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DO NOT use Arctic Shorex!!! We booked a shore excursion with this company telling them our ship and they calculated the pickup time, but the ship's arrival time changed after the booking. We realized this change the day before docking, but our emails to them bounced back and no one answered our phone calls to try to cancel or change our tour. When we disembarked and finally reached a representative, they just replied that we were late so it was our fault! Arctic Shorex refused to give any refund, and we were left without a tour that day.

When Viking includes free air, if one of the flights (either outbound or return) seems terrible, can you just skip/cancel that flight and book your own flight at your own expense? I am nervous after reading some of your horror stories. Is there a penalty or cancellation fee for doing this?

Our first 3 days are at the Sofitel hotel; today we went to Angkor Wat. Very hot and lots of steps but of course worth seeing. Our cruise portion starts Sunday. There are only 24 people on this trip; the boat holds 68! So should be very good. It is the first cruise on Mekong for Uniworld after 3 years.

Our trip is similar to yours. We flew into Hanoi 10 days ago, flew to Danang and then to Siam Reap to join the Uniworld cruise to Saigon. We got 2 single entry Vietnam visas. We applied for the visa into Hanoi first with the expiration date 2 days after our scheduled flight out of Danang. In case our flight changed. Once we received it within just a few days, we applied for the second single entry visa into Song Tien starting the day after our first visa expired, and then received the second visa. Note that you MUST have the correct point of entry of Song Tien. Some folks on the cruise did not and have to get a replacement visa with the correct port at a high fee plus a fee to expedite it.

We are traveling in September on the Uniworld Mekong cruise from Siam Reap to Saigon so we also had to learn about the Vietnam visa requirements. The easy way to get a Vietnam visa is through this web site: https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/web/guest/home. The letter of approval is only required when you try to apply through the embassy. The port of entry when you fill out the form is Song Tien according to Uniworld: that is the port of entry when you are on the riverboat.

We are going in September.

Scenic just cancelled their September Mekong cruises dues to "operational" issues. At least they cancelled it right before final payment was due, so we just have to fight to get our deposit back. They want to hold our deposit for use on a future cruise. Luckily we found a similar Uniworld cruise as a substitute (and on sale too 🙂) which works with our flights.