TJfromOZ

Hi Keith

Fair point and I appreciate your response so I don't influence anyone unfairly.

I certainly can't recall seeing any kids on either of the cruises and according to our travel agent they were "kid-free".

But having checked their web sites I'll revise my comment to:-

Both cruise lines are not particularly "child-friendly" and may even not allow children under a certain age on particular cruises, so make sure you confirm with any "luxury cruise line" if you are planning for children to go.

We have just finished the VikingHomelands cruise and our previous ocean cruise was the Inside Passage on SilverShadow, and in general there is not a lot to pick between the 2 cruise lines.

Both offer kid-free cruises (asothers have said we love our grandkids but ....).

Being Aussies we are "neatcasual" rather than “elegant” and I think that is a more acceptable onViking.

We found the "includedtours" very superficial - you really need to pick one of the"optional shore excursions" to make the most of the trip.

We had a “butler” on Silver Seas –too formal for Aussies but a nice, friendly, helpful guy, while on Viking theyhave an excellent 24/7 room service.

Viking Star had 50% morepassengers than Silver Shadow but you would never know unless you counted.

We couldn't fault the staff oneither ship - excellent.

We didn't use Viking to book ourplane flights but some of the people we met from USA that let Viking book theplane flights seemed to have really weird itineraries - going backwards beforegoing forwards - and some very early mornings (leaving the ship on the last dayat 3.30am!).

Advice to others going on a Viking Cruise.

· Check the dates when you can bookshore excursions – for example may be 60 or 70 days from the start of yourcruise depending on cabin class - and book as early as you can as some of ourpreferred excursions were already filled but the time we got around to it.

· You can book more than 1 shoreexcursion on a single day – some booked an “included tour” in the morning andan “optional tour” (extra $) in the afternoon.

· This particular tour “VikingHomelands” was more suited to the history buffs than those going for scenicsightseeing (other than Norway).

· Youdon’t need to “dress up” at night – I carted a jacket around for 30 days andwore it once to dinner and took it off after 3 minutes – dress jeans (men) andskirt/slacks for ladies is all you need.

End result? As others have said - pick your destinations andtime of year first then pick who you go with (after checking the $$ of course :)).