Viking Sun World Cruise ongoing review/comments

hello Jim / other World Cruisers - given the issues with shore excursions to date, are there any onboard reconsidering plans for World Cruise 2019 ?

hello Jim / other World Cruisers - given the issues with shore excursions to date, are there any onboard reconsidering plans for World Cruise 2019 ?

Hi Frank.

For our two cents we have cancelled some excursions, mainly any included ones, and are doing what we normally do, book our own. Using Viator and other sources doing private tours and car hires. There are expensive paid for excursions coming up and we hope for much better things from Viking. The 4 day trip to Taj Mahal being first on the list followed closely by 3 long days at Petra and Egypt. Do not feel comfortable booking my own excursions there having never been before so will stay with Viking on them. As far as the 2019 WC, we are not booked. The on board experience has been very good. Only the excursions are a weak point.

Thanks Jim ... best regards, Frank

We are onboard and echo the comments posted by fellow passengers, especially about the excursions. "Earn while you learn" is an apt description of the process. The GBR is the best example of this as we priced out a separate booking and could have saved about $70 (we did dive as certified divers.) But, the arrival of the ship could not match the available departures. More importantly, the risks of missing the ship are simply too great ... at least for us. Each port we go to is "new" to Viking so we are giving them a lot of slack ... for now. We are booked on next year's WC and hope the Lessons Learned will lead to a smoother voyage.

Agree...the onboard experience has been great....the itinerary so far has been everything that I had hoped for...the crew exceptional.....starting with our charming captain and his engaging wife....to the deck crew who often stop what they are doing to wish me a good morning!

Thank you deec and Redwarrior68. I am (and I am sure many others are) following all WC posts with much interest. I'm glad to know the on-board experience is all you hoped for, and I hope shore excursion arrangements improve. Enjoy your last Aussie day tomorrow.

hello Jim / other World Cruisers - given the issues with shore excursions to date, are there any onboard reconsidering plans for World Cruise 2019 ?

No problem selling cabins for 2019 WC and we can’t wait to start another adventure . Very few upper cabins available! We are now on day 67 of 141 and everything has progressed very well . In. Whitsunday-we found a very nice Irish Bar and it really didn’t matter if we went swimming. The beer was cold and they had beautiful redheads as bartenders! Made our day !

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No problem selling cabins for 2019 WC and we can’t wait to start another adventure . Very few upper cabins available! We are now on day 67 of 141 and everything has progressed very well . In. Whitsunday-we found a very nice Irish Bar and it really didn’t matter if we went swimming. The beer was cold and they had beautiful redheads as bartenders! Made our day !

 

 

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I love your enthusiasm Eaches .. but I miss your photos. Please feel free to post a few more sometime soon.

I hope to catch up with you in an Irish Bar (or any other bar !) one day. Cheers, Frank

On our land trip to the GBR in 2015, we went out to one of the platform experiences. You could scuba, snorkel close to the platform, go on a "snorkel safari" that went further out, or go down in a sub to take a look around. DH did scuba. He was happy to put GBR in his dive record but saw nothing extraordinary for the extra $. I went on the "safari"-some who could dive deeper saw a little more but later when I went down on the submersible, I saw the same fish and reef. I had a nice swim (it was May-little or no stinger danger) but people that only went down in the sub saw the same stuff. There were at least 100 people. There was an okay lunch buffet but we were picked up at about 7 am and did not get back until late afternoon. The people who did not snorkel or dive must have been bored to death for several hours. Get a private tour but make sure it is not a huge group at the platform if possible-all tours are expensive whether private or ship. There are some other interesting tours of the area (Daintree Country-I think-was one) that are just as much fun.

is the virus still going round and round with stairway to the the medical office still lined with sick people?

Seems to be passing. Fingers crossed....:cool:

how are all the sick ones on board doing without any cough medicine

Sounds of coughing in the main show theater have diminished significantly. 🤞

Do you have local sourced fruit, fish etc? How often do you get new shipment of supplies?

Here in the US the crud, flu is is still making its rounds and recovery takes weeks to get backt ofull strength.

Goood time to be in the sunny , hot humid area of the world if you have to be under the weather.

Do you have local sourced fruit, fish etc? How often do you get new shipment of supplies?

Here in the US the crud, flu is is still making its rounds and recovery takes weeks to get backt ofull strength.

Goood time to be in the sunny , hot humid area of the world if you have to be under the weather.

