BluebonnetTexan

I don’t know for sure, but we got the impression it was a required stop by the Turkish government for cruise ship tours!

I concur with @OneSixtyToOne. We weren’t on Viking, but went to the same coop. The tour of the factory and learning about the process was very interesting. We weren’t planning to buy either until we walked into the showroom demo and I saw all the rolled up rugs and as they were unrolling them I pointed to one further down and told my husband, “I just want to see that one”. When they finally got to it, I wished I hadn’t seen it! It was that amazing blue silk rug in the center of your picture. We were going to walk out and friends we were with told us that this really was one of the best places to get rugs and they were about to be repeat customers. So, we asked the price…as I crunched the numbers in my head and considered which credit card to put it on and how much did I really like it, they kept dropping the price. It got down to a number we couldn’t turn down given that things like this don’t normally get my attention like this rug did. It was delivered in the time frame they specified and looks great in our living room! I get to enjoy it every day and have no buyer’s remorse.

@May B Glad to hear it! I suspect that when people called in and found out they couldn’t get the 6-month out payment that they could get any other time with a cruise already booked, then they weren’t booking with this promo. Thus, agents were told to start allowing it. We won’t book anymore unless we can get the 6-month final payment or we are booking something sailing in less than 6 months.

@May B Yes, it does, but we called Viking this week and booked using FV424 and requested the 6 month out final payment for an Oct 25 cruise and got it. It never hurts to ask when you have another cruise already booked.

@mwike Good point! Makes planning a separate trip even more likely!

@Peregrina651 We plan to do our own pre and post in Bucharest and Prague - pending how many days we can add when it comes time to commit with Bucharest as the priority as we don't expect to be back anywhere near there again. We've also looked at just doing a Prague focused trip maybe combined with Berlin. Right now due to family commitments, we can't plan lengthy trips.

Budapest is one of my favorites. I first went there on a business trip in 2015, I think, and determined that it was a place I wanted to bring my husband to visit also. We did the Grand European Viking River cruise starting in Budapest with their extension as our retirement trip in 2017. Along with colleagues showing us the town, we also enjoyed the Viking excursions and recommendations they made. We will be there again when we do Passage to Eastern Europe in 2025 and plan to spend extra days in Bucharest, Budapest, and add Prague if we can.

You might be surprised to find additional lurkers who would want to participate in the M&M if someone volunteers to organize it and collect the info. For our roll call last year I had a few people contact me to signup via the email I provided with their info who hadn’t been actively participating in the roll call, but were following it.

I know it was mentioned above that AVS24 was still available, but thought I'd post the current details I got in an email today for select May/June 2024 sailings: Offer AVS24: Offer valid on bookings made from Feb 13 to Feb 29, 2024. FREE international airfare, up to $1,000 in shipboard credit per couple & special fares valid on select May & Jun 2024 departures of Viking Homelands; May 25 & 27, 2024 departures of Iceland & Norway's Arctic Explorer; select Jun departures of Iconic Iceland, Greenland & Canada; select May & Jun 2024 departures of Into the Midnight Sun; Apr 5 & May 1, 2024 departures of British Isles Explorer. $500 Shipboard credit per person if booking a PV, PS, ES or OS category stateroom; $200 Shipboard credit per person if booking a V or DV category stateroom. Call for details. Prices are in US dollars and for US residents only. Air does not have to be purchased to get cruise/tour offer. All fares reflect cruise taxes, port taxes and fees. Additional restrictions may apply. Airfares vary on other itineraries, gateways and departures. Air offers not valid on Alaska, Hawaii, San Juan and Mexico City; call for details. Book by Feb 29, 2024. Pay in full by at time of booking. Offer may be withdrawn at any time without prior notice. Offer expires Feb 29, 2024.

I wondered if you might be a fellow Bear when I responded to your earlier post! It’ll be easier for you to root for both teams once OU is in the SEC! Sic ‘Em! To answer your current question, we have not traveled with Celebrity. However, there are quite a few threads, I think, on both the Celebrity and Viking boards comparing the two. For us, we aren’t ardent cruisers. It has been about the itineraries allowing us to get either overviews of places we might like to return for more in depth travel later (river cruises, Mediterranean) or seeing places we couldn’t easily without a cruise ship (Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Baltic) in a reasonable timeframe. As for Viking, we love the no kids, no casinos, no photographers, and low-key atmosphere. The service has always been fabulous from room stewards to the top officers. The IGC itinerary is challenging due to the geography, number of tender ports, and potential for bad weather. We had never been to any of the locations on the itinerary and decided to roll the dice and roll with whatever itinerary changes occurred and enjoy the trip! You won’t know if Viking is the right fit for you until you try it. Hopefully you’ll pick up some useful information from my blog of our trip and from others who have posted here about that route and Viking in general.

We were on the NYC-Reykjavik direction leaving Aug 30, and were able to do both Greenland ports, then sailed thru PC Sound in the afternoon/evening on the way to Iceland. It was beautiful and somewhat dangerous given all the growlers and icebergs still around in September. I don’t think the earlier summer sailings were able to do this stretch.

We also docked there in September on Saturn.

No Reykjavik excursions because that is the changeover port for the B2B you are actually on. My understanding is that Viking will provide some options for those continuing to NYC during the cruise for Reykjavik. You might check the rolls calls from last year for timing. If I were you, I’d book a third party small tour Golden Circle or South Coast tour depending on time in port and not wait on Viking to book. We did the NYC to Reykjavik leg last year and stayed extra days in Reykjavik after disembarking.

We were on the last sailing of the Iconic Greenland, Iceland, and Canada in 2023. It was too late in the season for any excursions with the puffins (e.g. Vigur Island). This cruise hits the same ports as Iceland's Beauty. We did the following: Akureryi - Lake Myvatn with Imagine Iceland (less expensive and smaller group than Viking's similar) ĺsafjördur - Dynjandi Waterfall with Arctic Shore Ex (ditto price and and group-size) Seydisfjördur - booked Skalanes Nature Center with Viking, but had a snow day - no one could get through the pass. We enjoyed our cold walk around the cute little town though. Djúpivogur - FJALLSÁRLÓN ICE LAGOON BY ZODIAC with Viking - it is a long bus ride, but beautiful scenery and amazing experience. Highly recommend. Heimaey - Heimaey on Foot (Viking included tour) - we had an excellent guide. It was one of our favorite tours of the entire trip. I blogged about our trip at: http://notesbynancy.com Whatever you chose - the scenery in all of Iceland is amazing! Enjoy the planning and the journey! Nancy

And we had first snow of the season when we reached Seydisfjordur on our Aug 31 sailing from NYC to Reykjavik. The mountain pass required to navigate for all excursions (Viking and 3rd party) had to be cancelled because the busses couldn’t get thru. We had a nice walk around town in the sleet, snack and coffee in a cafe, and back to the ship that day. You just never know with the weather.