CDNPolar

Okay - will try to lay out the different options and processes for you. Included or FREE air is always just the basic cheapest economy fare as Viking contract this air at very good rates. Viking offer free air at times to give you a break on their costs but they rarely discount their cruise fare. You can find promo codes for XX off per person, but you don't - to this point anyway - see Viking put cabins on sale. The promo codes are all for very specific sailings, and timeframes. So with Free Air you get basic economy. Contract air is a confusing thing sometimes with Viking. Even when they quote a price for Economy Air that is at a cost, does not mean that you can upgrade to Premium Economy or Business Class. Some contracted air does not allow upgrades. The ridiculous costs you have been quoted for upgrades is probably because the contract rates that Viking have do not allow upgrades, so you are basically paying Viking for the full fare of the upgrade, instead of just an upgrade from Economy fare. Sometimes with their free air we have had upgrades at a reasonable upgrade cost, and sometimes we have been told that the upgrade is not available. Viking have TWO options for air and they are: 1) Viking Air, and 2) Viking Air Plus Never to confuse the two. With Viking Air (#1) which you likely have, you will be able to go into your account in MyVikingJourney at about 150 days from the sailing and find flights populated there. These will be the included flights. There will be options for YOU or your TA to look at and change to different carriers (if available) or different times, and connections. BUT, some of these may be at the Free included fare and some may have a premium on them because they fall out of the Viking contract rates. In any case, with Viking Air (#1) you can choose alternates and pay any fee, including upgrade, if you want to move to that. Warning that you must do all this before the flights in your MVJ account are actually ticketed - about 75 days before sailing - or you will then be subject to change fees which are airline imposed. The second option is Viking Air Plus (#2) and you pay $150 per person for this and you pay it at the time you first engage the Viking Air Plus team. With this option you can start to look at flights as much as 300 or a few more days out when schedules are first published and pick your options and call Viking Air Plus and work with them to consider your options. YOU can do this yourself, this is one thing you do NOT have to have your TA do, but you can have your TA do it too. With this option, you can choose your flights and get them locked in as much as 300 days in advance and at this stage you have much more to choose from than waiting until 150 days before. You may have additional fees to pay and you may not. You will always for upgrades, if the upgrade is allowed. Now to "deviations". If you are going to fly in early - earlier than arriving the day of embarkation - or leave later than the day of debarkation, then you will pay a deviation fee of $100 per person for that deviation. If you are doing a deviation of flight, then unless you are buying a Viking pre or post extension package, you will not have transfers from airport to the ship included and will have to do those on your own. With the deviation you are planning, Viking will absolutely for $100 per person book your free economy flights 10 days earlier, and then you are responsible to get to the ship on embarkation day. Hope this helps. My email address is in my signature if you want to have conversations beyond this or ask specific questions.

I think that what I see and hear is that in smaller centres, the time is less. We booked an appointment with our recent need to renew. We needed an expedited renewal for timing of the next travel. When we arrived at the appointment that was on the dot on time that we were called from the waiting room, we then found out that this was not a Passport Centre, and that although they would process the application, then the only method was a minimum 3 week processing time and then mail. We could not pick up the passport in person. The Clerk was very nice and admitted that the web site is not clear on their location and that many people come in thinking that they can get expedited and pick up in person. She then pulled out a list of offices and indicated which ones we would have faster walk-in service and they were all the smaller cities / regions around us. Some with an hour drive. We decided to go to the main one in our area and walked in at 2:30pm in the afternoon were seen in less than 40-45 minutes and were gone in just under an hour total. Picked up two weeks to the day in person.

Completely agree with you @Mike07. We often on our second or third time to a new restaurant at home will comment on the "consistency" of the quality or taste of the food. This is something we look for. We recently found a small little hole in the wall Chinese place and after the first time we were impressed. The second and third time we noted that our first impression was consistent with each new visit, and so we continue to go there probably every other week. We have found the same thing with Viking. Consistency. First, and this may not be important to some, but we really like what we consider the understated elegance of the ocean ships. We find the colours and the decor to be relaxing and calm and not "over the top Las Vegas glitz" that some ships can be. We find the service across ocean and rivers to be consistent. We find the food to be consistent. I don't believe that Viking is the best of the best, but we do feel for their price and the value we receive - and the consistency - Viking is to us, worth every penny. We know what we will get with Viking. There is a statement out there about you getting everything that you need in the cabin price, and I agree with that. Viking is not 100% all inclusive, but to us we do get what we need in that cabin price.

