Booked on the Viking Sea

Since I first heard about Viking entering the ocean cruise business I have been following them off and on. Yesterday I finally bit the bullet and booked on the Viking Sea for their April, 2016 Western Europe Passage.

I have read all the posts detailing the frustrations that folks are experiencing with the lack of communication from corporate and that does concern me. However, I don't have to make final payment until June so that will give me time to read the reviews on the first few voyages.

If they do deliver on the product they are promising my husband and I will have found our new cruise line. If not we will keep searching. We love small ships and have been on Seabourn, Regent and Princess's Pacific and Ocean which they are selling off. Have not tried Oceania or Azamara as yet and Silversea and Crystal are just not our style.

My question is do you know when Viking Sea has their maiden voyage scheduled?

Nan

Looks like April 3rd, 2016, beginning in Istanbul and ending up in Stockholm (50 days) just like Star this year. That, of course, is broken down into 4 (or is it 5?) segments. We're on the first two legs this year with Star, which gets us to Barcelona...

Since I first heard about Viking entering the ocean cruise business I have been following them off and on. Yesterday I finally bit the bullet and booked on the Viking Sea for their April, 2016 Western Europe Passage.

 

I have read all the posts detailing the frustrations that folks are experiencing with the lack of communication from corporate and that does concern me. However, I don't have to make final payment until June so that will give me time to read the reviews on the first few voyages.

 

If they do deliver on the product they are promising my husband and I will have found our new cruise line. If not we will keep searching. We love small ships and have been on Seabourn, Regent and Princess's Pacific and Ocean which they are selling off. Have not tried Oceania or Azamara as yet and Silversea and Crystal are just not our style.

 

My question is do you know when Viking Sea has their maiden voyage scheduled?

 

Nan

Congratulations on booking your cruise! We booked back in 2013 when the announcement was made that the were building the new Viking Star. We initially booked the maiden voyage for April, but changed it to a later date in September. Since this will be your first Viking cruise you can get a Viking referral of $100 per person. Email me for further details. My email address is below.

We are very interested with Viking Ocean cruise next May doing the Mediterranean Cruise. We very much love HAL cruises and have done 8 so far. Did a 24 day Barcelona to Venice on the Nieuw Amsterdam had a great verandah loved it all.

We want to try doing the cruise again with Viking. Price wise we feel we will receive a better price and are looking at the Jr. Pethouse I believe where you get all the perks. With our cruise, excursions, all the wine and liquor pkgs. the cruise still was a lot. Still we stayed a week prior in Barcelona and a month after in Italy and France. With our Mariner status we receive 25% off wine pkgs, and specialty restaurants. Still Viking is better with price. Have a lot of HAL cruisers who are waiting for reviews and are like us wanting to do a change.

Sailing B2B Western/Eastern Caribbean Cruise 3/15/2015 Nieuw Amsterdam

Becoming 4STAR MARINERS on this cruise

Nan....yes we are looking forward to the april bunch sailing on Vikings maiden voyage. Want to really see the reviews!

Like you we have done HAL and Princess small ships. Azamara was good with a rating of 7 from 1 to 10 and Crystal was a 12 from 1 to 10! Crystal is by far the best of the best!

Booking blindly with Viking for January 2016 was a leap of faith! Hope to not be disappointed!;)

We were on HAL just this past Oct three weeks, Neptune suite. We loved the huge amount of space, balcony, crew, perks, etc. MDR food was okay....sometimes a little better than that but we mostly ate in specialty or room service because of that. A real big struggle was all the smoking. Until that changes, we most likely won't sail HAL again - couldn't enjoy the outdoor adult pool area and had to go inside from your balcony too often because of the smoke. I don't care if people smoke, but I want to enjoy my personal space without it. And then there is the wine list - it is really bad on HAL - so we brought our own on board and paid $18/btl corkage fee.

With Viking, smoking is allowed, but only in designated area and not on balconies. Food will be at a much, much higher level. Specialty restaurants are not an extra cost, you don't have to be in a suite for a king bed, no corkage fee and no charge for wines and beer during meals. No charge for water or sodas. For me, that all just adds up to a better experience.

That is what I am counting on - and I think has some truth to most of us - you can be sure we will sing praises for Viking if this all comes together as they are promoting and we are looking for.

We are on the cruise before yours ending in Barcelona, waiting patiently for a Roll Call thread! How I wish we could continue.

dancermom - Just start one! :p