Viking Star 2015 Cruisers List

[Vineyard View]

My husband and I will board Viking Star in Barcelona on May 2nd for 29 days up to Stockholm! Pretty excited - to say the least! We cruised on the Viking Skadi from Amsterdam to Budapest and absolutely loved the experience. We schedule our air separately - if you want flexibility and prefer to upgrade, you are better off to book aside from Viking - this and the non-inclusive tipping are the only two things that I don't love about Viking. That said, all else is super impressive about the company and their employees! We are out of Northern California and our TA will make our payment in full in the next couple of days.

[feedingfrenzy]

The keel for the Viking Star was laid on December 18 at the Fincantieri's Marghera shipyard outside Venice, Italy. The laying of the keel is a formal ceremony marking recognition of the start of a ship's construction. Here is a link to one of the various news sources reporting the event:

 

http://www.traveldailynews.com/news/article/58260/viking-cruises-announces-major-milestone#sthash.21lX2Tlw.dpuf

 

 

As you may have heard, steel was first cut for the ship last June. The laying of the keel is the next major step in its progress toward completion. According to Wikipedia "The event recognized as the keel laying is the first joining of modular components, or the lowering of the first module into place in the building dock. It is now often called "keel authentication", and is the ceremonial beginning of the ship's life, even though fabrication of the modules may have begun months before."

[Jtm1979]

(Viking KEEL update :o)

 

Thanks for sharing the update............getting excited even though we have more than a year to wait !

 

 

1987 NCL M/S Skyward

1988 RC Sovereign of the Seas

2004 Carnival

2006 Celebrity Infinity

2007/2009 Celebrity Constellation

2012/2013 Celebrity Equinox

Mar 02,2014 Celebrity Silhouette

Sept 14,2015 Viking Star

Edited January 3, 2014 by Jtm1979

[captainmcd]

Feedingfrenzy, Thanks for this link and the good news. I wish that Viking Oceans was better at letting its followers in on the progress, now that we have paid for our 2015 cruises. I wonder if all the passengers who booked were willing and able to pay for a cruise that is over a year away.

 

 

 

The keel for the Viking Star was laid on December 18 at the Fincantieri's Marghera shipyard outside Venice, Italy. The laying of the keel is a formal ceremony marking recognition of the start of a ship's construction. Here is a link to one of the various news sources reporting the event:

 

http://www.traveldailynews.com/news/article/58260/viking-cruises-announces-major-milestone#sthash.21lX2Tlw.dpuf

 

 

As you may have heard, steel was first cut for the ship last June. The laying of the keel is the next major step in its progress toward completion. According to Wikipedia "The event recognized as the keel laying is the first joining of modular components, or the lowering of the first module into place in the building dock. It is now often called "keel authentication", and is the ceremonial beginning of the ship's life, even though fabrication of the modules may have begun months before."

[Bear_Music]

I still keep having this awful feeling, because of all the mention of a "May" introduction to service, that those of us on the April 11 Maiden leg will find ourselves without a cruise. I'd feel a lot better if they kept us updated. I suppose we could hope for a cabin upgrade if we got bumped, anyway :-)

[rjscott]

I still keep having this awful feeling, because of all the mention of a "May" introduction to service, that those of us on the April 11 Maiden leg will find ourselves without a cruise. I'd feel a lot better if they kept us updated. I suppose we could hope for a cabin upgrade if we got bumped, anyway :-)

 

I'm thinking we'd be w/o a cruise rather than a bump if our cruise is a no-go. The cruises that follow are likely to all be booked as well. I'm sure going to want some assurance b/f I book airfare.

[kathy9]

Hi all, like my TA said....we bought a good travel insurance policy. The Viking airfare is refundable, I believe, until 90 days prior to the cruise. We need to all be optimistic about the build . Though it would be nice to hear from Viking Oceans now and then. Happy New Year!

[rjscott]

Kathy,

I am optimistic, and have been since first learning of this ship at the launch event in Beverly Hills. We were very excited to see the plans and model of the ship and hear Tor speak, with enthusiasm, of his vision for the ship and the itineraries it would travel. Like you and others tho', I think as Maiden Voyagers, we could be given the courtesy of periodic updates on the progress of the ship. With those updates, not only would that keep any anxiety about the timeliness of a new build at bay, but rather continue to build our excitement at being part of Viking Ocean's Maiden sailing.

 

Becki

[gary705]

My wife and I are on the second and third sailing in 2105' out of venice and out of barcelona, looking forward to 28 days on a new ship. We also signed up for the three day tour to Iceland after the Bergen stop.

 

Looking forward to meeting all of you on board,

 

Gary and Sue Epstein

Denver, colorado

[bcorre2]

Tusen takk, thank you Viking Star!

