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vcgeno

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    Scottsdale, Az

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  1. I have been reading the reviews and I sense that people want to pay what they paid 20 years ago for the same cruise experience that they had 20 years ago. If you look at what things cost, especially since COVID, that is not possible. The only way the cruise lines can offer an affordable cruise is by cutting back on perks and food. You can still have a great time even if you limit your dining to the main dining room and buffet The meals may not be amazing but they are good enough and you can still have fun. You can relax on a regular deck and use one of the many hot tubs on board instead of paying for the Sanctuary or Enclave. You can limit your internet to when you are in port. If you want the more upscale cruise of yesteryear you can choose to pay for the extra cost restaurants and add on the perks. This will allow people who can afford less to still have a nice vacation and allow those who can afford more a more upscale experience.
  2. I had the chapino and my wife had red snapper. Both were very enjoyable. Service was great the only issue was that the music from the lobby was so loud we could not carry on a conversation. I will attach a couple of pictures. All reactions: 564564
  3. My wife and I just got back from a 7-day Mexican cruise on the Discovery Princess. We have done this itinerary several times and our goal for this trip was to enjoy the ship, not the ports. I have been reading comments online for several months and noticed that some folks think that Princess is going to hell in a handbasket and some folks think it is better than ever. I will give you our impression based on what we hoped to achieve on the cruises. We had Princess Premiere and thought it was worth it. This cruise started in LA and stopped at three ports Cabo, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. As our goal was to enjoy the ship we got off for about 3 hours in Cabo, and stayed on the ship for the rest of the cruise. It was wonderful. Our routine every day was to wake up, grab a cup of the good coffee from the coffee bar (with the occasional almond croissant) , walk at least 5000 steps, and then have breakfast at the Buffet. We would then go to the Enclave, the thermal spa, for 90 minutes or so and chill. We would then have lunch (Pizzaria twice, MDR twice, Buffet 3 times). We reserved chairs in the Sanctuary for 4 of the afternoons. We would go back to our room shower and then go to dinner (MDR 3 times, Crown Grill 1 Time, Sabatini’s 1 Time, The Catch By Rudi 1 time, 360 dinner one time). After dinner we would go to the Princess Theater (2 times), go to a comedy show (3 times), went to a game show (1 Time) or listened to music (most nights). Our casino experience consisted of one $5 slot machine bet, we won $11 and decided to quit while we were ahead. Food: Based on all the complaints about the food online I had low expectations and we were very pleasantly surprised with the quality. In the Main Dining Room on a couple of nights the portion size of the main course was more appetizer size but there was no shortage of food on board so that was not an issue. The specialty restaurants were all fantastic and seemed to be even better than at least our last couple of Princess cruises. Very glad we did the 360 dinner, if you get a chance to do it you should, but it is not something we will need to do again. The pizza at the Pizzeria was great. The Buffet was the buffet, not bad but not outstanding. Drink: My wife and I are wine enthusiasts and were deeply disappointed by the wines in a glass. Except for Sabatinis there were no European wines (other than champagne) offered and the wines there were mass-market wines. Would have liked something a bit more interesting. They have a lot of interesting scotch and other whisky listed in their bar menus but one night I had to ask for 4 of them before I found one they had behind the bar. They seemed to often have things out of stock. All that said, we did not have an issue eventually finding something to drink and the service was outstanding. Entertainment: Saw the illusionist in the theater. I would give him a 4 out of 5. One of the comedians was drop-dead funny, one was ok and the other spent most of his half-hour having a conversation with the ladies at the table in front of the stage. On our last cruise we really enjoyed the game shows not sure why but on this one we thought they were a bit tedious. The highlight for us however was the quality of the lounge musicians. They were all so good and talented we could not pick a favorite. By far they were the best group we have experienced on any cruise. Other: Did not love the elevators. It was like the Hunger Games they were very often full and the wait to get on was way too long. It became a joke among all the passengers. We used the stairs to go down or up 3 floors or less I feel for older and disabled passengers. We loved The Enclave, and the Sanctuary. They are our happy places and probably the main reason we keep coming back to Princess. Don’t know why more people don’t take advantage of them but I'm very happy that they don’t. Summary: Had a great time, and loved it, if you get a chance do it. Please let me know if you have any questions. All reactions: 564564
