CDNPolar

We have been in the forward cabins on deck 3 and in rough waters the "crashing" down of the bow in the waves is very noisy to the point it kept us from sleeping. We have never experienced this in mid-ship cabins. You may call this "motion" but it was not about the motion, it was the noise. We prefer mid-ship because it it is close to the mid-ship elevators and stairs and seems very convenient for everything that we do. We choose deck 3 for the price. We have never seen a reason to pay a higher price for a cabin that is the same size.

This is what I anticipated would happen. Thanks

😜 Nope... Don't jog, but do walk.... BUT since we have had cabins on deck 3 we know the pain you feel. We are often on the deck at 5am with a coffee watching the sunrise, but we walk very carefully and generally through the centre of the deck to avoid being over cabins. We make our way to the bow and stay there usually as there are no cabins below us.

I agree... I have American cousins, and many American friends and worked in the USA for years. I personally travel to expand my horizons and knowledge in food, culture, and customs. I love to meet people from all different countries and walks of life.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. Viking include house wines and beer with lunch and dinner and are generous. Everything available in the beverage package is available to you to purchase above the included beer and wine, without the beverage package. The beverage package is currently $25 per person per night on Viking and both in the cabin have to purchase. This would mean that you must be committed to spending $50 bucks per day above what is included. If you really want to drink cocktails, then the beverage package is for you. If you are a lighter drinker and the included is enough, then don't buy the package. I may be called out for this, but I have never seen "Champagne" from Champagne region included in the SSBP. That will be an additional charge. Included in the SSBP and the included wines will be a Prosecco. There has been discussion before where some folks clump anything with bubbles under "champagne" but from how you were asking, I figured that you are looking for authentic champagne.

Water levels are a risk on any river cruise at any time of the year based on too much rain, not enough rain, too hot...etc. The potential of moving to a hotel or to another ship is just part of river cruising. As already said, the crew will take care of your bags, but you do have to pack and unpack. Because of this risk, we have taken to really embracing "packing cubes" and we have many sizes. Underwear goes in one, socks in another, belts and accessories of the like in another. Anything else that does not have to hang is combined into one or two packing cubes - like pants and shirts. We then take these out of the suitcase and put directly into a drawer or on the shelves. This way if we have to pack up, the only thing that needs concern is the dirty clothes that are accumulating in a packing cube on the floor of the wardrobe. It is kind of unpacking without unpacking.

We work hard to not spend time in our cabin. If one of us is showered and ready and the other is still in the process, the one ready is gone to the deck or a wander around the ship. I can never say that there has never been a nap from 4-6 before dinner, but that is even rare. I guess you could say that we take every advantage of being on the ship to not be in the cabin. We are the couple on the top deck - river or ocean - for the sail away and for the docking. We rarely miss sailing under a major bridge and are on deck for that. We never miss a lock unless it is at 2am, but if it is at 5am we are on deck. These are things we never grow tired of.

I think that the American market has the larger cruising public. On Uniworld in The Nile, the mix was largely American. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue cruising with Americans. We have cruised all over the world on Viking - Japan, China, South America, many parts of Europe and overall, the mix on the ships has been 70%+ American.

I just looked at Allianz online and I CAN buy in Ontario, but I don't know if it is the exact plan you have.

If we are talking the same company, then we did do the Nile on Uniworld and it was a great experience... BUT, we are experienced at booking and researching what we want before we call. We actually only made the one call, got exactly the booking we wanted - and the agent was extremely knowledgeable - and that was that. Due to the timing of the booking, about 7 months prior to departure we were also offered a 10% discount for paying in full. We did this because with Viking we are expecting to pay 6 months out, so a 10% discount for paying at 7 months was a no brainer. We got OBC and 2 other substantial monetary benefits. We will look for the other lines as we want to diversify from booking Viking now.

I work with South Africa, Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore, among other countries, and they always GASP at the temperatures here in the winter. South Africa are bundled up in hats and coats and scarves when it is 17C and we are like "it is only 0C today, and sunny" and enjoying the mildness of it. 17C is when we go out in t-shirts only. Heck, we see shorts on the school kids at 12C.

We are not souvenir people at all. We don't buy t-shirts, or fridge magnets, or anything with the name of the country, city, or whatever. We did at one point start to buy a small piece of art that we would find at a street market and from an actual artist themselves... this then became, where to put these, and overall too much to dust, so we stopped that. I appreciate all who have collections and have spent time commemorating their trips, but not for us now. We proudly now come home with nothing. We don't even buy duty free on the way home. Other than tours that we take, the cities and countries that we visit are not benefiting from our money at all. The only way that they are is often we will have lunch on shore to experience the cuisine locally.

