Opinions please on your most enjoyable Viking Ocean Cruise trips

[Ranger Mom]

LOVE this thread! Cruises are like my kids- I can't pick a favorite. I loved Mediterranean Odyssey because of the great ports and it was my first Viking cruise. Bermuda was special because it was a return to travel; Scenic Scandinavia was wonderful because there were so many places I hadn't been before and I traveled solo (thoroughly enjoyed that experience). My most recent, earlier this year, was the Athens to Istanbul. Lots of new ports, but eight days wasn't long enough on the ship.

[Fieldofdreams]

5 hours ago, geffric said:

the one we still talk about is Passage to India - it was the wonders of the world tour starting in Athens and ending at the Taj Mahal

Also loved Homelands with St Petersburg was an option, last one was British Isles..

Interesting about Passage to India. Have thought of a land package there but I believe a cruise makes more sense. Will look into it. Thanks for sharing. 

[Fieldofdreams]

16 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

Every single cruise we have done with Viking has been great -- even the disasters, and we have had a couple, had some saving grace -- and each one for a different reason. At this stage in our lives, we are really quite happy to unpack once and have our hotel take us from place to place while we sleep and they do our laundry.

 

Our very first Viking adventure was a river cruise in 2010 to China. It beat every single cruise we had done up to that point. Since then, we have done Dnieper River & Crimea, Lower Danube (Budapest to Bucharest), France's Finest, (B2B Rhone and Seine Rivers) and just this past January, we finally got to do the Nile --which I highly recommend if you have never been there before (this is one I could do again and maybe even again -- so much to see).

 

Our introduction to Viking Ocean was "Into the Midnight Sun" in 2016, the first season they sailed it.  Since then we have done 3 variations on Western Med cruises, the winter repositioning from Barcelona to London (Iberian Explorer) and two cruises under full Covid protocols (Iceland circumnavigation and the Mexican Riviera (did not like the itinerary but was so happy to be on the ship)).

 

We have future bookings for British Isles Explorer and Far Eastern Horizons. And still more places on our to-do list that we want to see.

 

Enjoy choosing your next cruises!

Thank you

[deec]

Easier to pick our least favorite although we did enjoy ourselves.  The Caribbean Amazon in its inaugural season...mostly our fault for not realizing this cruise was not going to get us up close and personal with the Amazon like the Peruvian  Amazon River Cruise did.

[nanabeth]

We've only done two ocean cruises in our life, both last year and both with Viking. The first was a January West Indies Cruise. Many passengers canceled the cruise at the last minute because of Covid fears so there were only 150 passengers and 450 staff! We were spoiled and we were hooked.

 

In August we did the Alaska and the Inside Passage. We loved it.

 

We have two more coming up. Counting the days until we board!

[Azulann]

My favorite was Scenic Scandinavia(June2023) starting in Stockholm and ending in Copenhagen. We arrived three days early to explore Stockholm and took the post extension in Copenhagen. I would go again but  they no longer offer this itinerary. First time exploring the Baltic region and now  I need to go to Norway and could repeat any Baltic ports again.

 

[Fieldofdreams]

4 hours ago, Mich3554 said:

I could not ever choose a favorite cruise, because I would do all of them over again!  We have done:

Atlantic crossing, Lisbon to Miami.  First cruise, we were hooked!  Wonderful, sunny sea days.  Introduced to the idea of a world cruise.  DH response ‘no bloody way!’  (Uh huh)

Trade Routes.  Almost a port every day.  We’d do it again.

South America.  OMG!  Utterly spectacular.  DH wanted to go back in the other direction!

<Covid hits, cruises get punted>

Finally get on a cruise ship again in Oct. 2021.  ‘No bloody way’ becomes ‘we need to take a longer cruise to make sure I don’t want to jump overboard on a world cruise’.  I piece together 3 cruises.

Med Antiquities (Athens to Barcelona), South Atlantic Crossing, and South America (we had the voucher, why not?).  54 days total.  Brazil wouldn’t let us in, Morocco and Senegal cancel.  We pick up Madeira and Cape Verde.  Argentina won’t let us dock for 14 days since we had been in Africa.  We had 9 consecutive sea days.  We are allowed to pick up passengers (finally) in Argentina.  No Falklands.  More sea days.  DH wants our cabin steward to hide us in the crew quarters, he doesn’t want to get off after 54 days.  
Grand European river cruise.  Wanted to check out this.  Have another scheduled next year.

