rmalbers

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%.

Ya, I got a taste of that on the drive from SJ to the Wyndam at PALMAS BEACH. We took the 'scenic' route, there was a horse in the road in one spot. I like how the beach was left natural there. Those mountains are rugged as some areas of Hawaii. How did they get everything in OSJ painted up so well, did they give everyone free paint or something?

After my last X cruise a year ago, I went on Viking Ocean and I don't think I'll be back on X. I come back here to see how it's going. I think what it boils down to is X is now just like RC without the kids and the stuff for kids to do, and smaller ships. I've said before that people that were not on X before covid will not know what it used to be like so they don't have the old experience to compare. Also, it is going to be interesting to see what happens to ports with more and more mega ships coming online. I'm glad I got to most of the places I wanted to cruise to, because I think things are going to continue to change, big time.

I think one of the more important parts of the decision is if there's a lot of tendering vs docking at ports. Not that some port stops can't have issues also, like very steep ramps. Anyway, the only thing I saw on the last VO cruise was a woman with a walker who should not have tried to tender and a very old guy in a wheel chair that took over ten minutes to get up a ramp at a pier. VO says right on their website that their small ships are not really designed for certain people, that's why scooters are 'supposedly' not allowed.

As far as excursions go, I really don't think you can go wrong, it's such a beautiful place. All the paid excursions we went on were great. I think how you enjoy a given excursion is going to be more dependent on the weather at the time, more than anything, and there is really nothing you can do about that, other than make sure you have the right outerwear and shoes, etc.

There was a ceremony in Sept when I did the cruise. It was fairly well attended, people were having fun. And we also got the certificates that looked like the ones in the previous post.

I was in OSJ a month ago and was pleasantly surprised how much better it was looking and fixed up than when we were there in 2013. So many more small restaurants and bars were open. I really want to go back and drive around the whole island next winter for several weeks.

On my last VO cruise they announced numbers for the excursions and it seemed like around 2/3 of the people took the included excursions, not sure if that is typical or not. I was sort of surprised by the numbers. It seems like they add to the included excursions if they 'sell out'.

That is a good point that I'm not sure has been brought up lately. There are even more megaships coming online each year from different brands that require a lot of crew. Maybe that is part of the problem. I still say that people's perception is a lot different between people that cruised X a lot before and after the 'changes'. and people that have only cruised during/after the changes.

From talking to crew members on Viking. I'm not saying they came from X, their backgrounds were from all brands of big cruise lines.

Wow, what a mess. You can bet that if there was an easy fix this problem would have been solved a lot time ago.

The staffing levels described in that youtube link posted sounds like what I saw in Feb. It was very noticeable. The thing is, if you had not sailed X a lot before you would not know or notice the difference. The workers that do want to make the cruise industry their career, migrate to the smaller ships like Viking, etc., over time. It is a much better working environment on the small ships, even though it is still long days and work, of course.