BigBee51

Not necessarily true. We are booked on the Koningsdam in Vista Suite 5122 for a 35 day cruise. There is no symbol in the PDF floor plan on HAL's website. But the booking page does indicate it sleeps up to 4 guests. Not sure where 4 people would fit. There is a couch but no indication that it is a pull-out and two beds that convert to a queen.

Not sure where the 50% is coming from. For us,CFAR through Viking with Tripmate is roughly 6% of the cost of the cruise per person.

Our experience this past spring with back-to-back river cruises was are you described. Viking will not transport you from the first cruise to the second cruise, you are on your own. As far as the beverage package for the river cruises, we waited to purchase the package on the board the first boat and did not purchase it for the second boat. My advice is to wait until you are on board the second boat to purchase the package.

Due to the drought, the canal has depth restrictions affecting larger vessels. This wouldn't affecting Viking ships.

Leon Nicaragua has disappeared from our Oct cruise

We were in 5109 last summer. The wrap around deck was great but the aft portion is not completely covered. The pool on deck 6 does cover the two cabins between 5108 and 5109.

We too are on this cruise. We like sea days but I think this particular cruise has plenty and will be sorely disappointed in Viking if they add another sea day if Cartagena is off the table. We did plenty of slow cruising last summer when they added multiple sea days due to Russia invading Ukraine.

We just returned from back to back river cruises in France, per the documentation required to cruise, all passengers were required to have had at least 2 doses of a COVID vaccine. That said, no one asked for proof of vaccination nor were we required to upload proof through VerifFly

but so were jeans, obviously i should have included dogs in my response too

dogs were mentioned by longterm in one of his responses. 😉

Wow longterm, I sure hope you learned a valuable lesson today and will stick with approved topics, including but not necessary limited to (but would be advisable): purchasing the beverage package and the obligatory response that you can get any fancy stuff even if you don't purchase the package whether crocs or jeans are approved dinner wear even if they have shiny bits dinner and bar menus well in advance whether someone is being g ripped off and will never cruise with Viking again because.....whatever removing gratuities cause tipping ..... living wage.... who gets it or who doesn't.... COVID related stuff.... wait that is off the table snark

The package on HAL is not free. The price of the cruise is higher than you would pay without it. We usually get the all inclusive package on HAL for the convenience.

We're from the USA and we were taught no hats at the table. That being said, it does seem that basic etiquette/manners is lacking along with basic education in our schools.

Thanks. It is weird though, when you select the laundry package it shows both guests and you must select one person. Holland doesn't say per cabin like they do for the booze package. It's a mystery how they would know whose clothes belonged to whom.

Is the price per cabin or does everyone in the same cabin have to purchase the laundry package?

We spend 28 nights in an Explorer Suite with no beeps. I believe the beep is an abnormality and as difficult to solve as finding which smoke detector/carbon monoxide detector needs a new battery somewhere in the house

I was able to text using the ship's wifi on my android phone. Turned on airplane mode, then turned on wifi and connected to ship's wifi. No issues texting or surfing the web using whatever the appropriate package was that allowed txt and surfing in 2018. I don't attempt to use wifi for placing phone calls.

Link to an interesting article about gratuities. Basically, the gratuities go to customer facing staff (i.e. room stewards, waiters etc.), not the entire ships complement https://www.cruzely.com/full-guide-to-cruise-ship-gratuities-for-2019-amounts-etiquette-and-more/#:~:text=The staff works hard to,cabin and the dining staff.

I did say it was a lovely place to spend and afternoon. But seriously, you believe Viking is not substituting another port (bimini is about 150 nautical miles and nassau is roughly 400 nautical miles) to save port fees and taxes? Perhaps they are not adding a new port due to the ports not being available and/or the additional cost of fuel maybe the real driving factor versus plodding along to the next schedule port instead.

Wow, all this hub bub over Key West being dropped. Apparently, some think Viking's business model is to book an itinerary just to then deliberately skip ports to collect some port fees (which are not itemized separately in the cruise costs). Viking is not cancelling port stops because it wants to keep your money or just to irritate you and have you cancel your cruise. As a Florida native, I am quite familiar with Key West. It is a lovely place to spend an afternoon but it is a typical 'beach' tourist town with lots of bars and shops selling junk souvenirs manufactured in Asia countries. It's a coral island with little or no sandy beaches (there is a small beach at the Waldorf and one man made beach on the other side of the island).

We were on the Mars in late June and had the pistachio buns regularly at the Living Room bar in the mornings.

I wouldn't print out anything that is 47 pages long. I save the PDF file and keep the email handy. I added any and all the contact numbers pertinent to the trip into my contacts on my phone and hope never to have to use any of them 😉

For us, the full transit of the canal is worth the trip whether you ever get off the ship in any of the ports or not.

Thanks for the response. I remember the pods were in Italian so I was guessing at what crema meant.

The refund schedule is actually on page 2 of your guest statement. You will only be on the hook for $100 pp if you cancel more than 120 days out