Mich3554

Istanbul’s new international airport is quite a distance from the port, and most of the attractions in Istanbul. If you are staying at a hotel, they’ll call you a taxi to take you to the airport, they always have for us. About hotels, you might want to check the likely hotel where Viking schedules extensions. Once you know that, I assume that its a central location and look for other places nearby. Ships dock at Galataport, which is a very nice, new facility with a huge shopping and restaurant area adjacent. I do not remember seeing a taxi queue in front when we departed, but TBH I wasn’t looking for a taxi when we left the facility as we were walking to a place to meet up with Turkish friends. Also, it’s a very long walk to get out of Galataport.

Since we reuse our bath towels a few times, we use the hooks on the back of the door to hang the towels to dry. For the world cruise, we brought about 8 magnetic hooks and used them to hang clothes that we had laundered and needed to air dry. We put the hooks on the ceiling in the corner, and hung the clothes on hangers and they dried faster than our previous methods. 8 hooks were not enough. We needed another 8.

Every cruise I have been on we could have gotten a ride to the airport via Viking had we wanted to go. At the end of the cruise, you’ll be sent a sheet where you can opt to choose Viking transit and pay $49 pp. We usually choose to either Uber (FL), Bolt (Prague) or taxi (Bergen, Barcelona, etc). As I remember it, the taxi from the airport to our hotel in Bergen was about the equivalent of $50. We were staying within walking distance of the port, near the Raddison Blu where Viking frequently books extensions. So far, the only issue we have ever had was in Santiago, where the flights go and enter through there, but the port is Valparaiso. This is about 2+ hours away. First cruise, we had our hotel set us up with a vineyard tour that dropped us off in Valparaiso. That worked very well, but we could have booked something ourselves like this through Viator. Next cruise, we were getting off the ship in Valparaiso. That cruise, we had a ton of non refundable OBC, courtesy of Covid closures. Viator was useless so we got private transport set up by Viking to our hotel. This was one of the few times we have ever done this (and it killed our OBC balance after a couple shopping trips).

Exactly. Since we fly from Seattle, with the business class fare we received from Viking our routing was SEA to NYC in coach and NYC to AMS in business. There was a direct flight from SEA to AMS I wanted, but it would have cost me $1500 pp more than Viking’s rate. Instead, we connected through MSP to AMS, with both seats in business. It cost us $500 pp more. These days, I always add business airfare to the bill and start looking for flights about 7-8 months out. By the time I need to pay the balance, I have usually already booked on my own, and just cancel the flight part. Viking is my Plan C.

Because Viking only has so many that they contract for. We fly business and I pretty much book all of our flights myself. The 2 times I did not, I needed to pay extra and seats on a direct flight were not available to Viking so we wound up needing to connect. The second time, it was part of the WC and they paid for our seats. TBH, I just booked flights for our Northern Lights cruise last month. I canceled Viking’s air as I got excellent connections and seats, and saved $1500 for 2 seats…..and that’s not including adding on Air Plus and deviation charges. This savings will more than cover private transport in Bergen and London, and I’ve built flexibility into our schedule as we are deviating on both ends anyway.

The light is coming in from the edges of the 2 curtains, not them not being fully pulled together. Unfortunately, the hanger trick won’t work.

I think my only gripe about having the door and window combo was at the end of the WC we were in the Arctic where we had 24 hours of light. Having light peek through the cracks in 2 sets of drapes was just a little annoying at 1 am in the morning. Your brain sees ‘light, no more sleep!’ And your body says ‘nope, only been asleep 2 hours, that’s not gonna do it’.

When we were booked for a back to back under one booking number, we could book all the cruises under that booking number when we became eligible to book for the first cruise at that time. Same with dining.

We were in a PV1 on the Neptune on our world cruise (5084) and had a door and window. For us, it really didn’t matter. What DID matter is that our door and our neighbors squeaked when opening. They had room service breakfast every morning at 6 am and the door would squeak a dozen times while they set themselves up outside to eat there. It took about 3 tries to get someone in to desqueak the door.

I started off our world cruise with the intent of blogging it. We got on in FL and I lasted as far as Cartagena. So much for good intentions! So I have tremendous respect for those that do this. I really wish I had been more persistent because we did so much, so fast that it all seems like a blur now.

In my experience, I referred people and all was good (2 couples we went on a river cruise with which was booked during Covid). All of us got appropriate credits. At the end of last year, I referred another person. The process had changed. She had to call Viking and tell them she had been referred and give my customer number. Everything went through ok, but I had no idea what my customer number was and had to call and ask so I could give it to her. Viking did not tell her, *I* asked my agent about her reservation and whether she got the credit (and whether I got it too) and he told me the process. I had to contact her and explain it. I will say though that while we were on the world cruise this past year, I heard a lot of under the breath grumbling about problems that the LA office was causing wrt administrative dealings at the Explorer’s desk. I have also had to ask in a specific way to the Viking agent I use about making sure my bookings have a 6 month out pay in full date. In addition, I noticed that he reminds me on each call that our conversations are recorded. So apparently there is a lot of stuff going on in the administrative side of things that have gotten a lot of people frustrated.