Not sure about the fish but local fruit and yogurt has come on board. The NZ yogurt was especially good (for yogurt). In our opinion the only good fish has been the salmon (which freezes well) and other fish less so to our liking. But then we lived on the Gulf Coast for many years and are used to really fresh fish. A minor disappointment in Polynesia was the fish served. A couple of years before, on a Paul Gauguin cruise, fresh fish were brought on board nearly daily with the Chef giving filleting class on the pool deck with a 200lb Moonfish. That evening it was served and was the best tasting fish either of us had ever tasted! Nothing like that on board here so far. Not bad so much as unremarkable. And I was hoping for fresh lamb in NZ but, so far, lamb dishes have not been to my liking. It is very hard to feed people 3+ times a day week after week from the same restaurant (s) and not become jaded. As far as the "crud" it does seem to be settling down. It appears to be the same stuff going around the US (and other countries) as our neighbors back home have had the exact same symptoms. Just a bad cold/flu season all over and our little "town" is no different. Nothing to indicate any strange "bugs" going around that are ship specific. Just the same old winter crud.... Hey, it is warm and sunny. We should all be right as rain soon. On to Indonesia, China, etc. etc. We had to RSVP for the big Christening Party in Shanghai yesterday. Of course we are going. Never one to miss a good party, especially when Mr. Hagen is picking up the tab....;p:cool:

Hi Frank.

For our two cents we have cancelled some excursions, mainly any included ones, and are doing what we normally do, book our own. Using Viator and other sources doing private tours and car hires. There are expensive paid for excursions coming up and we hope for much better things from Viking. The 4 day trip to Taj Mahal being first on the list followed closely by 3 long days at Petra and Egypt. Do not feel comfortable booking my own excursions there having never been before so will stay with Viking on them. As far as the 2019 WC, we are not booked. The on board experience has been very good. Only the excursions are a weak point.

We are big fans and frequent users of private tours wherever we go. They have always resulted in superb experiences - except for Egypt. We almost missed the ship, had our van surrounded by thugs with guns, and were held at the port entry for no reason - among other mishaps. My point is to concur with your decision to stay with ship tours in Egypt.

Form our experiences with Viking and from several years now of sailings, one of the most highlighted misses with Viking are the tours on many itineraries. It makes the selling point of inclusive tour in each point rather diluted. Not sure why this continues to reoccur. Hoping it improves for all of you on your wonderful journey.

No problem selling cabins for 2019 WC and we can’t wait to start another adventure . Very few upper cabins available! We are now on day 67 of 141 and everything has progressed very well . In. Whitsunday-we found a very nice Irish Bar and it really didn’t matter if we went swimming. The beer was cold and they had beautiful redheads as bartenders! Made our day !

 

 

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I love your enthusiasm Eaches .. but I miss your photos. Please feel free to post a few more sometime soon.

 

 

 

I hope to catch up with you in an Irish Bar (or any other bar !) one day. Cheers, Frank

Sorry , somehow, my error , the photos got entered twice and I didn’t have any pictures of the redheads-

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A calm hot sea day enroute to Darwin. Actually, yesterday was a "sea day" for us as well as we skipped going ashore at Thursday Island. After the hot sweaty long boat ride from Cairns the day before we did not want a long hot tender ride to and from a small island we were told had "no swimming at beaches" due to dangerous jellyfish and even more dangerous saltwater crocodiles. Northern Australia beaches are making the BVI look better all the time. :cool: Also the Cruise Director announced that the tendering would take 45 minutes each way. As it turned out it was a bit less than that and those who went ashore seemed to enjoy it. All but the flies. Still have Thursday Island flies on board today. :eek:

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I went ashore on Thursdays Island on (?) Saturday I think . The island is very small but the people where Very friendly and the kids where so nice to us ! They did their native dance for us and they all had big smiles in their faces . My wife went on a helicopter sightseeing event and I tried to buy a beer at the local watering hole . I had 5 dollars Local money , the bar didn’t take US dollars , so I had to go back to the ship DRY. But all in all , Thursday Island was worth the 15 minute lifeboat ride in .

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Thank you all so much for your ongoing posts, especially regarding the Great Barrier Reef. We are going to have to do more research for next year and decide...what to do? what to do? We always thought it would be so great to say that we snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef...but, if it's $600 and we don't see a lot of fish or colorful coral..is it worth it? We've snorkeled a lot of places, some better than others, but I can tell you that if we spent $600 for the experience that you all described I would be so so disappointed. And somebody mentioned spending an extra $100 for a scuba thing. I'm really glad that you guys are so honest and it's going to help us decide what to do next year.

Of course we expect the ship to be as great as you all are describing and as we experienced last year!!

Great photos Eaches - you guys are experiencing so many contrasts (not just the scenery but the cultures / people etc). I hope your wife enjoyed the heli ride, the water really is an amazing blue when the sun is shining. It would have been interesting to know what brands of beer they had in stock on TI. Maybe next time ..