World Cruise.  Scheduled when I caught DH at a weak moment during Covid restrictions.  We started in FL, and tacked on British Isles, Norway and Arctic and Iceland to NYC, so a total of 178 days.  Again, DH wanted to stay on longer.  I had 2 days of BP meds left when we got to NYC!  We tacked on Iceland to NYC while on the cruise.  
<we have 5 cruises booked, 1 a river cruise for 2024-25>
 

I would repeat any of these! 

Wow ! Too funny... "No Bloody Way"... Looks like you guys are having a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing

[Hazel52]

We’ve done 8 ocean so far and would happily repeat any of them. But…. I think the Greek Odyssey with a 4 day pre extension in Athens really stands out for me. Just spectacular! A total immersion in their history. 

[Fieldofdreams]

1 hour ago, Hazel52 said:

We’ve done 8 ocean so far and would happily repeat any of them. But…. I think the Greek Odyssey with a 4 day pre extension in Athens really stands out for me. Just spectacular! A total immersion in their history. 

Thank you for sharing

[gbldcl]

20 hours ago, deec said:

Easier to pick our least favorite although we did enjoy ourselves.  The Caribbean Amazon in its inaugural season...mostly our fault for not realizing this cruise was not going to get us up close and personal with the Amazon like the Peruvian  Amazon River Cruise did.

Agreed. Least favorite.

[Twitchly]

Trade Routes covers a lot of ground going up the west coast of Europe. We’d love to do that one again.

[Fieldofdreams]

55 minutes ago, Twitchly said:

Trade Routes covers a lot of ground going up the west coast of Europe. We’d love to do that one again.

Thank you

[SoDakPirate]

We will be doing trade routes next May and looking forward to it even though we have been to many of the ports. A little disappointed that the stops in Porto and Bruges are only 6-8 hours. Ironic how many people’s favorite (into the midnight Sun) was our least favorite of our 4 previous cruises. 

[Haqdeluxe]

28 minutes ago, SoDakPirate said:

We will be doing trade routes next May and looking forward to it even though we have been to many of the ports. A little disappointed that the stops in Porto and Bruges are only 6-8 hours. Ironic how many people’s favorite (into the midnight Sun) was our least favorite of our 4 previous cruises. 

Any particular reason why Midnight Sun is your least favorite? 

You did open the door. 😄

[SoDakPirate]

I did not enjoy some of the ports: Orkney and Shetland Islands and Olden where the optional tour to the Kjenndal Glacier was mostly spent in traffic on a small road where cars and busses constantly had to back up to let vehicles pass. Once you got to the glacier it was nothing.  I may be nit-picking but the message I was trying to convey is that each of our experiences are so very subjective.

[Myrtle Ave. Mayhem]

My favorite itinerary are the two week Trans-Atlantic crossings. Have sailed three w/ Viking & a fourth coming up in March. The ship becomes the destination & what a GLORIOUS destination Viking Ocean ships are. I'm besotted with the entire shipboard experience & how Viking has created a unique atmosphere aboard. The port-a'-day intensive itineraries have me exhausted just thinking about them. Not my idea of a relaxing vacation. 

 

My favorite Viking experience overall was my summer of 2021 Viking Orion Bermuda season. I was aboard two back-to-back, June/July then again when Viking opened up more dates for September & WAIVED the single supplement! Let it be said that Viking & Bermuda are the perfect match of cruise line & destination. The fine tuned on point attention to detail with all hotel related aspects was the best I've experienced in over 30 years of cruising. To have crew remember individual preferences & the level of catering & coddling was practically a spiritual experience. Talk about gratitude for the wonderful crew! As one example Executive Chef Gary would canvas the different restaurants each night stopping by to chat, get feedback from nearly everyone, & ask for recommendations & requests. Hotel General Manager Wendy clearly had her heart on her sleeve & felt like the ships Momma! I almost got the impression that I owned the ship, but the truth is that everyone was treated in the like.

