Roz

Elite with CELEBRITY.

My personal opinion is that Viking uses their customers as their bank. I doubt they keep the advance payments in a non interest bearing account.

Hard to do when you're by yourself. On one of my solo cruises, I ended up sitting out at a table by the Lido pool. Sometimes too hot or too cold, and especially in the morning, there aren't always waiters circulating around with coffee and water refills. Can be a long walk if you need to grab something from the buffet, and then come back to cold food.

I've had this problem on Holland America. People "park" themselves at a table, especially families and groups sailing together. They chit-chat, play cards and board games, etc. I usually sail solo, and I sometimes get the stink eye when I ask to share a table.

As a paying customer I refuse to accept this.

I happen to like Uniworld's decor, but on my first river cruise I joked that it looked like Marie Antoinette exploded in my cabin.

Coffee and tea, and the hot water needed to make tea, are available 24 hrs a day in the Lido.

I take it you've been in a French bordello.

Have you considered a European river cruise?

Sorry about your bad experience. Accusing new customers of fraud is serious and not a way to garner loyalty. The solution, which you've already arrived at, is to not book with Viking in the future.

I've played bingo (a lot!) on every HAL cruise I've taken and have yet to be comped a room. My sister plays bingo and goes to the casino. Nada. On my last post cruise survey I told HAL I was done playing bingo. The players who win are the ones who play with the machines. Those of us who buy the paper cards and play the old fashioned way don't stand a chance.

In March I had a hotel room booked in Buenos Aires. My plan was to fly to BA overnight, stay a night at the hotel, then board the ship the next day. I missed my connection in Houston and then spent the next 3 days fighting my way to BA. I boarded the ship 1.5 hrs. after the all aboard. The saving grace was that the ship was overnighting in BA. Otherwise I would have been SOL. Last December I flew to Amsterdam for a river cruise. I had a 4 hr. layover in Philly. The plane was delayed 2 hours, but I still made my connection. Nothing seems to be on time these days.

@nutensteve, I assume your insurance reimbursed you for the meds.

By the time you got home it would have been too late.

@cbr663, did you take Paxlovid? Is it available on HAL ships?

Sounds like a good plan.

I've done several Pacific Coastal cruises (for example, San Diego to Vancouver) that were the tail end of a Panama Canal cruise. Those doing the entire cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Vancouver got to pick their cabins. The Coastal passengers got guarantees. Those were the cabins vacated by the PC passengers who disembarked in SD.

Point taken....

Sometimes if you're only booking a segment you can only book a guarantee.

I have 2 TAs - 1 for ocean cruises and 1 for river cruises. My river cruise TA is with a full service agency, and she has put together some nice precruise packages for me in places like Budapest and Amsterdam.

@cruisegal415, @Coral gave you some good advice regarding looking at other lines and comparing inclusions and payment policies.

@cbr663, thank you for a thorough, even handed review.

Thanks for the info. Yes, the port stop is shown as Anchorage, not Whittier. I'm familiar with downtown Anchorage and the Egan Center, so if there's a shuttle that will work for me. The HAL excursions I'm interested in are either sold out or way too expensive for my budget. If I can get to Anchorage, I'll do my own walking tour. HAL is very bad about providing port and shuttle information ahead of time. I ran into this on my recent South American cruise.

I'm booked on a 14 day Alaskan cruise. One of our stops is Anchorage. For passengers not booked on a HAL excursion, how do we get from the port to Anchorage? Does HAL provide a shuttle? I can't find any information on the website.

I think goose is greasy.