rmalbers

I liked the Saga Museum but it might not be for everyone. The 'people' in there are so lifelike it is scary, and the history in there covers a lot of the 'major events' from early life there. The National Museum is great also, as you would expect. You can walk to either from the main downtown area. Oh, the Maritime Museum was not my thing, it was mostly about the commercial fishing industry history.

I've been interested in that also. There is a youtube channel that is going to do that trip this season, in their own sailboat. It might be interesting to watch to get more of a idea of that part of the world, from the water. It's called: Alluring Arctic Sailing.

LOL, ya, it's one of those things you don't want to find out the hard way!

I noticed the coin comment, depending on where you are at in Europe you may need some 'coin' for a bathroom, just saying.

SPA marketing is just amazing, and I guess I better not say more.

OP: I think what you are seeing with those other cruise line prices, in those areas of the world, is that those areas of the world are not VO's main focus. I think you have the analysis figured out. You can't go wrong with any of those lines. Seems like you have found some nice pricing with other lines so just go for it. If they are too pricey go with Celebrity, but not their newest E class ships (if they sail them there).

I just don't get why this topic comes up in every cruise forum ALL THE TIME. It's very simple math, unless you ask a bunch of strangers to do the math for you.

My guess is it's a mistake, but I didn't take it all the way thru. That itinerary is not for me really even at that price, but if it's for you jump on it.

It seems like the Constellation trip would be more older sites that the other cruise, it that is what is interesting to you. I'm thinking you should look at the excursions offered and see which trip look better to you based on that. It's hard for strangers to tell what your interests are.

Ya, it was unlucky, but I got over it. It might have been because it was an 'end of season' type of thing from NYC to Iceland at the end of Aug, maybe. They didn't really run out on the cruise, they didn't have any from even the start of the cruise, day 1. (And by Carlsberg, I mean that 'family' of beers they produce.)

The beer selection is limited, it's all (or mostly all) Carlsberg products. They were out of a couple of the more expensive beers so I'm not sure about them. Having said that, I got by with no problems, lol. I finished most nights with the porter they had, which was very good. Oh, they had Brooklyn Lager also, not sure if that's a regular beer they have or not (it was a cruise out of NYC).

The things that come to mind for me are not the age thing. It more about pricing, there are so many ships that do that cruise that you really have a lot of options, like you could get into a large suite on some lines for the price of VO. One advantage to VO is with tendering, it's a lot better on their small ships. Having said that I'm not sure I would spend VO prices to go to those ports, there are just so many less expensive options and you are on shore for a lot of time.

I think on the last cruise I watched all the port talks and a lot of the other lectures on the tv in my cabin. It's really great that they do that, just so convenient.

One thing to remember is that just because it's on a list, doesn't mean it will be available at the bar you are at (or in some cases, on the ship), you have to be flexible.

Iceland is one of those places where the balcony, excursions, basically anything outdoors, is going to be more dependent on the weather at the time than anything, and there's nothing you can do about it except have the right gear with you. As far as views, most ports are up a fiord? of some size/type so the views are good anywhere on the ship.

It's sort of sounding like a lot of the food in Luminae is the same as what they have in the MDR these days. It used to be they had upscale beef, etc in Luminae, better quality stuff, than the MDR. I like the duck also, I've often wondered where all the duck meat comes from because they serve a ton of it, literally.

I think all the VO ships were converted to Starlink around a year ago. I counted, I think it was eight, Starlink antennas on one of the VO ships. Starlink worked better than the satellite TV service they use on VO Saturn when near the arctic circle that's for sure.

I used an Airalo, data-only, e-SIM on my Samsung (Android) s21u last trip and it worked great for maps, etc., data stuff. As mentioned in this thread, apple imessage is not a 'standard text' message and thus you can't 'apple text' to a non-apple user on a data only plan. With a Samsung multi SIM android phone you select in the settings what SIM or e-SIM to use for data or text or voice calls, so you have full flexibility. With a data only e-SIM I did run into the problem someone mentioned, while trying to buy excursion tickets, post cruise, they wanted to send a text to verify stuff with no other option. I was unable to buy tickets because of this. I've decided the way to go is just get Airalo's voice and data e-Sim next time, it's really not much more money and solves the only issues I had. Also, I was surprised how little data I actually used on the 15 day cruise on the e-SIM. I only used it when near port and on land though.

Yes, I think that is the general VO criteria for chair use on VO. I'm not sure how a few people on the last cruise I was on got 'approved' based on that.

OP you do really want to get a firm answer on this one, my take is that the VO ships are not really the way to go for people in a chair, these ships are small. Any tendering is going to be a problem, I witnessed that first hand. I do think that the bathroom will be a problem with non accessible rooms for sure. Anyway, I think there are better cruise ships out there, these are small ships.

The Explorer's bar was open before 10:00am on the VO cruise I was on in Sept. Actually I think it opened at the same time as the waffle place near it. I was there a lot!

Does VO always tender at the Greenwich port or is there a pier that they can sometimes use? How long of a tender ride is it?

We have done a lot of X cruises and did this VO cruise last summer (end of summer). The differences are more due to the size of ship than anything. Less lines to no lines, getting on off the ship, etc. Tendering is easier, stuff like that. They do a similar thing to X with respect to tendering and excursions, you meet at the theater and they announce your group, you're guided to the tender, that type of thing. The downside with small ships is the nightly entertainment, stuff like that. One thing about VO that I don't see mentioned much is the retractable roof over the center pool area, that makes that area very usable even when the weather isn't nice. They (supposedly) don't allow scooters and people in wheel chairs are supposed to have their own helper so there is not as much of that on VO as there is on X. Anyway, the only real downside to VO is the cost and once you've been on VO you can kind of see why it costs more. I really like the small ships, it's so easy to get around the ship and you really don't even need to use the elevators. There is also the self serve laundry on almost every deck.

if they run a kids sail free campaign that can make a little difference. I ran into two honeymooning couples on my last X cruise, first time for that, I was shocked.

On this topic add Fidelity Investment's to the list, they basically pay, very close to the 1 mth zero coupon treasury rate, right now their savings account pays 5.3%.