There is not one in the Neptune.

Yes, on an ocean butterfly I would have been able to add the SS package. It was recommended to me during our B2B2B where we lost a good chunk of the ports on the second cruise so had tons of non refundable OBC and a very picked over gift shop. Only problem was that our experience does not make the SS package valuable for us, we only drink less than half of what it would cost.

Yep, this is one of the reasons why I have been avoiding these cruises, despite never having been to Venice. If we do Venice now, it won’t be associated with a cruise ship…..any cruise ship.

We were on a cruise a few years ago, and were sitting next to a couple. This was in World Cafe. The chef came out to talk to her, and we couldn’t help but to overhear the huge laundry list of food she couldn’t eat. It was crazy enough that the salad with the salmon she was eating seemed to be all that she could eat. The chef wrote down all her exclusions, and then asked her to visit the other eating venues on the ship and choose one that she wanted to eat at, and he’d make sure she had a menu available especially for her. We never saw that couple again in WC, so assumed she was eating at The Restaurant.

The SS package is only the way you pay for alcohol. It does not give you any advantage of receiving something that a passenger without the package can’t pay for. Wines that are sold by the bottle are not given by the glass for those with the SSP. The wines available vary. Usually, a red and white are offered at dinner. Yes, you can request another glass of wine if you do not like those offered at dinner and pay for them without the SSP. We do this all the time. We also make liberal use of any vineyard visit on the cruise and bring bottles we like back on board with us. After our world cruise, it was a scramble to finish up the wine we bought before we got off the ship. All our spare luggage space was taken up by the 8 bottles of single malt scotch DH bought in Scotland afterwards.

We were on the Neptune world cruise this year and this is how it worked. I’d assume it will be the same for the coming WC. You will receive the credit in 2 chunks. The first chunk, you can use for excursions before you get on the ship. We used all that up, and more which went on a credit card. When we got onboard, we had another chunk of credit available to us. If you want to add excursions, you can use that then but not before. Viking keeps track of which excursions are paid with OBC (non refundable credit) and your credit card (refundable). When you charge things to your account, non refundable (which is also that second chunk of credit you get when you board) gets used up first. It does make sense. Non refundable credit is a ‘use it or lose it’ thing, refundable credit gets refunded to you, so it’s important to know what you have of each. They will tell you when you get credited on the TV as to whether the credit is refundable or not. Another thing they allowed was that when we reached London, we were allowed to use some remaining credit to use Luggage Forward to send things home. As we were continuing on to NYC, we used that chance to send home most of the summer shoes and clothing and DH’s scuba stuff since he wasn’t going to use it. Viking also allowed us to carry over the credit onto BIE/Norway and Arctic until we used it up.

We were not able to. I had booked our flights home from our WC from Reykjavík, and then we decided to add the Iceland to NYC leg. As our tickets were already booked, we had to pay the cost of our flight from NYC. If the tickets are booked, it’ll likely be what the change fee is.

They made cad tea from hot tea, I imagine they’d do similarly for iced coffee. Worst case, maybe get several shots of spares so in the machine in World Cafe and add ice? We use a French press at home and locally roasted coffee beans. I know we go through a pound of beans in a little over a week, so for us it is not a cheap habit. I was surprised at how much I did like coffee from the Nespresso machine in the room. I had assumed it was similar to the Keurigs, which don’t impress me in the least. I now know I need to pick up some dark roast Nespresso pods for our next trip. While DH is frequently willing to do a coffee run to the Living Room, I’m not!

Not in my experience. I used the Nespresso machine regularly on the world cruise during my Covid arrest. I was able to get more pods, but not different pods. At one point, I was kicking myself about not getting some dark roasts in pods before we left. I definitely will the next time.

Yes. A friend of mine needed her drugs refrigerated on the world cruise. She left her meds in the medical center and went down at a scheduled time to get them. It wasn’t a big deal.

We had tomahawk steaks. I think twice, if I remember correctly. There were also quite a few lobster nights.

I’m sorry to hear that. We flew them in 2019, on a trip to Turkey. It wasn’t the first time we had flown with them, but the most recent. They were fabulous and picked up the pieces, especially when we had to dispute with Pegasus Air. I’m sorry to hear they’ve deteriorated.

Yes, it’s excellent and better than most US airlines.

If Viking is running a shuttle, it’s free. Getting around Boston is very easy on the T.