 

http://www.vikingcruises.com/oceans/video/ship.html?refsrcprg=email&contid=2824185595&segment=PAX&ep_mid=10872733&ep_rid=1793445087

[DCguys]

My partner and I have signed up for the June 13 2015 Viking Homelands itinerary. This will be our first time in the region and we're excited about a step up from our past Celebrity cruises to a more luxury level experience. The ship looks so great in the renderings - I'm impatient to see photos of the real thing.

 

Al (and John)

Cambridge MA :)

[id4elizabeth]

Did everyone who's on the maiden cruise get their coin today? Hope this means they are on schedule!

[sitraveler]

What coin??

[Bear_Music]

What coin? No idea what this means.

[rjscott]

I got the email about the coin, but have not received it yet.

 

 

There was an email sent to those on the "maiden" voyage, which apparently means the first sailing of the Viking Star, Istanbul to Venice. It referenced the casting of a coin, similar to the one that is always put of the keel of a new ship, for these passengers and said those coins would be in the mail soon.

 

Becki

[sitraveler]

Didn't get the e-mail

[kathy9]

We recieved our coin today. We are really looking forward to sailing on the Star in April 2015!

[BC Eddie]

We have been booked on a September, 2015 sailing of the Viking Star since last June and we have paid in full back in December. However we did not receive the email about the coin. So I contacted Viking and asked who was going to receive it and this was their reply.

 

"The limited coin is being created for customers who booked and paid for their reservation in full by December 31, 2013. We make(sic) decide to produce another coin that will be sold on the ship, however we have no details on that."

 

In a follow-up mail they told me we would be receiving the coin. I was told the reason we did not get the email notice was because they did not have our email address on file.

[Fairfield Nana]

We just booked the "Viking Homeland" itinerary for July 2016 and will have to make full payment NLT 31 May 2014--more than 2 years ahead of the cruise!! Needless to say we also purchased a trip insurance policy. Our first experience with Viking so hope it is good. This itinerary is what sold us as the Baltic is on our bucket list and this cruise has a lot of neat ports to visit. We made a slight mistake of booking this through a travel agent who has done well by us in the past and is a great guy--but we have been frozen out by Viking who told me all future correspondence, questions, booking of shore excursions, reservations, etc. have to be through our TA--they won't communicate with us! Strange-- haven't had this problem when we used the same TA on recent bookings with Uniworld and Oceania.

[Vineyard View]

You will have until 120 days prior to get a full refund minus $100/per without any travel insurance - so depending on your personal situation, this allows you to delay paying travel insurance.

We loved our river cruise with them, so we have high hopes that Oceans will be a great experience! If you engage a TA they do work through them rather than you directly. Not sure why, but when we needed expedited documents for an early departure, it was great to have our TA handle the process for us.

[RHODYTRANSPLANT]

Hi Everyone -

 

We're Ray & Joyce from Ocala, FL and we are looking forward to sailing on the Viking Star and meeting with our fellow travelers. Like everyone else, we were shocked that we needed to pay in full so far in advance. This ship sure does look like it's going to be beautiful and the itinerary is incredible. Most of the ports will be new for us but we have been to London & Paris and we are looking forward to revisiting those two wonderful cities again. It appears that the included tours are walking tours. We would be interested in joining with other travelers on guided tours of different ports. We have done this previously and getting 8 to 10 people together and doing private tours is a wonderful way to see things so let's think about it and touch base closer to sailing time.

 

Joyce

[kathy9]

We're Ray & Joyce from Ocala, FL and we are looking forward to sailing on the Viking Star and meeting with our fellow travelers. Like everyone else, we were shocked that we needed to pay in full so far in advance. This ship sure does look like it's going to be beautiful and the itinerary is incredible. Most of the ports will be new for us but we have been to London & Paris and we are looking forward to revisiting those two wonderful cities again. It appears that the included tours are walking tours. We would be interested in joining with other travelers on guided tours of different ports. We have done this previously and getting 8 to 10 people together and doing private tours is a wonderful way to see things so let's think about it and touch base closer to sailing time.

 

Hi Joyce, Look under the "other roll calls " section of CC . There are several roll call for various Star sailings. It is so much better to go on private excursions.

Kathy

[loum140]

We received our commemorative coin today.

 

As usual, Viking once again proves that it is a "class act". From our very first cruise with them in 2002 we have always felt that they appreciated our patronage and that we were valued.

 

Love the TV advertising on PBS.....it just reinforces why we choose to sail with Viking and why we booked so far in advance on a ship that was yet to be built.

[Jtm1979]

We're booked for the Sept 14, 2015 cruise and received our coin today........a nice gesture........

[writer100]

Added 6 new cruisers: JJean, Emmasoma, sitraveler, svnseas, Ottawa traveler, kathy9. A couple of them are from the roll calls under other lines. This brings the total to 32.

 

Please add Esther and Michael--05/02/15. Barcelona to Bergen--to your roll call. And thank you.