CDNPolar

I have done quite a bit of reading on this recently and as much as I support any gender you choose to represent yourself, travel and certain countries that you may visit or transit through may be a long time catching up to the liberal views of countries like Canada and others that acknowledge X gender. Simply because our home country acknowledges an individual right to express gender, does not mean that it is an open passport to any country. Some countries still see homosexuality as illegal and having an X gender could also spark concern at a border or immigration check point. I know that having an X gender does not mean that the individual is homosexual by definition, I am only suggesting that some countries and governments bucket all these types of things together and you become suspect in their eyes. The Canadian government has quite a bit of useful information/advice on this subject when travelling. https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/health-safety/lgbt-travel

I was simply stating that for my situation we had vouchers and if we cancelled the booking we would lose the voucher value, and the value given for booking on board during a cruise.'' I was not suggesting that vouchers were mentioned in the OP, I was just sharing that is why we were forced to revise rather than cancel and that a revision could not be made to the same booking to get the free air, we had to change dates.

Airline changing the equipment to a plane that has a slightly different configuration will cause this. And, this is all done automatically by the airline system. No one is sitting there manually reassigning seats. If you use SeatGuru, you will see often that the you are presented with the most common configuration that the airline may use depending on long haul vs. short haul, but often there is option for you to choose in the top right of the seat map to change to a 2nd or even a 3rd configuration. Often if you look at the differences, you will see things like Premium Economy has a 2 / 3 / 2 configuration in one map and a 3 / 3 / 3 in the alternate.

We have not stayed in that exact cabin but within a few cabins on both port and starboard sides. We have been on deck 3 on every Viking cruise we have been on. We have never had any noise concerns at least that were bothersome to us. The restaurant in our opinion does not transfer noise up, the Restaurant is not open late anyway... I think that it closes around 9:30'ish. The promenade deck is mostly people walking as it is not a running friendly deck. Most runners are on the sports deck up top. Don't think you will have issues here. Where we have heard noise is when we have been further forward on Deck 3 and that noise is coming from the theatre. We have heard rehearsals in the afternoon and if retiring early, sometimes the shows, but they like the restaurant don't usually go past 9:30'ish. From my perspective you should be fine.

I completely understand you and your situation that in the professional situation it is easier, but in the social situation, I tend to stand down.

Well, if I am reading this correctly, and not that there cannot be issues with Viking Air, but Viking would not - IMO - just change around flights indiscriminately and for the fun of it. Airlines still are very good at cancelling, changing schedules, aircraft, etc., which is likely more to blame. One of the last airfare bookings we had with Delta from Toronto to Buenos Aires - that we booked ourselves - had over 10 changes before we actually flew.

Good point. Since your first River Cruise, you should know that there is only one seating (time range) for each meal and there are no buffets or food available outside of meal times. (Unless you made other arrangements with the dining room manager) Generally there is a coffee station with cookies, muffins, etc. but that is all.

You have to play a little bit by ear here... We leave Monday for Passage to Eastern Europe. Our itinerary map from the web site shows NO overnight in port. The legend on the Viking itinerary maps show a solid black dot vs. a white dot indicating overnight in port. BUT, often River Cruises do not sail overnight, but in the early morning or later in the afternoon after excursions come back. Often on a River Cruise, the scenery along the river banks is a "not to miss" thing so you sail when it is light. You should be able to get port and sailing times when you board, and this is important, because you may return from an excursion at 2pm and think that you can return to the city on your own to explore, but you may sail at 3pm. This will all be covered in your daily program. Always look for the back on board time each day. We have been tempted to leave the excursion sometimes and just wander on our own, so you must know the back on board time. (Always tell your excursion leader if you are walking away from the group) I would email tellus@vikingcruises.com and give your booking number, and ask ALL your questions. You will likely within 24-48 hours get a phone call from someone that will answer all your questions. If you have asked all questions in advance they will come back with better answers.

Yes - this is possible that the first night they might cruise the harbour at night, BUT, on the first day of embarkation, that would mean that every guest is on board, and often there are stragglers that arrive later than others because of flight delays etc. Where we have seen this kind of thing is when you arrive one or two days early and are in a hotel as part of the cruise package, then when you do embark the ship everyone is there.... mikem1977 - you still want to scour your invoice for the dates but also call Viking to ensure that you have the story right. You may really want to go to the Opera, but missing the night sailing may be something you would want to stay on board for...