Yes, ChatGPT It does not "Do" the research for you, you have to get and load all the policies and ask ChatGPT to summarize and highlight areas of the policy that you should be aware of or dig into further. You must become very skilled at the "prompt engineering" so that it comes back with exactly what you need. You can load one, two or more policies and ask ChatGPT to analyze all of them, but be specific in the areas that you want it to look at and report back on.

Not refillable unless they have some special machinery on the ship to do so. Take the cap off and you will see that it is not made for refilling. For the folks that are worried about the water bottle plastic from the water bottles handed out for excursions, this is likely a bigger plastic waste issue.

This gets a bit complicated, and you can always have your TA call again, but Viking have always asserted to me that if we choose not to book the air when booking the cruise and then decide to add it later, that the same promotion would apply. Therefore, I am assuming that what your TA told you is correct that Free Air was not part of the deal then. When Viking says "Up To Free Air" it certainly does not mean every sailing. It is kind of like the store front that has a sign "Everything on Sale up to 75% off" but then you go in and search for the 75% deals and they are never on what you want. Viking make you search for that promo sometimes. I don't know what you have in Air. I would ask the TA to clarify.

Addition to the above.... One of my friends was convinced that his credit card was enough coverage. We went through this process and lo and behold his credit card was not going to cover him for his needs. He has always said, "I have coverage on my credit card" but never knew exactly what it did and did not cover.

Here is my hack now. I have a subscription to GBT and use it openly for things like this. Just don't drop sensitive personal information in... Get the PDF of the policy language from your credit card. Not the brochure or the overview - the actual full policy language. Call the credit card to get this because have different TD cards and the policies are slightly different with each one. You want to be working with the right information. Drop the policy PDF into ChatGBT Below that type the following or something similar that meets your needs: Analyze this policy and summarize the following back to me: I do not need medical coverage, so you can skip any information that is just about medical coverage. I am about to book a cruise with XX cruise line that will cruise the Mediterranean and it will be 18 days long. I will charge the full cost of the cruise AND the airfare to this credit card. I am XX years old, and my travel companion is XX years old. 1). We have NO pre-existing conditions 2). OR, we have pre-existing conditions that may have to be considered. Please outline specifically what the coverage is for pre-existing conditions and the stability periods. Out side of pre-existing conditions, please break down for me everything I need to be aware of if there was a covered reason for cancellation prior to the trip, or once the trip was in motion, what the trip interruption coverage is. Outline the specific reasons that I can either cancel or interrupt the trip. Outline if my age or pre-existing conditions are a concern. This does not necessarily replace reading the policy language and understanding it, nor does it replace calling the insurer to ask questions, but it does help you to isolate the areas of the policy that you need to isolate and understand more fully.

One big problem now is that there are many content creators on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram that are putting all these shorts and reels out there saying that in May 2025 you must have the European ETIAS. This is NOT TRUE. That was a date that was projected, but no longer. I had a friend contact me last week because they know that I am up on this stuff, and they were in a panic because they are travelling in September and they have not go their ETIAS yet. How long will it take and how to get it? I asked where they got this information and they said: "It is all over Instagram". Well, the way the algorithms work on Instagram and the other sites, is as soon as you watch one clip all the way through, then you start to get similar content sent to your feed. Now you are seeing this over and over. It makes it seem like it is fact, but it is not. This is exactly how mis-information today is infecting our brains. Here is the screenshot of the actual ETIAS site right now.

I would also only take one.... but, since we typically cruise on Viking Ocean, they have "Spinners" in the change rooms to spin dry your swimsuit - kind of like your home washer, but smaller and just for one piece of clothing. It dries in no time.

Agreed. China is an amazing country. I am about to embark on my third trip - land and self-designed - and I cannot wait. I am about to see cities and regions that I have not experienced yet - including Tibet - and I am starting to accumulate the regions and cities that I want to see on the 4th trip. This statement will not be popular with some, but Europe is Europe to me and although I LOVE Europe and I do recognize that every country is not the same and has it's own history, China to me is far more engaging in its history, culture, food, and people in general and overall the country is just fascinating to me. I will do what is necessary to travel there because my travel experiences in China are some of the best experiences of my life.

Do you mean surrendering your passport to the Chinese Embassy in order to get your Visa? This is not only China that does this, or has done this. You surrender your passport so that they can attach the Visa permanently into your passport. They will also run extensive background checks and holding the passport allows them to do that. There are many other reasons, but the bottom line is if you want to visit China, then you must do this.

