Chef's Table

Seems to me it was an optional "excursion" in a couple of cities. Over $200 on our Baltic Cruise. For the World Cruise it is offered a number of times and only $99.

Although we did not "cook" dinner with the chef on our River Cruise the outing was free and we only paid for the transportation

(subway in Vienna).

Where do you find out more information about this? TBQH I haven't looked for it on the VO website.

TBQH, that would be a good place to start, you'll be amazed at how much information about the cruise line is right there It is listed under dining venues and there is a short video. There is a charge and we were on VH cruise. It seems someone has responded that the price has dropped, like Silver Spirits Package, since it was first offered. Tellus@ vikingcruises.com can probably give you any additional information that you wish

Where do you find out more information about this? TBQH I haven't looked for it on the VO website.

Kitchen Table is not offered on every itinerary. If it is possibly going to be offered in one of your ports of call (and this does not mean that it will be offered on your sailing), you will find a description of it on the Viking website, under the itinerary you are interested in. For example, it is a possibility in Barcelona but on my particular sailing, it is not being offered--or in any of the other ports but there are a number of other culinary-type adventures offered offered (like cooking in a Tuscan Castle).

Where to find what tours are possibly going to be offered in each port before they are actually posted on MVJ? This is one of the Viking website's best keep secrets. Here's where. On any itinerary you want to learn more about, you will find this information under the Itinerary tab. Scroll down, to where you see it list the Days one-by-one. What is not obvious is that each of these bands is actually a link to a description of each day's port of call. Double click--or whatever it takes to load the next page.

You will now see at the top of the page it says Day # and to either side it are navigation arrows so that you don't have to keep going back to the Itinerary page to get to the next Day. I'm going to call these pages the Port-of-Call pages. They are generic. Any cruise that goes to a given port is going to use this page when an itinerary page is created. Scroll down the P-O-C page to find a selection of tours that may or may not be offered on your sailing (like don't expect a sail boat and swimming tour on your NYE in the Med cruise). The included tour is usually the first one listed and it is marked "included."

Hope this helps.

There is a reservation table in the World Cafe on the port side as you enter. I assume the menus are available there and when that is not open you can find a space near the restaurant until about an hour before seating starts. Since it is not our type of eating, we went in blind the first night with no knowledge of the menu or reservations. We arrived when the restaurant opened, the last night of the first rotation, to check availability and were seated. Enjoyed and made reservations for the next night for the new menu. Before we left that night we had reservations for each rotation of cruise.

We were checking menues of all restaurants and a buffet on TV each morning. It helped us to plan our meal for a day unless we would have lunch n he town. It's easier to reserve a table right away if you like the menu.

One more response to the allergy issue and Chef's Table: we are currently on the Sea and had the Asian/Chinese menu at the CT the other night. One person in our party has a long list of allergies and had already made arrangements to have food from Manfredi's prepared and brought to CT. The CT chef came out to our table, looked over the allergy list and said he could make her special dishes similar to ours, but based on her needs. She had a great meal and didn't feel "left out" of the experience at all. Amazing adaptation and much appreciated by all at our table.

It is incredible how accommodating Viking is....and attentive to food allergies!

One more response to the allergy issue and Chef's Table: we are currently on the Sea and had the Asian/Chinese menu at the CT the other night. One person in our party has a long list of allergies and had already made arrangements to have food from Manfredi's prepared and brought to CT. The CT chef came out to our table, looked over the allergy list and said he could make her special dishes similar to ours, but based on her needs. She had a great meal and didn't feel "left out" of the experience at all. Amazing adaptation and much appreciated by all at our table.

The chef at the Chef's Table also visited the dining room and stopped at our table on the Star, just to chat. It was a real treat to be able to talk with him about the whole experience. We certainly used the opportunity to express our appreciation.