CDNPolar

May be more expensive to them, but it is half what I pay Rogers for no roaming.

How long did the whole process take from the point you mailed it to receiving the new passport? And I am assuming that you still receive the old passport back? Our passports don't expire until Feb 2026 but we are already planning when we will renew because we want to minimize the time we don't have the passport especially if we are mailing them. We have a cruise in March of 2025 and we are thinking to send them right after that which would be about 10 months before expiry and we will go for 10 year renewal.

We used to roam like home in Europe at $15 per day per person - and both of us would have the phone on. Silly to pay $30 per day. Now we turn on do all our research on the ship's WiFi and go out and do our thing. We turn the phone on if we need it. If there is an emergency, we flip the switch on one phone and we have the phone fully functioning and we will pay for a day. We now send an email to friends and family most likely to contact us, that may not know we are travelling, and let them know that they can contact us via WhatsApp, iMessage, and Email. We also inform them that there may be hours of the day that we are not available because we are not on WiFi. If you are all travelling together, then there is likely no need for phone connectivity. I agree also with the comment about the cost of the cruise and paying for roaming, but in Canada we pay so much already for our phone services, I hate like heck to pay more. We travel often with American friends and they travel all over the world and do not pay a penny more for their plan and they can roam and make calls in any country. The only thing that they suffer is a slower internet connection when on data.

Yes, it can be substantial.... What I find very interesting is some of the comments on this discussion. We never thought to use a USA based TA before, but from other discussions on other parts of CC I see and hear of Americans getting big value from using a TA. I DON'T see that in Canada. What is the difference? The first cruise we went on we used a well known agency that specializes in cruises to the level that "cruise" is in their name. We got NOTHING from them... no OBC, no luggage tag, not even really a thank you for working with them. This is the one that by mistake sent us the cruise invoice with their commission. We were FLOORED with the amount and the fact that we got nothing. This is when we decided to do it on our own. Now we have a TA we used once that wants to charge US to use her services! Only wish our favourite line would allow booking through the retail outlet that has a TA division, but they took that away from them because they were giving too much to their customers in the cruise lines opinion.

Viking have always produced a document that shows your requirements for entering any country and I think that this started with Covid. Go to your SPECIFIC cruise on the main Viking site: Click on Resources on the right: Then click on Pre-Cruise Requirements. This will give you current requirements for Covid vaccine, visas etc. I believe that these are still updated and reliable.

We just took this to Viking recently through the tellus@viking email. We have a cruise coming up with two different types of shipboard credit (SBC). One was given to us by the TA and one is from Viking as perk because of a challenge we faced. Two very different ways to use them too. The SBC from the TA, will be automatically applied if we add Siver Spirits or book excursions before embarkation. The SBC from Viking can ONLY be used once we board. If we want to use this credit towards SS package, then we would have to wait until we board to add that to our account. There might be those that have different experiences, but this is direct from the mouth of Viking. Oh, and we booked a cruise recently where Viking were giving a SBC of $325 CDN pp at the point of booking, and this one falls to use for SS or shore excursions before we board. We have seen many times in the past because we typically add SS at the time of booking that the TA SBC goes immediately to that. Call Viking and ask them how this particular SBC will be handled, or email tellus@vikingcruises.com

The best cancel for any reason generally is associated with the cruise company or tour company - generally - because they just give you a voucher for future and are not losing any money. I am in Canada and there are some insurance companies that offer this but you must be aware of the limitations. Generally you have to purchase the policy at the same time or within a limited number of days from booking the travel, and pay the deposit, and there cannot be any penalties at the time you book... so in other words, you have to book outside of traditional penalty periods or before penalties kick in. In Canada what I have seen is that these companies only give you 50% of any non-refundable money paid. What we always weigh into the decision, is that we don't want to pay the $1,000.00 or more for the two of us in a travel policy, because we book so far out, and until penalties (which with our favoured cruise line are not until 120 days from sailing) kick in, we can cancel for any reason, and only lose $100 per person. We don't want that money tied up for so many months where if we did cancel, we would just be losing the premium for the insurance. Once we get to the 120 days, we know then that we fully intend to travel, and that likely if we did decide not to travel that it would be for a covered reason in the policy.

Thanks Mia, We don't have Safeway in Ontario, or my area anyway. Costco are supposed to carry it but have looked and asked and they don't have it in my area anyway... Will keep looking.

I also use insulin - Tresiba - and it is safe out of refrigeration for 56 days as long as it is kept below 86F. I never refrigerate the insulin pen that I am using currently and when I travel, I take what I need plus one extra and these are never refrigerated either.