Everything that is said above, and DO NOT underestimate the documentation and proof needed. It is difficult to get this information after the fact. If this is a real situation - I know you are saying hypothetical - then you would not be the only one in this situation. My first step - personally - would be to call my insurance company BEFORE arriving late to port to tell them that this is happening and get their guidance. The insurance company will then tell you exactly what you need to present to them for the delay. I am skeptical if the ship's crew are going to provide you a letter, vs. the cruise line from their head office. Depending on the ship you are on, there could be 100's or 1000's that are now disadvantaged because of this delay and they would not have the resources to handle this.

We walked in, no appointment, took us less than one hour to drop off the paperwork, and picked up our passports exactly 2 weeks to the day. I don't see what this offer has in value?

I know that this is the Ocean forum, but it was the new Viking Aton on The Nile. We booked this almost 2 years in advance and I was getting worried about 7 or 8 months before, because the ship had not even been floated yet. I called and was assured that the sailing would go ahead. I wrote at about 6 months out, just before our final payment indicating that there still was no evidence that this ship had launched yet, and I got a call saying that it would not be ready. Viking did not at that time on the phone with me mention any compensation, we just cancelled and moved our deposit to a different itinerary. We had flights booked - on our own - with cancellation costs, and a pre-hotel stay. We searched around and found that Uniworld had a sailing that was one day later and our flights would still work, so we jumped on that. We later learned that Viking was - after full payment - offering cash back or a 10% increase in value to take a voucher. We learned years ago that the vouchers were not our game, and would have only accepted the cash back. To me this was quite deplorable because we may have not been the only one, but we raised the issue before final payment and Viking did not come with an admission that the ship was not going to be ready until after final payment.

Walked into a Mississauga passport office, and was in and out in one hour. Expedited processing for 10 days, and picked up the passports 10 days later with only a wait of 5 minutes for pickup. All in all a very simple and easy experience. Don't have to do this again for 10 years!

This is just a fact and it is a sad fact. The real culprit here is that WE are not doing what we should do to protect ourselves. One - wash your hands with soap after serving yourself at the buffet and before eating. Drop your plate to your table and go wash your hands. Remember that alcohol based cleansers do NOT kill NoroVirus. OR, do as I do and take a cloth napkin from the table and use that to pick up the tongs. Some people look at you strange, but I don't care. I won't be the one getting sick. Two - you must adapt and hold the practice of NEVER touching your hand/fingers to your face - nose - lips - eyes - until you can get to soap and water. The NoroVirus can be on the bus stair railing, or the handle of a door into a store or museum. NoroVirus is almost never airborne. It is spread through surface and then touching your face...

Always take the Free Air as you can remove it later, but as others have said, the price will not drop because you don't choose air. Free air is one of Viking's ways of giving you a deal without reducing the cost of the cabin. There are many marketing reasons for that... I don't believe that the Explorers Sale is for US customers only. Generally any promo that is out there is for Canada and the USA.

I arrive Fort Lauderdale this November and my flight is 11:15am. You are 15 minutes MAX from the airport. It is 2-3 miles.

Viking do not staff a full new crew, they will put many seasoned folks on the new ship. We were on a third sailing of a ship and it was fine. We have booked a new ship on Viking before and been disappointed when our sailing was cancelled because the ship was not ready in time. Personally I would not book on a ship until I knew it was in the water.

Has anyone asked Viking why this is required? I think you should ask Viking to qualify the policies of the Chinese authorities. I cannot find anything online that would suggest Chinese authorities require this? I am travelling to China and Tibet for three weeks in the near future and I am not required to supply a credit card to the Chinese authorities before or when entering China.

There is definitely advantages for some to work through Viking Air Plus. Viking cannot predict nor always remedy a cancellation like this but they do work - once they know about the issue - to make it right saving you the time and effort to rebook. Some folks are okay with the rebooking process themselves, but there are times like this that Viking will come through to get you there.

If you decide to sail with them, please let us know your experience.

Hello and welcome (tongue in cheek) to finding insurance for someone that is aging and still wants to and is able to travel. This can be a journey. I would expect from the currency you are quoting above that you are in the UK somewhere? Your geographical location is very important to state on this insurance forum, because most of the discussions here are about insurance in the USA and some about Canada, but mostly the USA. Insurance options in the USA and Canada do not apply to the UK. Let us know where you are, but then you may be better to take this discussion to the UK Cruisers forum and asking there. I am certain that there is a solution for you out there, but it may not be cheap.

For some, and a couple of my friends are like this too, it is a way of forced savings to pre-pay the trip. If they were putting it into a savings account they could use it for something else whereas if it is in the hands of the cruise line, it is not easy to get at. So, for some, this is a financial benefit as it decreases their access to the money.