Messybill

For Dutch Harbor On Your Own? Really? Maybe they should check Uber.

@Heidi13 do you have any thoughts about why Viking might make this kind of change? And what are your thoughts on Dutch Harbour? Thanks.

So basically, Viking figured out they have to do two May 2nds, so they canceled Dutch Harbor? Just kidding -- that's ridiculous. But now we get two days in Seward instead. Pretty sad really. Dutch Harbor looks like it was about the most interesting place we are going in Unalaska (the Aleutian Islands), and there are plenty of others that we won't get to see.

Agree agree agree

Exactemente!

You must have been going west?

OK CC, perhaps we will cross paths at some point. If so we look forward to an opportunity to taste some wine and discuss!

Really? Maybe within the same ES class... But anyway it's the location that matters

We will be on board Viking Orion from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Our Viking Calendar says we will be crossing the IDL on Thursday May 2. It seems to me that if indeed we do cross that line (and I am sure we will), there must necessarily be a -23h time change that night -- meaning -- we will wake up the following morning on Thursday May 2nd. We have reservations for Manfredi's on May 2. Do we, like Bill Murray, have to order the same meal again? Any advice especially from experienced cruisers (@heidi13, @Jim Avery) would be greatly appreciated...

Actually there are some pretty good wines available, if your horizons are not limited to some particular region. As with anything, personal preferences might cause your experience to vary. We find the SSBP to be good value, and we will continue to purchase it.

For what it's worth: For our recent trip to Brazil (up the Amazon), I took the YF vaccine at age 64, after conferring with my doctor. DW chose not. We both survived (who had the better odds? I'm not sure, except that although we were deep into the yellow part of the CDC's map of South America, we only saw one mosquito in all of Brazil). I had some soreness and bruising at the injection site. We both took the malaria pills. ( DW quit early). None of this cost anything significant because insurance covered almost all of it. Of course, your experience may vary.

It's really not about picking up on the concept. There are and continue to be many alternatives. All are privately owned and whatsapp is owned by a certain corporation that many of us choose never to deal with. (with apologies to WSC).

This is our seventh Viking cruise but the first time we have managed to get tours of the ship. The laundry tour is impressive, and the bridge tour is super cool. The guest services people arrange these as circumstances permit and by request. Definitely worth doing.

We got the bridge tour today on Viking Sea. Amazingly cool. Our guide was one of the second officers and he was clearly a very traditional mariner. He thought it very important to explain how all of the really important movement of the ship was done with manual controls. There was also other evidence of traditional practices like the rack full of flags and pennants I MillyBess and I also got to sit in the chairs used to conn the ship (is that the right term?). I have a picture of MillyBess sitting there wearing a Viking helmet but unfortunately I am not authorized to post it.

@TayanaLorna Do you recall if there was an Astronomer on board who talked about the southern sky?

It is the same amount of up as down. You get off the bus at the top (the bus goes away). You walk down, then you can buy stuff at the bottom and then you walk up (to where you started). Then you wait for the bus to come back. You might choose to walk down a little way then turn around and come back, but then you get to wait in the sun for the bus to return. It is not a drive-by

This is not an easy tour. The Falconry Center is straightforward and absolutely worth doing. The falls is OK but to be honest I would pay extra to skip it and just do the Falconry. The falls is a long walk down beside some burbling moving water with various interesting bugs and huge numbers of other people moving in all directions. Thinking about it now I cannot imagine why it appeals to anyone. The walk back up (for us) was in the heat of the day and a significant uphill climb. We are not young and spry, but in the end we waited 40+ minutes at the top in the sun for the rest of the group to make it back up the hill. The bus was not there until the last minute so we spent our time looking for places to sit in the shade -- not very successfully.

Corfu: In front of the old Fortress and beside Spianada Square. Right in the middle of everything.