Well, we can talk in general, but not promote by name. What we have found is that you must interview several. We used one TA for a very specific cruise as we wanted someone expert in that particular expedition itinerary. We were overall happy, but the signing process with them had more paperwork than the cruise vacation and the fees attached to cancellation and other things were too much, but we went ahead at the time. Since then this same TA has been trying for our business, but wants a fee up front to research and book, then a fee to book air, then a fee for this and that.... Nope, we are not going to pay to use a TA when we are capable of doing the booking ourselves. There must be value to us to use the TA. There is a major retail chain that offers huge money back but they only book certain cruise lines. We use a TA now that we get an OBC of $200 per person for our cruise bookings, and at the end of each year we get an additional $100 per person that we can apply to upcoming bookings. So in total, we get $600 to book a cruise through this company. I would interview and ask several about their fees, and what value they offer in on board credit (OBC) or in cash back... then make your decision there. I will not state the amount here, but one of our first ever TA's that we used only the once by mistake sent us their invoice for commission to the cruise line, and there is a LOT OF ROOM for a TA to offer you something. What we get from the above mentioned TA is not even half the commission for our chosen cruise line.

As others have said, this is a difficult situation. If it bothered me that much, I would have spoken to the table directly myself or talked to the manager on the side at the time, and not waited until leaving and having my enjoyment impacted by these loud talkers. My husband probably would have talked to the table directly. Recently on a flight the man sitting behind my husband was poking the touch screen with great force and it was like a kid was kicking the seat. It got to the point where it was obvious it was bothering my husband, so he got up and politely explained what was happening and the guy immediately changed the force of his finger pokes to the screen. Interesting thing is that we have a friend that will talk about others being loud, but they don't recognize their own loudness at times. I think that the crew are hesitant to intervene because the table may take offence to their intervention as well.

Oh, that is interesting.... I had never tried Fevertree before Viking and it is my winner. I cannot find it at home anywhere in a grocery store. I would drink G&T's with Fevertree but not with Schweppes.

For us it is where we are and can we sample a local food that we won't get on board.

I would say yes, but the bigger question is what temperature do you need. Who knows the reliability of these mini bars to maintain a temperature, and these will be opened by ship crew for restocking. I remember somewhere that Viking will put a mini fridge in your room for medications. Does anyone know if this true?

Fevertree tonic is available in the bars on Ocean ships? I had never seen or heard of Fevertree before Viking. Perhaps however, in the minibar it is Schwepps as they would put in cans? Fevertree tonic that they use in the bars is in glass bottles and would require a bottle opener.

Don't know if this is the same outerwear jacket that they provide on Expedition ships, but if it is, it is just wind and waterproof - no warmth at all. We were in 0C temps and this jacket would not have been enough on its own.

You have twigged my memory... when we went to settle our account there was a stack of envelopes and a plexiglass box where you could drop these for gratuities. On all our cruises, we will tip where we feel there has been excellent service and we did tip our waiters on this ship that we saw daily and that went over the top in service.

I was quite shocked with this too! This was to do with voucher issues, and there has been much discussion about Viking vouchers on CC... Enough said.

I was also looking at my final invoice... What I cannot remember is if gratuities were included in the Hurtigruten fare, because there was no gratuity on the final invoice. Generally if we have OBC we will use it towards our gratuities.

I did not say that you did.... Breakfast is not an uncommon place to see the bathrobes with PJ's underneath.

Wow... that is a lot of OBC. We had OBC of 440 Euros. We paid Euros on board and for snowshoeing it was 62pp and for kayaking it was 145pp, so 410 Euros approximately? There is nothing else to spend on unless you want to buy some clothing from the store on board. We at the time also had to pay for a Covid test at 65pp as well, but otherwise we paid for some alcohol that was outside of meal time and soft drinks outside of meal time. I think that you will have a hard time spending all that OBC, and unfortunately, I do not know Hurtigruten's policy on this if they refund or not. I think that you should contact your TA and ask them to look into this. In the end we had a balance, but again, hard to spend all that.

Just please not in the dining room or the buffet area especially at breakfast.

No, we should not have to call more than once to get a knowledgable agent because someone not as familiar with Viking, or cruise industry, or the options available to them, they may end up taking the first information given to them as the way it is. Even though the calls are recorded, and there is proof of what you have been told, we were denied the information we were given later, because the agent gave us the wrong information. The Supervisor acknowledged that we were given wrong information but still would not honour what we were told.

I guess that because we are Viking loyal, we think that Longship is the industry name.

Yes, always eyes wide open when it comes to air whether through Viking or on your own. You do get assistance from Viking if you book air through them and something goes wrong, but if you book on your own, you are on your own. I also agree with your statement that it is a work in progress, but I will add, since the pandemic. I do feel, but may be wrong, that Viking Air, like many of the Viking pre/post customer service was better prior to the pandemic. We did on our most recent cruise get an email from "Viking Flight Control Center" which seemed very official that our flight out was delayed. The challenge with this was that it apparently was a notification from British Air, but the destination was wrong... It indicated the flight to London (BA99) but that is a flight to Toronto. I was for a minute confused when I read this because I know the BA flight numbers because we fly them often, and I was like BA99 goes to Toronto, not London. So here is a keying error that someone made, but this is the first time I eveer got this kind of communication from using Viking Air. In the end this flight was delayed over 3 hours but we never got additional emails with revised times.