Edited August 18, 2023 by Myrtle Ave. Mayhem

[gradydude]

I vote for “Into the midnight sun.”.  Loved northern Norway, Tromso and the Lofoten Islands. So beautiful. The rings of Brodnar and the cathedral in Orkney were outstanding.  Shetland island had those cute ponies and some military history as well as the Vikings.   We went falconing in Edinburgh.  And what was really convenient is the ship sailed up the Thames and spent the night before departure overlooking London. You are right at the Cutty Sark and the Maritime museum.  The transfer was smooth. 

[Haqdeluxe]

19 hours ago, SoDakPirate said:

I did not enjoy some of the ports: Orkney and Shetland Islands and Olden where the optional tour to the Kjenndal Glacier was mostly spent in traffic on a small road where cars and busses constantly had to back up to let vehicles pass. Once you got to the glacier it was nothing.  I may be nit-picking but the message I was trying to convey is that each of our experiences are so very subjective.

Yes, Orkney and Shetland are now being visited beyond their capacity. Orkney is currently considering placing limits on their port calls. I understand they've endured days where 7000+ visitors have been in port at the same time. I suspect the biggest reason behind your troubles at Kjenndal Glacier was too many visitors in one place. 

[JollyJacqTar]

We’ve only done 3 with Viking. The Mediterranean/Adriatic ones mostly don’t appeal because, living in the U.K., it’s been easy for us to visit many of the destinations independently over the years. That being said I would say my favourite was a 7 day Welcome back cruise, starting and finishing in Malta and visiting a number of Croatian towns which were just lovely. 

[tobique33040]

4 hours ago, Haqdeluxe said:

Yes, Orkney and Shetland are now being visited beyond their capacity. Orkney is currently considering placing limits on their port calls. I understand they've endured days where 7000+ visitors have been in port at the same time. I suspect the biggest reason behind your troubles at Kjenndal Glacier was too many visitors in one place. 

 

[tobique33040]

Just now, tobique33040 said:

 

We loved into the midnight sun. Scandinavia is our favorite place so that was part of it. Orkney and Shetland were not at all crowded last July when we stopped there. And in fact, other than Bergen, it didn’t seem like there were TOO many tourists. Even in Bergen it wasn’t crazy. We took the train to Oslo after the cruise and it was very busy. But the weather was warm and it was mid summer so the locals were enjoying the time of year. I went solo on the Iceland circumnavigation. It was super. I’d do any of the Viking cruises again, as well as the river ones. 

[gradydude]

I find it interesting about the different experience for the same cruises.  In Orkney we hired a private driver.  We were ahead of the crowds. When we were leaving the rings of Brodnar the busses were just arriving. The perpetual twilight was really a mood setter. And yes the glacier was really crowded. I forgot about  that wasted bus ride and the waits for the restroom when we got to the glacier,  In Orkney the tender was really far away.  But you forget the inconvenient moments for the  overall great ones.  I never met an employee who wasn't pleasant and accommodating making  the onboard experience exceptional. 

[slewis7]

I love this thread!

 

How good a cruise experience is will be very subjective and highly variable, but our very favorite itineraries on Viking so far are In Search of the Northern Lights and (very recently) Into the Midnight Sun.

[Fieldofdreams]

2 hours ago, slewis7 said:

I love this thread!

 

How good a cruise experience is will be very subjective and highly variable, but our very favorite itineraries on Viking so far are In Search of the Northern Lights and (very recently) Into the Midnight Sun.

 

2 hours ago, slewis7 said:

I love this thread!

 

How good a cruise experience is will be very subjective and highly variable, but our very favorite itineraries on Viking so far are In Search of the Northern Lights and (very recently) Into the Midnight Sun.

Thank you, seems like Into the Midnight Sun is a popular one. Thanks for sharing

[janetcbl]

1 hour ago, Fieldofdreams said:

 

Thank you, seems like Into the Midnight Sun is a popular one. Thanks for sharing

slewis7:

 

In 2022 Viking combined these two into one cruise, “Into the Midnight Sun &The Baltics” ( or something like that)….It was the “perfect” cruise, IMO, including the crew, the weather (no rain) and no missed ports.