ohiojohn

Thanks for posting this info. I immediately went to the site, signed up and entered my next Viking cruise. Did not know Italy is at a Level 2. Also found an iPhone app for the state department searching using “Smart Traveler”. I also appreciated your review of the Classic Greek pre extension, thanks. We go on this pre-extension in early October.

The following may help you getting from the airport to the port. I copied and pasted from another contributor on this site. I also will be in Athens early Oct for a Viking cruise and will use the below site. If you decide to make your own private transfer, try Welcome Pickups (www.welcomepickups.com). They are my new go-to for transfers. They are in most major cities in Europe and the Americas, as well as some in Asia. They meet you inside the airport or right outside the cruise port with your name on a sign.

I guess I should thank Viking for the slightly off position of the Stateroom Diagrams, since no one wanted a stateroom door facing the elevator lobby in my 5th floor case. We have 4 Viking Ocean cruises booked over the next 2 years. You and I may be similar in our approach in analytics which drives my wife crazy. I already know our future flight routings, based on connection times, equipment used, and which connection gives us the best backup plan. It helps to stay with one airline. And yes flights are not posted out for 2 years, but I check on the current routings published and the current equipment used. Having access to the sky lounge helps for connections.

We have booked #5028 on the Saturn for this October, knowing we would be facing the elevator lobby area. This was the last PV room, so we grabbed it. On other Viking cruises we noticed the elevator lobby area was generally quiet, but there are exceptions. Your first hand analysis was a pleasant surprise, indicating no rooms on the fifth floor forward facing the elevator. Now your pictures and diagram are priceless and a keeper.

We thought of that, but walking off with large suitcases would max out my wife who had partial knee replacement this past January, and is doing great. We even thought about downsizing the luggage, but this cruise is 15 days with a 4 night pre Greece excursion, and we are arriving 4 days early to explore on our own. We have done 2 Viking cruises so we are familiar with the post cruise transfer process. Our next cruise also disembarks in Civitavecchia, but I already booked an outbound from FCO at 1:50pm. I would like to think I am a fast learner. Thanks for your reply.

Thank you for your kind insight and food for thought. Yes you are correct, I am not allowing enough time. So, last week I sent to Viking a transfer request form, which I will follow up in about a week. I preferred the private car route but do not believe Viking would have our bags ready in the terminal at 6:00am while they are focusing on getting bags into the terminal for the Viking transfer guests. I have appreciated reading your many comments, as we are refugees from Celebrity and do not know all that we should know after only 2 cruises with Viking.

agree with your experience. I just finished booking refundable flights for another cruise last week with a price I was comfortable with. Then a few hours later I noticed the price was several thousand dollars higher. These flights were booked as soon as the 330? Day Window opened up. People we say wait until about 6 months before your cruise to book to get better pricing. That may be true say for coach but for Premium Economy or business class, I have found booking earlier is best. I guess it is all about available inventory of seats.

Agree about Welcome Pickups. We will use them when arriving Athens, which is on the front end of this same cruise. Thanks for all your info. It is helpful.

Thanks for your response. Viking has indicated in the documents not to schedule any outbound flights out of FCO before 10am, ours is at 10:30. I know the Viking transfer would work, but trying to use a private transfer. I have looked at many angles. Funny story, last week we booked flights from FCO to the USA for another Viking Disembarkation in April 2025. This time we looked at later flights that day. The cost of those flights caused my heart rate to peak. So, I checked flights 2 days later leaving on a Monday, I kid you not thousands $ were saved. Why is this funny, the day before our flight is Easter Sunday. Maybe good and bad.

We are reviewing our options on how to get from the Viking ship at Civitavecchia to FCO Rome's airport after our Viking cruise. The port arrival is Oct 19, 2024 with not many ships in port that day. Our options are to purchase a Viking Transfer or purchase a private car service. Our plane departure to the USA is at 10:30am. We have done Viking transfers before, so we know the routine. If we decide the private route transfer our concern is the luggage may not be available in the terminal for pickup at 7am when the ship docks at 5am. We may not be the strongest retirees to use self disembarkation with our luggage especially since one of us has partial knee surgery last Jan 2024. So my question is, can Viking have our luggage available in the terminal for say a 7:15am private car pickup service ? I know the next question is to ask Vegas for my odds on our bags available in the terminal at say 7am.

yes you can book with Viking, then have you TA grab the reservation. Today I booked another cruise with Viking and then sent the booking number to my TA. Although, it was a weekend the TA responded immediately. We booked the Viking Homelands cruise and used the special promo for booked cruises which expires tomorrow, I believe. I got through to Viking immediately, no waiting, and spoke to a very knowledgeable Viking agent.

I use very simple earplugs from Amazon. Mack's Soft Moldable Silicone Putty Ear Plugs - Kids Size, 6 Pair - Comfortable Small Earplugs for Swimming, Bathing,Travel, Loud Events and Flying | Made in USA now I could get the Bose, but between my sleep apnea dental device and a chin harness to keep my month shut, along with my sleep apnea mask and tubing someone may mistake me as an alien.

We were in a Magic Carpet Suite 10178, for the Dec 10 sailing of the Ascent. YES, we CAN confirm there was a lot of creaking. We both wear ear plugs to bed so not a big issue for us. But we were surprised for a new ship that creaking was occurring. We have been on the Apex 2x and do not remember any creaking. The Apex rooms were in the exact location of the Ascent room we booked. Now for a real positive, The Magic Carpet on the Ascent was so quiet you never knew it was moving, however on the Apex you knew when it was moving because of the noise. For us this was not an issue on all three sailings.