You could do that but why would you lose any money if you did not have to? And, if you had any vouchers on the booking you would lose them where revising the booking and keeping the same booking number would allow you to keep those vouchers. This is exactly what happened to us. We booked this trip while onboard an Ocean cruise, and had a larger discount for booking onboard. We also had vouchers - to the tune of almost $2,000.00 combined. If we canceled we would lose all that. Because we revised our booking - which we had to change the dates according to Viking - then we kept all that.

I am only referring to cancellation and interruption insurance. Insurance is a complicated topic. If you have pre-existing conditions and you are insuring medical, there may be reason to insure before penalties, but that depends on the policy language. Most stable periods - most - are 90 days and penalties kick in at 121 days. But if you are not concerned about the medical coverage, and just cancelation then buying before penalty does not make sense. Now, that also means that you can only cancel for a covered reason. If you want cancel for any reason, that has to be purchased at the time of booking or relatively close to the booking. This would allow you to cancel for any reason during the 120 day period.

On Viking you can always take your own bags... the disembarkation gangway may not be smooth depending on what port you are ending in... it could be slight stairs like when you embark and disembark in various ports.

Your itinerary will tell you if you are overnight in Budapest or not. If you cannot find it there call Viking and ask.... If I have the right itinerary, then this indicates that you arrive at the ship on the 17th (day one) and you are overnight as there is a day two in Budapest. This to me would say you can do what you like the night of the 17th. All you have to worry about is what time you are boarding the ship and can you make your opera for 6pm?

Still no one likes to pay that early... but, you don't have to also pay for cancellation insurance until just before 120 days. We buy our cancellation insurance 122 days from sailing.

This is our personal video of this cruise. Our "Brand" is LK Travel Journal

This is our personal video of this cruise. Our "Brand" is LK Travel Journal

This is our personal video of this cruise. Our "Brand" is LK Travel Journal

This is our personal video of this cruise. Our "Brand" is LK Travel Journal

This is our personal video of this cruise. Our "Brand" is LK Travel Journal

This is our personal video from this cruise. Our "Brand" is LK Travel Journal

This is our personal video from this cruise. Our "Brand" is LK Travel Journal

Note however that unless you are worried about losing the deposit, you do NOT need to buy insurance to cover the amount paid until penalties kick in. Penalties in USA and CAD are 120 days from sailing. If you pay in full a year out, but cancel for any reason 121+ days from sailing, you get all your money back but $100 per person. Look at the penalties on the invoice. They just want your money up front as it deters tire kickers, but you get it all back if you cancel 121+ days in advance. Don't pay for insurance before the 121 days out.

Just to be clear for anyone reading, I am Canada, and the same rules should apply to the USA. These rules may NOT apply to UK or Australia.

We have taken advantage of this kind of change of promo before but you will have to change the dates of your cruise by a week or two either earlier or later. Here is what we did: Booked cruise with NO promotion other than $25 deposit. Months later Viking offer the same cruise with Free Air. Call Viking and they tell us that we have to revise our booking and effectively cancel the first booked cruise and book a new cruise. They would give us the free air, and "revise" the booking so we had the same booking number but we had to change the dates. Actually this is the cruise that we are leaving for on Monday. Originally we had an early September date and the only way to get the free air was moving the dates and to get the same cabin type we had to choose the dates we have. Good luck. Oh, and if one reservation agent says it can't be done, hang up and call back until you get someone that says it can be done. If all else fails ask for a supervisor, because they can do this.

We are purchasing our eSIM this weekend for 5 countries in Eastern Europe. We are testing this starting Tuesday. We will report our success as soon as we can. Since we are buying eSIM for two phones, we will change all the settings on both and then test if we can make calls to each other as WiFi calls when off the ship and on eSIM data only. Hopefully Rogers won't block this kind of setting in the future, because we don't want to completely disconnect, but we also don't want to pay Rogers $15 or $30 per day for our one or two phones. I know that the USA is a big market comparably, but our friends from Kentucky have a home in Spain and they spend around the 180 days a year there. They don't have any increase in their monthly bill, they just experience slightly slower data when out and about. When in their home, they have great WiFi so their speed is fine.