Dubrovnik: Right by the Pile Gate. It is a bit of a walk up the hill (follow the outside of the wall) to get to the base of the cable car run to the top of the mountain, but it is worth the walk. There is also easy access to the old city from here. This is the opposite end of the Stradun from the old harbour, where there are boats for Lokrum and other points of interest.

As it was explained to me, that is how it works. We paid for a minimum policy which is somewhere around 2K. When we make the final payment (in this case July 2025), we can choose to increase the coverage to the full trip cost with or without CFAR (50%). If we continue the CFAR, there is a significant (if I recall correctly about 20%) increase in the cost of the coverage. The agent gave me a quotation for each scenario. We have dealt with them before, and found them to be competitively priced, but have always purchased insurance at the time of the last payment, so in those cases there was no CFAR.

@CurlerRob check out Tugo. I did not realize that they did this until we made our last booking. The CFAR is an upcharge however.

We most certainly do disagree. Viking offers an included tour at each port as I have said. Nothing more. Viking has never said that all included tours are available to everyone.

Viking promises availability of an included excursion in each port. They do not promise that you will have the excursion that you want in every port. If you are booking a cruise based on the assumption that you are going to save a few hundred because you can take the freebee excursion, then that's your value judgement... and it's entirely your choice. Viking is quite clear about how the excursion booking process works. It is clear that the higher priced cabins get first choice. This is not an unusual or surprising concept. Every business provides tiered service. If you pay more, you get more. Your choice.

We did the Corinth Canal tour in May. The canal is interesting although the buses park at a touristy very busy snack/souvenir/restroom stop. The ruins are good, but not as good as at Olympia (Katakolon). In Koper we took the included walking tour which was fine. It’s a small city and easy to walk around. There are plenty of other tours that will appeal to specific interests. In Zadar, the falconry tour was one of our favourites on the whole cruise — as has been detailed by my DW here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2954738-empires-of-the-mediterranean-port-times/?do=findComment&comment=65937656 We visited Dubrovnik twice because we were actually doing two cruises back to back: first Odyssey and then Empires. The first time we did the included walking tour of the city which was quite informative and certainly gave us ideas about what to do the second time we visited. On the second visit, we took the cable car to the top of the hill which is definitely worth doing and provided some great views. We returned to the city and took the ferry to the island of Lokrum which we highly recommend, especially if you are interested in birds. Lokrum is basically a large park with some ruins and a great number of wild peacocks. It is a very short and inexpensive ferry ride from Dubrovnik harbour. You can spend as long or as little time on Lokrum as you like. There were also people snorkelling there if that is something that is of interest to you. In Kotor we again took the city walking tour. It is a very small place with a scenic backdrop, but in our opinion there is not a lot to do there. We took the afternoon off and relaxed on the ship. Corfu we visited twice. The first time we took the tour to Theotsky Winery which is excellent if you like wine for breakfast. But even if you don’t this tour is definitely worth doing. In addition to the winery there were some scenic stops. The second time in Corfu we started out on the Traditions of Old Corfu walking tour but somehow ended up wandering around the city on our own which was just fine. We bought some awesome Kumquat liqueur. Santorini is a very busy place. We had previously been to Santorini twice on our own and stayed there for some time. So we know the island well but chose not to disembark because the facilities for cruisers are extremely taxed. The island is enormously busy and we had a great time sitting on the 2nd deck behind the restaurant floating around the Caldera on the ship and watching the crowds on the shore. If you have not been to Santorini the best (in our opinion) place to visit is Oia. There you will see the picturesque blue-domed churches and have some great views of the Caldera. Fira is also an interesting place to visit and to shop but it will be very busy. We stayed on our own in Athens after disembarking and explored it for a few days. We loved the Plaka district and did the Acropolis which is a must-see but it is invariably hot and crowded. View from the top of the hill in Dubrovnik

The building(s) are the ending. The Architect(s) and their ideas are the beginning. The stuff in-between is the journey and so (as always) the most interesting.