Berlin Bear

Really happy to have some feedback - many thanks for sharing your experience. I guess there are very few of us in this position because of the fact that Viking doesn’t market its products in mainland Europe. Similar situation to you - I have dual British/German citizenship:(thanks to Brexit), my husband is German and we pay Viking from my UK bank account.

We really enjoyed our Viking cruise in 2018 - loved the ship and the food and met some very pleasant and interesting people. All in all, a very positive experience. However, we only met one other couple from mainland Europe - a British man with his Polish wife who lived in Spain. He had also booked with Viking UK. So, overall, a homogenous group of English speaking passengers with similar tastes and needs. I’m wondering whether broadening the passenger base to include other Europeans would lead to increased costs for the cruise line as they may have to cater for different tastes and needs. Building (near) identical ships for a fairly narrow passenger base (compared to international cruise lines) most probably has its advantages in this respect.

So, yes, I think Viking is not really interested in gaining a mixed European clientele and our lack of access to Viking UK is probably one of many unintended consequences of Brexit. Still, it was very unprofessional of the company not to reply to my various queries which I mentioned in my first post.

1 hour ago, Mike981 said:

I'm sorry you are having these issues. You shouldn't have to work hard to get information from a business. I have not signed up for any emails from Viking, if I did I would forward you mine.

Thanks for your feedback and kind words. I will have a serious word 😉 with the person responsible for future cruise sales when I’m next on board. We have a cruise booked for March 2022 (Buenos Aires to Barcelona) - not sure whether this will actually take place, of course.

4 minutes ago, Mike981 said:

 

Is it possible that it is going to your spam filter, or being automatically deleted?

I frequent the Celebrity forum and they have the same issues over there with emails. Some can't get them to stop and others can't get them to start. I wonder if it is a third party software that is the issue. Not promoting your business to people that are asking for your sales pitch and on the other hand you are spending millions in advertising to get people interested?  

You may be right, but I look at my spam folder regularly and nothing from Viking has landed there. Mails could be automatically deleted of course, but then I do receive messages from Viking UK regarding my bookings. When I booked the first Viking cruise by telephone in 2018, the UK agent speculated that the problem might be caused by me having a German email address and Viking doesn’t market, or indeed sell, their cruises in mainland Europe. Despite the founder/owner being a Norwegian!

Really enjoying your Reisebericht! We haven’t managed a Celebrity cruise for a little while now - had to cancel 2 cruises in 2019 for health reasons and Celebrity cancelled our 2020 Australia/NZ cruise for the obvious reasons. But we have managed 4 cruises with Mein Schiff over the past year, including the Greek trip you wrote so well about last September/October. I was cruising and reading at the same time 😄. Carry on having a good time!

And I have the opposite problem 😅. I’ve registered no end of times (Website and UK Agent) that I would like to receive information and promotional material. Result - not one single email or brochure. I even did a live chat via the Viking website recently (about 10 days ago) regarding a specific river cruise and the person at the other end promised to send me the relevant information. Result - absolutely nothing. So I feel very neglected!

10 minutes ago, amyr said:

This is already happening.  I think Austria and Croatia have said that a person entering who has been vaccinated more than 270 days prior will be considered unvaccinated. I'm sure more will follow in that vein.  

 

 

They’ve started administering booster jabs to the most vulnerable here in Germany today, so I guess it won’t be too long until the rest of us are invited

31 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

 

Vaccination status does not play a role in the travel ban. The US bans travel by foreign residents who in the previous 14 days have been present in the UK, the Schengen states and some other countries such as India and Brazil even if you are vaccinated with a US-approved product. Travelers coming from countries not subject to the ban, including both foreign nationals and  returning US residents, have to provide proof of a negative COVID test or proof of recovery from COVID 19 and can fly to the US whether vaccinated or not. There are some destinations such as Hawaii that may have quarantine requirements for the unvaccinated. but that is a local requirement, not a US federal government requirement.

 

If there were a vaccination requirement why should the US give a green light to the AZ vaccine when AZ did not to submit its data to the FDA? Are we also expected to accept the Chinese and Russian vaccines? As @Berlin Bear said every sovereign nation has the right to decide which vaccines are acceptable.

