SantaFe1

You can purchase Viking Air Plus for about $100-150 pp and pick your flights and seats. I find about 40% of the time, even with this added charge, it’s cheaper to have Viking book than for me to book our flights. We usually fly Delta, and you can get your Sky Miles. Just enter your Sky miles frequent flyer number in the manage my air section on MVJ and the miles will accrue.

Be careful what you wish for. Last year on our BIE cruise we were happily awaiting our favorite PV1 cabin when, at check in, they upgraded us, without asking, to a PJS1. It was the second worst cabin we have ever had (the worst was a guarantee cabin, our stupid fault for agreeing to it). The location was awful and very noisy. I don’t like the configuration of the PJS at all, with a huge TV hung on top of the mirror, rendering the mirror useless, and the TV only about four feet away from the second TV in the sitting room. And with two chairs and a sofa in the sitting area, it is quite cramped. Much prefer the PV configuration with lots of open space in that area. We did enjoy the complimentary laundry, but that was about it. We had our TA put a note in our file never to upgrade us to a PJS again!

I don’t have motion sickness, but I also like a Forward facing cabin. We always book 6009 when available. We have also had 6013, and 6005. So, if I extrapolate backward, I would think that 6035 is aft facing. But someone who has perhaps stayed in that exact cabin might be able to clarify. You could also just call Viking. The suites on deck six might take up more space and throw my calculations off.

I’m Interested in Who the guitarist is. On our 2019 WC, on the last leg, we had an incredible classical guitarist named Valentino, I love classical Spanish guitar. But no guarantee who we will have in November.

Looking forward to this also.

And to this I have to reply, tonight I am making Chinese. No Jalepenos, but much hotter peppers. I remember a show on Food Network about 15 years ago, called Heat Seekers. They were eating ghost peppers etc., which are really hot. Our favorite hot cuisine is Thai. Unfortunately our fav Thai restaurant in Malibu burned down.

I grew up with great Mexican food in SoCal. And indeed, Santa Fe is Hatch Chile country, and the city is known for its enchiladas!

Andy, I can understand this. The worst Mexican food I have ever had was in Kamloops! Bar none.

All that waterproof gear I bought for Iceland in 2021 and never wore I now take with us for fall and winter trips. Thanks for the heads up.

I should also add, you can have breakfast and lunch at Mamsens, and lunch at the Pool Grill. Other options for dinner are Manfredis and Chefs Table. And of course, you can have room service for all three meals

WC is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The Restaurant is always open for dinner, and sometimes for breakfast and lunch on sea days. Generally only open for dinner on port days.

I’ve said this here before, but on the WC we were so tired of our German chef and his bland food, for months and months. And then one night in the cafe, a bowl of chopped jalepenos magically appeared. We both walked over and took a huge scoop to put on whatever. I wanted to take the entire bowl, but figured there were others like us who needed some spicy food!

I’m looking at a Viking excursion to Malta’s sister island, Goza. It’s marked difficult. Is it? Is it worth doing? We saw a Netflix series on archeology there that was fascinating.

I am noticing that many of the Viking excursions over the two days in Malta overlap sites. Any insights into two to take on the two days there that are different? Thanks for any help.

Yes, we would too. I have no idea how I am going to pick Malta excursions. But I have been interested in the Knights of Malta since graduate school. Thank you all who are on this cruise for taking the time to respond!

Since we have spent time in Rome, Civitavecchia, and Tarquinia, we hope to go to Ostia on this cruise in November. Any reports from those on this sailing?

As we get older, we think hard about what we want to do and really can do. Unstructured time is really great. But then, we plan and hope to do the 9 hour Alhambra tour which is marked demanding. We have never been, we can suck it up, and the next day is a sea day!

Exactly! We always book the included for the afternoon. But usually we manage to do both.

I know many people like this option, but I don’t. Can you still pay by item?

“More like at about 5am in our experience.“ And, just to add to the three hour rule, our ship doesn’t dock in Barcelona until 7, so they couldn’t take you much before 8. That’s why our invoice specifies no flights before 11.

Yup, that’s my take on this!

Our experience on all ten of our Viking cruises has been three hours before flight time. I find even that conservative, but we’ve never missed a flight!

We have a flight from Barcelona through Viking Air. Viking Air will not put you on a flight they don’t think you can make. Ours is a Delta flight BCN-ATL at 10:55 am. And you don’t have to be off the ship at 8 am, just out of your room. But for an 11 am flight, Viking will undoubtedly put you on a bus to the airport at about 8.

Absolutely agree! A wonderful place to visit!!

After all was and done, our air was $5341 pp. we are flying through Atlanta, which has nonstop flights both to Madrid (where we do the pre-cruise extension) and to Barcelona. In the past we have found flying to/from Barcelona difficult and expensive. But these new Atlanta flights really worked for us! But we are from LA and know that often you can just pick your destination and fly there nonstop. Don’t know about Barcelona, though.