TayanaLorna

Smoking allowed anywhere dining?? Will definately never take HAL.

Wow, you are good. No way could I get up at 6:30 and be ready to go ashore 45 minutes later.

I guess we all use the term "flush" the toilet. Should we use "vacuum" the toilet on a cruise ship instead? 🙂

In Torshavn beginning at 9 pm there is some sort of music. If the Viking Band is not part of the Star Theatre that night, they will be playing in Torshavn early. If they are part of the "show" then they start in Torshavn at 10:30 or so. Often the resident guitarist will play there when it opens until the band arrives. People drink and dance.

For the Barcelona pre extension we put all luggage we did not wish to carry on the bus outside our hotel room. We were assigned a specific time and bus number and had to ID our bags and they put them on our specific bus. We had a 3 hour tour, bags were safe on the bus and we did not see them until we got to our stateroom. We did not have the choice to stay in town and explore on our own. There was no shuttle bus from port to town and back on embarkation day.

And you do this over the Viking WiFi?

If you arrive a day early you need to stay in a hotel. Can you imagine the logistics nightmare for Viking to get you from the airport to your hotel and then from your hotel to the ship the next day? That's why they have the pre cruise extensions.

When we did Around Cape Horn on another cruise line, we flew into Santiago 2 days early. Checked into hotel first day and explored a bit of town. Second day got picked up at hotel for an all day excursion up into the Andes. Next day got picked up at hotel by same company and toured Pablo Neruda's seaside home, had a local lunch, went to a wine tasting at a vineyard before getting dropped off at the ship at 7:30 pm Next day we took the included ship excursion to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. Ship was docked in Valparaiso. We used I Love Chile tours for our private excursions and drop off at ship. They were fabulous and I highly recommend them.

The issue of toilets not working is NOT Vikings fault. It is the fault of passengers who put items other then the provided toilet paper and what comes out of their body into the toilet! I am not accusing you as this problem affects any block of toilets on the same line not only the cabin at fault. The supposed "flushable" wipes, Kleenex type tissue, feminine products, panty liners and Depends are NOT FLUSHABLE into any boat system. On one Viking sail we took, row after row of toilets kept getting blocked and cleared. Viking began putting the toilet flushing rules into the Viking Daily to warn people. I wish they would put a big sign on the wall in each stateroom bathroom.

Good review, thanks. Very surprised about room steward. They have always stopped by. On first Viking cruise we got a very thorough room tour by our steward. On subsequent cruises, our steward lingered even after we told him we had sailed with Viking. LOL on our last cruise we couldn't get rid of our steward until we agreed to sit down and watch the required safety movie on the TV. I was also surprised that you thought the WC had lack of variety. Did you know the WC can have different food items on the port and starboard sides?

Putting my 2¢ in for cost of Viking excursions. What I found was the cost of optional excursions is based on what country you are touring and the length of the tour. For example in Iceland they were rather expensive but so is Iceland. Most of the excursions were $150 to $300 per person but many of them were 8 hours and included lunch. In Norway they were also at the higher end. Then when we did a TA from Barcelona to SJ, PR the cost was less in more the $69 to $189 range. The higher end one was an all day incl lunch. South America was about the same as is our upcoming Caribbean and Amazon River. The very costly excursions involve an overnight or a helicopter ride or some such trip.

We move our photos from camera and our 2 phones to a USB stick. We never use the cloud.

Recommend if you really want to see penguins, book an excursion to more then one port. In Punta Arenas, all water based excursions were cancelled due to 60 mph winds and the ski lift/hike tour was also cancelled. Fortunately we were able to dock but it was hard walking. In the Falklands we anchored and the first tender made it to shore. We started out on the Patrick Watts tour but were called back after a half hour as the Captain cancelled the stop when the second tender could not dock. Patrick did not charge us but we gave our driver a nice tip. Do not worry about missing the ship when touring with Patrick. The lead vehicle carries a radio for communication and we knew immediately when called back to ship. We finally saw penguins on a private tour to the Penninsula Valdes UNESCO World Heritage site and Estancia San Lorenzo through Sentir Patagonia. Excellent.

We did this Viking cruise from Santiago to Buenos Aires in January - February 2020 and LOVED it. Check out tomko2travel.blogspot.com for my ramblings, our photos etc. I just published the unfinished Puerto Madryn which is missing the penguin photos and proof reading (sorry). Never got to writing Montevideo or BA. We did a lot of private excursions as we were a group of 6 friends. This is just a personal blog, no advertising and I get no financial benefit from it. We just cannot decide which cruise we liked more - this one or the Midnight Sun one. We had temps from the 90's in Santiago to upper 30's for the Amalia Glacier scenic cruising day. We brought 3 season clothing but then we live in PR so cold is not anything we are used to feeling. Did not do the Patagonia extension but would go to that area in a heartbeat after seeing what we did. We are more outdoorsy people then city touring people so tend to choose cruises with more adventure involved.

Sure does! Reading and movies/TV series too.

We have used Viking transfers with and without Viking extensions. Viking picked them up outside our stateroom the night before We find them in the cruise terminal and transfer them to the bus Bus personnel load luggage Bus arrives at airport We identify our bags as they come off bus It is at this point where service has differed: One time our bags were put on a luggage cart and brought inside the airport to the check in counter or kiosk and then handed off to us All other times we wheeled our bags into the airport check in area ourselves.

So that is 2 Viking Ocean ships with a nurse who cannot be understood. I hope you complained to Viking about the communication problem. When we are sick or injured we are already stressed and we do not need the additional problem of not understanding a medical professional. Since I am an English speaker in a Spanish speaking country, i know what its like. I speak some Spanish but when in pain or injured, i need the medical details in English as i can't process the translation or know all the medical terms.

The transfers to/from the ship are only included if you fly on ship embarkation and debarkation days OR if you do a pre or post extension with Viking. So if you fly in early or depart late to do yourc own thing, you lose that advantage plus pay extra for Deviation ($100-150 pp) and extra for Air Plus ($100 pp) to have a say in choosing your flights. Sometimes airfare is cheaper with Viking even with the add ons, sometimes it is not. We almost always book our own unless Viking Air is free or really cheap - like $400 to Europe.

Definitely smaller. Looks like there is a sofa but photos sometimes elongate easy chairs. But it has a balcony.

Room looks a bit like a Viking PV. Not bad.

Nothing like Vikings embarkation huh? Glad you made it.

Perhaps the scent comes from people using their own detergents not knowing about the button to push for the Viking detergent.

My deepest condolences.

Still no power but given our location not surprised. Other then that, all is well in our area. South coast and some central mountain areas devastated by the extreme rainfall.

Hope you get out of the Carolinas on time!