  4. My wife and I are joining two other couples on the Viking Jupiter on July 1th for the "Iceland's Majestic Landscapes" cruise. We are in a DV4 level room. Which I am aware does not get high priority in making excursion reservations. At noon Pacific time on Wednesday May 10th we were eligible to make excursion reservations. We had a video conference the night before with the other couples to coordinate which excursions we wanted to do together and all planned to be on line at exactly 12 Noon to make our reservations. When I signed on at noon a couple of the excursions we wanted were already sold out. But we were able to get a few of the excursions that we wanted. One of the other couples was delayed at an appointment and could not sign on until about 1:30 and found that several of the excursions they had planned to go on with us were already sold out. My wife and I decided to change some excursions so that we could join them on a some excursions that they were able to sign up for. To do that I had to cancel the original excursion and sign up for the new one. Come to find out we were charged for both the canceled and new excisions immediately but Viking does not issue a credit for canceled excisions for 21 days. This has led me to the following thoughts: 1) When \you spend upwards of $20,000 to go on a cruise you would think the excursion sign up process would be more elegant.then that of a Walmart with a limited number of the hot new toy with customers faces pressed against the door before the store opens on Black Friday. 2) There should be a better way for groups traveling together to make excursion reservations together. 3) Viking should respect their customers and issue refunds with the same speed it charges them. Perhaps there are ways around all this that we were not aware of but it seems like they could come up with a better way. Thanks for reading, I feel better now.
  5. The "Scenic Bay of Plenty" is a complete and total waste of time. You are better off staying on the ship. Not sure about the other excursions but I'm sure any other paid excursions would be better.
  6. We were on the Viking Mars for the cruise from Auckland to Sidney from January 10 - January 24 and also went on the post cruise Australian Extension afterword. The on board experience as well as the Post Cruise experience were amazing. The excursions were not good. I was not going to post anything but in discussing this with my travel agent she suggested I write a note to Viking letting them know my concerns. After getting Vikings response, where they did not take accountability for the problems with the excursions, I decided that because I have received such great advice from others on cruse critic I would create this post. While the future cruise credit is a nice gesture (not sure I am going to use it) I would have rather they would have clamed some accountability. First my Note: "My wife XXXXXXX and I recently returned from the above cruise (Booking Number XXXXXXX) I discussed the cruise with my travel agent (copied on this note) and she suggested I send you a note. We thought the ship, food, and crew were excellent and what we have come to expect from Viking. I, unfortunately, had to use the medical facilities but was gratified by how caring and dedicated your medical staff was. We went on the post-cruise land tour in Australia that was amazing. . All of that was diminished by the disappointing excursions we chose to go on. We are veterans of 3 Viking river cruises and even though they all had navigation problems (too much water, not enough water, forgot to take the anchor up and it got tangled in the propeller) the excursions were outstanding. We enjoyed those experiences a great deal despite the issues. We went on your Cuba Ocean cruise and thought you did a great job there as well. We expected outstanding excursions on this cruise as well, but that did not happen That led to this cruise being a major disappointment. We were looking forward to this trip for a long time and the poor-quality excursions made us feel we did not get a feel for the areas that we wanted. Three excursions stood out as being particularly disappointing, "Scenic Bay of Plenty" was an embarrassment. The scenic drive to the "local village hall" consisted of viewing ship containers, sewage pipes, and loading docks. Once we arrived at eh "hall" our promised refreshments consisted of some cheap tea and dollar-store cookies. And our Kiwi experience consisted of some man on a stage barking about the wonderful properties of Kiwi and trying to sell us some of the products they were trying to sell. I am convinced that the vendor pays Viking to bus people to this to sell them stuff. When we got back on the bus another couple looked up at us and said "There are 4 hours of our life we will