Peregrina651

What does it say on your Viking invoice?  If you don't have Viking Air, it should tell what the earliest flight time you can make is.  You may have to look on other than your final payment invoice to find the information. 

14 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

there is no penalty to cancel until 120 days and less from the cruise

Just to clarify. The cancellation policy for voyages more than 35 days is different. It is 180 days and $1000.

6 minutes ago, Squawkman said:

 

It would be interesting to know if Viking make more money from selling SSBP or from charging for individual drinks.

 

At the Meet & Mingle on a Med cruise 4 years ago, my wife chatted with the Chief Financial Officer who indicated the SSBP is a money maker. He told her our cruise had 38% SSBP which was low.

I wonder what the numbers are these days now that the package prices have gone up. 

Because enough people complained. 

16 minutes ago, TominNC said:

How can you tell in advance (like now, as we've just booked a river cruise) which wines on the lists are "Treasure" wines and not included in the SSP?

The wine list on any vessel is ever-shifting sands. You don't really know what is actually in stock until you arrive on board.

Your best bet for questions about river boats is River Cruising. There you can catch the attention of those currently on board or recently returned to answer your question.

Again, thank you! This is marvelous information for folks with mobility issues.

One question. Did you tip the wheelchair guy? Or phrased another way, is Turkey one of cultures where tipping is the norm and not just a tourist thing?

29 minutes ago, philw1776 said:

I draw a firm line at Canada Geese

Not a line. A bead. 

15 hours ago, Frenchberet said:

Never heard of the duck thing, had to look it up.  No sightings in our recent cruise on Saturn but there was a woman who kept taking photos with her stuffed Pikachu doll…

Okay, you can all laugh at this, but I would do something similar. Not because I'm obsessed with some toy but for a learning experience for my grandson, who already has a number of custom-made photo albums from our trips (sans toy).

Viking marches to a different drummer and it takes some getting used to. Guests have to decide for themselves if the onboard experience is worth the difference in policies. 

18 minutes ago, May B said:

This is on Ocean, correct?

Yes. Oceans.  Although the mattress pad to raise the head of the bed works fleet-wide. 

59 minutes ago, Jim Avery said:

If the OP would spend a few minutes on search function for this topic they would find this ole dead horse has already been kicked all around the block.

Jim, agreed, but only to a certain extent.  Maybe it is my browser, but I find the search function here to be completely useless.  Since the move to the new platform a number of years ago, I have yet to search for anything successfully. I can't be the only one who has issues with it. 

I can barely reach that shelf, let alone take down anything placed on it. 🙃 That  space us solely for DH's use.  

Hope you had wonderful adventure.

Thank you so very, very much for the detailed report of your experience. The honesty and the level of detail will be helpful to others.  Can't wait to hear about Galaport. 

Do not punch your keycard yourself.  Take it to Guest Services and let them do it; they know where the electronics are.

6 hours ago, Famsw said:

You can ask for 2 water carafes each day.  We drink a lot of water plus refill our own water bottles and the cabin attendant was happy to provide.  I also ask for extra hangers the first day plus foam pillows.  

You can ask for sparkling water instead of or in addition to still water.  

In a DV/V, I rearrange the furniture to give us a bit more floor space.  I move the chair by the bed closer to the night stand, move the other chair out of the way so I can tuck the coffeetable back into the corner along the party wall and finish by putting the chair in front of the slider as close to the coffeetable as possible.  

If you need to raise the head of the bed for whatever reason, ask the steward to use a mattress pad folded twice the long way and placed under the mattress at the head if the bed.  

I have always taken the stance that each trip is different and each trip calls for a different decision. I have both booked flights thru Viking Air and booked my own, depending on prices and where we are headed. When I do use Viking Air, I pay for "custom air" so that I can have a say in which flights are booked and so that I can have the job done closer to when the airlines opens the travel dates for sale.

Since you don't currently have the information you need to make the decision (because it is not available), it will cost you nothing to include Viking Air on your initial booking as it can be removed (and refund if you have already made final payment) once flight information becomes available and you can make an informed decision. You can cancel the air portion anytime up to 70 days prior (??, so ask Viking the exact cut off); funds already paid will be refunded.

Sometimes Viking Air is a significant savings and sometimes it isn't, and you don't know until you can compare actual prices.

21 minutes ago, kctwinmommy said:

That still seems a better deal. If you have non-refundable, then you're not getting anything back. If you have refundable, then they'll give it back to you. I'm guessing you mean that they paid for something with OBC that was supposed to be refundable if the event/excursion/whatever got cancelled. Then they would get their money back. But you're claiming that these people are being told they used non-refundable credits and aren't getting money back.

No, Viking is making it such that at the end of the cruise more people will have non-refundable left in their account, that Viking will not have to return to guests at the end of the cruise.  

If it were just a matter of $$, we'd be sailing on Carnival or NCL. Thank you, no. We'd rather stay home.  

Then Viking opened its Oceans division. It was more expensive than the mainstream lines but under a 1000 pax, no casinos, no kids, free internet, included excursions, no formal nights, no ties & jackets and port heavy itineraries aimed at our age demographic were a big draw.

It is the intangibles that keep us coming back.

Just a couple to whet your appetite...

Geothermal pools

Lake Myvatn and surroundings

Goðafoss

I have done Natural Treasures. 

The decision is six of one, half a dozen the other.  There is a lot to see from Akureyri and you can't see it all in one day.  They each have a variety of geologic features; it just depends on which you like seeing the most.

You can't go wrong with either one.

Someone on another thread suggested Citymapper.  Said it gave better routing than the Tfl app (which I already had put on my phone).  So I downloaded it to give it a test run.  Plus it works for multiple cities not just London. 

My son and daughter in law went to Japan pre-pandemic and she is sharing a lot of information with me. They are going back in November and will have even more to report.

This is from her report:

First of all -- temples do a cool thing where they hand paint and red stamp a sheet that you can buy and put in a book called a Goshuinchou. You can buy the book at most temples and they can either paint directly in them or you can buy a pre-drawn sheet and paste it in later to save time. Tip: if you do this, write down the name of the temple so you can keep track of which inscription goes with which location -- it's surprisingly challenging to Google later if you forget. Also, if you have a small unlined notebook, a lot of sites, including train stations, towers, you name it, also have stamps that you can put in the book as a fun commemoration of the location.

This is what she is talking about. (I just hope I remember about this when the time comes)

Oops. Faulty memory.