We also spent a lot of time planning and booking for this Hawaii cruise. I had just booked an AirB&B in Vancouver for 3 days. Got a great air rate to Vancouver using air miles. A few weeks ago I booked the return trip from HNL to home, actually booked it at the 330 day period. Glad I booked refundable air. Car rental in Honolulu for three days at a great Black Friday rate, will now need cancelling. So now the fun begins tomorrow unwinding all the reservations. But our replacement cruise is wonderful. At the end of the day we just did not see the allure for the Hawaii cruise especially adding 2 more sea days. The only money I will lose is the $200 for using Booking at Sea Future Certificates and around $78 for cruise insurance. When final payment was due I up the limits on the cruise insurance. Glad I kept the limits very low when first booking the cruise. This is a great tip from Steve.

nope my cruise was on Sep 20 2024 Vancouver to Honolulu 13 days. Looks like your second day was affected also for your May 2024. Although I am guessing the second day was affected as the day is just cruising past the Island of Kauai.

Apologize if I mislead you about Venice. The correct port is Chioggia. I should have identified the stop as Venice(Chioggia).

So an update from my previous post above. After I reread the changes this morning to my Hawaii cruise it turns out the 2 days in Maui are cancelled due to the fires. This is understandable, however we are receiving basically 2 sea days. But 1 sea day is now advertised as a sail by the beautiful island of Kauai. I will not unload or vent how disappoint this is. Celebrity had several months to fix this, but yet we get 2 sea days. So, today I booked a cruise to replace my Celebrity Hawaii cruise on my new favorite cruise line. Lucky for me I only had $200 invested for the Hawaii cruise. The new cruise is 15 days from Greece to Rome with 11 stops and 3 days in Venice in early October. I only have one Celebrity cruise left which is on the Ascent Dec 10.

From a long time Celebrity cruiser, in my heart I believe the old Celebrity would have done some small gesture. I believe Celebrity DOES NOT owe them anything, but I will leave you with this. Last month we took a cruise from Montreal to Fort Lauderdale on our new primary cruise provider. The cruise was going to be late into Port Everglades by 4 hours. This screwed up many flights as you can imagine. This cruise was only the 2nd time over 25 cruises I used the cruise carrier's Air. We were automatically rebooked on a direct flight at 5pm. The cruise carrier allowed us to stay in our rooms to 10am and breakfast was open to 10am. We were off the ship at 12:30pm. When we got home I noticed a nice e-mail from the cruise carrier owning up to the delay and we should call a special number if we were impacted. I was not impacted so I did not call. This gesture was very positive. Today, I booked another non Celebrity cruise, and today Celebrity notified me of a change in our Vancouver to Hawaii next September on the Edge. We have the Ascent booked on Dec 10 2024 and after the Hawaii cruise, no more Celebrity. Both of our last 2 Celebrity cruises are booked in the retreat. Sorry for the long comment.

I agree with not scheduling a flight before 11am, yes it can be done but sh_t happens. I just got off the Viking Star today Oct 24. Today was a Tuesday with only Viking and a Princess 3,000+ passengers in port Everglades. I used Viking Air and had a 11:31 Delta flight to LGA then on to Columbus Ohio. These flights made for a very long travel day to get home with a 3.5 layover at LGA. This was doable as we would use the Delta Sky Lounge, and the Viking promotion included air at no cost. One last item we probably have over 20 cruises disembarking at Port Everglades, so I know the port and FLL well. Of these 20+ cruises sh_t never happened to me. But this cruise it did, yes it did. The cruise started from Montreal and ended 15 days later at Fort Lauderdale. Nothing but great things to report on this cruise, HOWEVER……. ON Monday late morning we noticed the ship throttled back going very slowly, maybe 4 knots from 16 knots. Monday was the day before disembarkation. The captain made on announcement that we lost an engine and we will arrive late. He also mentioned that passengers with Viking Air would also be re-routed automatically, and for independent travelers they should not arrange a flight leaving before 4pm at FLL or MIA. So for the first time I did not have control of the situation because I used Viking Air, and my travel agent could not help when I used Viking Air. About 4 hours later we noticed the ship was back at 16-17 knots. I have an app that shows me this, called Marine Traffic. So the ship docked around 11:30am, cleared quickly and independent travelers could disembark around noon. Viking told us we could stay in our rooms till 10am, which was the same time Breakfast ended. Typically we would have to get up early to eat and be out of the room by 8am. Now back to Viking Air, they routed us on a direct Southwest flight leaving at 5pm, repeat a direct flight. Sorry for the long post, but wanted to provide a lot of data so individuals can understand anything can happen. But for us everything ended as a better positive than negative. Btw after getting our bags there was no immigration to go through, we just walked out of the terminal. I guess we were on cameras using facial recognition, but just my guess. Summary, a fantastic cruise, loved Montreal and Quebec City, food was great, ate at Manfredis 2x and ate at the Chefs table 4x, booked another cruise while on this cruise.

I also have not observed prices coming down for my next two cruises after considering OBC and Gratuities. I compared my booked cruises as of yesterday’s pricing to today’s pricing. Both cruises are in the retreat booked into a MC. As most have indicated they did not expect a fair reduction in price and now we have proof. For us the primary issue has always been TRUST. We have lost trust in Celebrity and its product. Tuesday, we board a 15 day Viking ocean cruise, which could have been Celebrities 23rd booking from us.