Yes, love the pictures and commentary. Please keep it coming!

Darwin, Northern Territories, our last port in OZ. First, a couple of complaints related to this port call. A trend that is not improving is that if there is another ship in port, they invariably get the city dock and we are relegated to the far out commercial port. I can understand it a bit as this is Viking's first foray into this part of the world and RCCL, P&O, Carnival, are all here year round or mostly and have done for years. They have the prime spots locked in over Viking. Not much V can do about it except schedule ports, if possible, when no others are in. The complaint I do not understand is why we spent the last 24+ hours plodding along at 10knots. We could have easily been in Darwin yesterday and spent some good time in this pleasant, interesting city. As is, the first shuttle (35-45 minutes each way) left at 8am with the last leaving Darwin at Noon. At most 3 hours. Why bother? And the last bus was crammed to standing room only capacity. Real nice Viking. I know they build in extra time in case of delays due to weather, etc. but so far we could have been all the places we have been, including the two missed ports, with about a week less sea days. Just use the speed the ship is capable of. Again, not the fault of the wonderful onboard crew but if these things are important to you it bears consideration when choosing a cruise. If you are heading to Darwin and want some local color, good food and beer served by a very friendly staff, stop by the Hotel Darwin bar. Conveniently located across the street from the Darwin Hilton. They opened the kitchen early for us as we had to make the Noon bus and cooked some very tasty local food. We also made it to shopping in a walking only area as well as a super market for good old junk. Would stop in Darwin again for sure.:cool:

Disappointing day because of our very abbreviated time in Darwin. This should have been a great spot for our last taste of Oz.

Shortly after departing the dock in Darwin, the Captain announced we would be stopping for a medical emergency and that two passengers would be leaving us. The Pilot boat came back alongside and all I could see was what appeared to be a woman's feet sticking out from a white sheet looking cover on a litter on the aft deck of the Pilot boat. Also aboard was a male passenger, I would assume Husband or travel partner. Any one else with more info is encouraged to chip in. Always sad to witness such events. Best wishes for a good outcome for them.

This is a fascinating thread. My wife and I have never been on a world cruise but have been on a half dozen or so in the 14-to-17 day range, all on small to medium size ships (HAL, Oceania, Silversea). Even on cruises of that length, we've invariably encountered passengers who were so loud, obnoxious, and/or relentlessly stupid, and who always seemed to dominate the bars and other public places, that we'd have to expend a lot of effort to avoid them.

Is this an even bigger problem on a world cruise? You've mentioned one guy who probably fits my definition of an obnoxious, know-it-all boor, but from what you say he keeps mostly to himself. Is it possible he's the only one on a ship of 1,000 passengers? If not, how do you devise a 100+ day strategy to keep them out of your life?

Darwin, Northern Territories, our last port in OZ. First, a couple of complaints related to this port call. A trend that is not improving is that if there is another ship in port, they invariably get the city dock and we are relegated to the far out commercial port. I can understand it a bit as this is Viking's first foray into this part of the world and RCCL, P&O, Carnival, are all here year round or mostly and have done for years. They have the prime spots locked in over Viking. Not much V can do about it except schedule ports, if possible, when no others are in. The complaint I do not understand is why we spent the last 24+ hours plodding along at 10knots. We could have easily been in Darwin yesterday and spent some good time in this pleasant, interesting city. As is, the first shuttle (35-45 minutes each way) left at 8am with the last leaving Darwin at Noon. At most 3 hours. Why bother? And the last bus was crammed to standing room only capacity. Real nice Viking. I know they build in extra time in case of delays due to weather, etc. but so far we could have been all the places we have been, including the two missed ports, with about a week less sea days. Just use the speed the ship is capable of. Again, not the fault of the wonderful onboard crew but if these things are important to you it bears consideration when choosing a cruise. If you are heading to Darwin and want some local color, good food and beer served by a very friendly staff, stop by the Hotel Darwin bar. Conveniently located across the street from the Darwin Hilton. They opened the kitchen early for us as we had to make the Noon bus and cooked some very tasty local food. We also made it to shopping in a walking only area as well as a super market for good old junk. Would stop in Darwin again for sure.:cool:

I do find this a bit disturbing, especially since next year’s WC has some LONG sea intervals, and some rather short port days. Last year we took a tour of the bridge on Viking Sky and were told the ship could do, oh, I think they said about 15 knots, but we usually cruised at about 8. I wondered about that then. Do you think they have to go a certain speed so they arrive in port at a certain time when there is a berth for them? Jim, you are the maritime expert, so if you think this is weird, then it is. I wonder what the captain would have to say...