We book first with the cruise line, get what WE want, and then transfer to our TA. There has never been a time since we have done this that there has been an urgent need, but we do find that our TA does prioritize requests by urgeny. Personally, if the request was urgent, I would start the email subject line with "URGENT - TIME SENSITIVE" and then also call and leave a voice mail. If I did not hear back within 24 hours from that I would move the booking. The problem is that taking a booking back from a TA is not an easy thing - with Viking Cruises anyway. We did this once and had to get the TA to relinquish the booking in writing. So, if you cannot get them to respond to an email for an urgent time sensitive need, how are you going to get them to respond to giving back the booking?

Possibly a Canadian thing. This is one of the things about insurance is that the rules and laws are different in each country. US, Canada, Australia, and UK. My fear sometimes is that we give false impression if we are not careful that we are stating the country we are asking about or replying about. I assume now that most of these discussions are about insurance purchased in the USA, but not everyone has their location on their profile which does make it more difficult sometimes. There are many times that I have read things here, get excited, then cannot duplicate in a policy purchased in Canada. And, many of the insurance companies that Americans have available to them do not sell in Canada. I am sure that this is the same for UK and Australia.

That makes sense to me, what you are saying. That would put a lot of pressure on the Cabin Stewards to "police" what guests have in their belongings. I guess that the detection of surge protectors would be done when onboarding the checked luggage? I would assume that each piece is x-rayed? Same with the carryon being x-rayed on embarkation? If they found a surge protector in your checked luggage, or suspected this, would you be called to have your luggage checked through?

We have done this, booked early and offered family the option to join us and most of the time we get a "good for you" as a response and then "sorry, too early to know what we are doing". Haha. Well, it is too early to know what you are doing if you have nothing booked, but the one thing that is for sure is that your calendar is open. I think that those of us that book very early - up to two years out - are a rare breed and this practice is not for everyone.

The ads do show you this for sure. Especially the ones on PBS which is where we found Viking. I believe we found Viking watching Downton Abbey and from seeing repeated ads, so this advertising worked. Of the river cruises we have been on, Rivers of Gold on the Douro River most resembles the Viking ads. On the Douro they don't sail at night so most often we were sailing in the morning or late in the afternoon and the weather was such that we did sit on the sun deck many times and relax looking at the beauty passing us by... we were very much the commercial. We had a woman - Donna - that did her watercolours on the deck as we sailed. She transferred her photographs from her iPad to watercolour while we sailed.

I think that if your itinerary does not indicate this then you can email tellus@vikingcruises.com and ask. Are you doing "Treasures of the Rhine"? We did this one and we were overnight in Amsterdam on the ship. This you can see on the itinerary on the invoice. If you are not on Treasures of the Rhine, then first day/night departure from Port also will depend on what time all flights are in and guests are on board.

Now after 10 Viking cruises, and a mix of Ocean and River, all of them are primarily American guests on board. Americans are Viking's primary audience and most things are geared towards the American market. In my opinion.

Glad you got your answer and when in doubt, always use tellus@vikingcruises.com You are more likely to get an answer you can count on at this email address over reservations on the phone.

The locks... we have been through many at night and I personally have never known that we were entering or leaving a lock and I am not a heavy sleeper. In Europe there are cobblestones everywhere and uneven surfaces everywhere. Where mobility is a concern you will have to be constantly vigilant. Christmas markets are notoriously crowded and they can be on cobblestones too, so you will have the added challenge of crowds and uneven walking surfaces.

Viking is heavily American with a spattering of folks from The UK, some Australians, and some Canadians. Typically over 70% American on Viking.

Nice design. This design would suggest that when navigating under low bridges where the wheelhouse needs to lower, they would just stop the elevator from going to the sundeck. Nice.... This was an issue on a recent cruise where we had several wheelchairs and some one in particular that had to be carried if the wheelchair was not an option.

This is our personal experience but it may depend on the airport and distance from the ship. We have never waited long to be transferred, and in that I mean that we have never waited more than about 20 minutes after getting our luggage until we were taken to the bus and transported. I suppose that there can always be delays but in 10 cruises we have never had that happen.

Welcome to Cruise Critic! When you are on the Viking Website, and you go into the pricing pages and select the dates you want, you can click on the cabin type and a pop up window will show you the layout and the amenities of the cabin. You can compare one to the other this way. See screen shots below. You can also do a 360 degree tour of each cabin type. Is the extra space worth it? That is up to you and what you see value in. We have done 10 Viking Cruises and only book V1 or V2 because we are only in the cabin to shower, change, and sleep. It is our opinion that a higher deck does not give you a better view. We have never suffered on deck 3 for our view, but we tend to be on the top decks more than on our balcony anyway. Aft, Mid-ship, or Forward depends again on your personal preference. It is generally accepted that if you get easily seasick that the mid-ship location is better. Often also, the higher you are the more pronounced the movement is. I feel this is a preference. We typically book mid to aft and stay away from the forward cabins.