never get back". Given the time, and money your passengers spend to come to Australia, and the image you try to present in your advertising you should not waste our time on this type of excursion. Shame on you. The second one "Wines of Marlborough" stood out because of a total lack of planning. Marlborough is the wine capital of New Zealand and one of the most important wine regions in the world. Instead of giving your guests the experience they should have you cram way too many people into small areas in second-rate wineries and hurry them through the tasting. Even though this happened at lunchtime there were not any crackers or food of any kind offered. And to add insult to injury one of the wineries that we visited did not know we were coming leading to a good bit of confusion. On our return to the ship they ushered us into another room where we did get an apology and were given a 50% credit but I would have much rather had relaxing visits to top wineries and paid the full price. This was a major missed opportunity. I am kicking myself for not setting up an independent tour of the area. The third one that stood out as being particularly disappointing was the Ballarat Wildlife Park. Given the name of the excursion, and the public description we expected it to be a nature preserve with highly trained nature experts where you could see wildlife in a somewhat natural environment. Instead, we got a private zoo with caged animals with feces-covered walkways staffed by teenagers. This place was only a small step up from the Joe Exotic zoo in the Tiger King. You should at least be honest with your passengers and not sell them something that you will not deliver. To be fair my friends who we went on the cruise (copied on this note) attended the "The Rocks Pub-to-Pub" excursion and said it was a lot of fun and the best of the cruise. I could not attend because of my medical situation. The other excursions we went on were acceptable but no better than excursions we could have gotten on Princess or other mass-market cruise lines. I'm thinking the cruise lines all use the same vendors to do the excursions which, if you are going primarily for the destination, begs the question why are we paying a premium to go on Viking? We have done a lot of Ocean cruises on Princess but we usually set up our own excursions in port because our experience has been similar to what we experienced on this cruise. We did not do that on this cruise because of the wonderful excursions we have been on when river cruising incorrectly assuming you were bringing that same level of experience to your ocean cruises. We were wrong. We are booked on your Iceland/Norway cruise this July and based on this experience I am going to start looking at independent excursions for that cruise because I don't want to waste that opportunity as we did on this trip. Thanks for reading I sent this so you can learn so that future passengers have a more satisfying experience." In hindsight I may have been a bit dramatic but it was accurate and it was fair. What caused me to post this was the total lack of responsibility in this response from Viking: We are extremely grateful that you took the time to send us your feedback about your experience with the shore excursions. I read through your feedback carefully and consider your feedback to be very insightful. I will pass it on to our team to see if they can implement any of these changes in the upcoming cruises. While the greatest care has been taken to offer the finest services available, all arrangements for certain optional Shore excursion, including air transportation, hotel accommodations, ground transfers, and shore excursions, are made by Viking with third-party services. These contracts are what help us keep the costs low and at a flat rate. It’s an added convenience for our guests. However, it is important for us to know your experience, so thank you. Further, As I understand it, you faced additional challenges in addition to those faced by the rest of the passengers on the ship. We kindly ask that you contact me as soon as you can. I would like to discuss your experience in detail to ensure any concerns you may have been fully addressed. So basically what they are telling you is that anything you pay Viking for that they contract out is not Vikings responsibility. I would have preferred they tell me something like "despite the excursions being managed by contractors we take responsibility because we choose those contractors and will reevaluate those agreements and make changes where we have fallen short". I also the fact that they use the contactors "to keep the cost low". The excisions are not low cost and if most Viking passengers wanted to save money they would have booked on Carnival. When I went to call them back to give them more detail the receptionist refused to put me though because they had given my my credit and the case was closed. That's when I said screw it I am going to post this. There you have it. Flame me, agree with me, or ask me questions I will be happy to help.
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