Crystal cruise - difficult to find the port and Crystal staff to embark. When the pandemic happened, I had just booked our own flights for an Oceania cruise and just had to wait several months for United to cancel the flight to get our money refunded even though the cruise had already been canceled. Since everything is so much more fluid these days, I'm inclined to only want to deal with just the cruise line if there are cancelations. And when we had flights canceled from Hong Kong by AA a couple of days before flying home, Viking Air made all the arrangements on a different carrier & we got home without a hitch on a nonstop from Hong Kong. We will be headed to Prague next week, pretty much the flights we wanted, in premium economy on United going to Brussels & returning from Paris. No switching seats or flights, only cost us $799 each to upgrade to premium economy from free included airfare for this Viking river cruise. My only concern is that we could miss our connecting flight from Brussels to Prague given all the problems that the airlines have been experiencing or that we could get stuck in Paris if there are any strikes going on at Charles de Gaulle. I'm hoping that I can go with the flow these days; looking so forward to our first international trip in three & a half years.

Update: Just got off the phone with Viking air and ended up getting "Viking Air Plus" for a small fee. Their agents are pretty good. After looking at a LOT of options, we decided to just fly into Basel a couple days early to shake off jet lag, etc... This is our first international travel trip in quite a while, and didn't want to get too crazy with the itinerary. 👍 Farmecologist, Just be aware that since you have deviated and will be coming in sooner(and not doing a pre-extension), transfers are not included to getting to the ship, you will be on your own. Same for post cruise, if you are deviating and not doing a post-extension through Viking, you will not be able to taking advantage of the transfer to the airport.

We are leaving next Tuesday for Prague for Cities of Light and will be flying through Brussels. I wound up calling Brussels Air and booked our seats for a nominal fee. When I did this three years ago for a United flight that I purchased that included a Lufthansa flight, I was able to select seats but paid at least $50 for each seat - When the United flight was eventually canceled, I was able to request a refund from Lufthansa. It seems that the connecting international airline will charge for advance seat selection. Both the Lufthansa & Brussels Air flights had different confirmation numbers from the United confirmation numbers. Brussels Air found our reservations by our names and gave us a different confirmation number to use on their website. Hope this helps

Clay, Just to let you know that the TA we use in common said that we would only get $150 pp. I thought she was only looking at the 'cruise' portion of the Cities of Lights river cruise that we are doing in late April which is 7 nights, not including the four nights on land plus an extension. Happily, the travel agency gave us $300 pp shipboard credit and it appeared in our account online in MyVikingJourney. What I thought was interesting is that we had booked an excursion early on and paid for it. Viking refunded it back to our credit card and paid the excursion out of the shipboard credits. So now we are left with just under what we need to pay for gratuities. It was a nice surprise. We are looking forward to our first Viking cruise since '19.

When we did Buenos Aires to Santiago in December 2019, Viking offered a package deal of 10 classes for a reasonable fee. Mostly stretching, Pilates, aerobics, mediation. It was really a good mix and fun. In addition, the dancers offered free Salsa lessons for both singles & couples on sea days and that was great exercise. Not sure post pandemic.