You’re right, of course, about the vaccination status not playing a role. Just hope we manage to do our NE/Canada cruise in September 2022!

1 hour ago, friendlyfifer said:

I am not concerned about whether or not the AZ vaccine is used or not in the USA. My point is that millions of people in Europe and around the world have received the vaccine and they are not permitted to travel to the USA. How will this be overcome and when?

Well, like it or not, every sovereign nation has the right to decide which vaccines are to be recognized for entry into that country. Who know, even a double dose of Rfizer or Moderna may not be sufficient at some point in time 

1 hour ago, les37b said:

 

You do realise Viking sell cruises to more than just US customers?

 

The EU are playing hardball because they are upset that they are not allowed entry to US. Until last week, that is all they wanted. When there was no movement on this, they've now made this suggestion.

 

It's up to individual countries to ignore their recommendation and hope they do.

You do realise that today‘s recommendations/guidelines cover 6 countries, not just the US? And that they are based on rapidly growing infection rates?

Individual countries already have stricter rules in place than the EU guidelines. For example, nothing will change in Germany because there are already stricter restrictions for those 6 countries

Up to now the EU members states have followed the EU guidelines in this respect

Up to now all the EU member states have followed the EU guidelines

7 minutes ago, Yorkshire-Pudding said:

 

Rumour has it, the reason we can't enter is because the UK used Astrazeneca and it is not authorised for use there. It seems that even their Canadian neighbours can't enter either because they used a mix of vaccine manufacturers. I understand that US mainly used Pfizer or Moderna. There is talk of UK over 50s having boosters possibly of Pfizer so we could find ourselves still excluded for having different vaccines.

EU citizens aren’t allowed into the US either, although AstraZeneca is not used as much over here as in the UK. And infection rates are much lower. Even Merkel‘s request to Biden, when she made her farewell visit to Washington DC recently, to allow EU citizens in couldn’t change his mind.

Hopefully we‘ll make it to our NE/Canada cruise on the Summit in September 2022!

I would be interested to hear what experiences other (potential) Viking customers living on mainland Europe (I.e. not UK) have had regarding queries, questions, chats, etc with Viking customer service.

We live in Berlin, Germany and did our first Viking Ocean cruise in 2018. It was not possible to book it with any travel agent in Germany, so I booked the trip by telephone with Viking UK. All interactions regarding the cruise itself were very good, but I was never able to receive any promotional information however often I myself and the UK agent tried to enable this. Possibly because I have a German email address. We now have a second Viking cruise booked for March 2022, again through Viking UK - managed to do this just before the end of the Brexit transition period in December 2020. 

Now, however, we are no longer able to access the Viking UK website, although thankfully I still receive information about the upcoming booking from the UK agents. A couple of months ago I sent a query through the US website asking who we could turn to regarding future bookings and promotional material, etc. and have never received a reply. A couple of days ago I „chatted“ with an agent about some Danube river cruises which were being offered to UK customers (read about this on CC) at reduced prices. I gave my details and the agent promised to mail me all the relevant information. Nothing up to now.

Viking cruises are not marketed at all in Europe, except in the UK, and I’m starting to wonder whether European guests are simply regarded as a nuisance! With additional ships joining the fleet in the coming years, I would think the company (founded and run by a Norwegian!) would appreciate the additional customer base. Or do we rock the boat…?

Greetings from Berlin

Barbara

Hope you had a great day in Athens - it was uncomfortably hot when we were there last month unfortunately - and I hope you managed to get your masks.

Hi,

we did a cruise round the Greek islands, including Athens, very recently and observed that many people were wearing FFP2 masks - as we do here in Germany. Most people on the flights to and from Heraklion were also wearing FFP2 masks as they protect the wearer as well as others. Having said that, you can of course also wear disposable medical masks on Lufthansa flights, but I personally would not count on being able to get them easily at the airport. Perhaps buying them in Athens would be safer.

Hope this helps.

Greetings from Berlin 

Barbara

We live in Germany and booked a Viking Ocean cruise in December 2020 through the UK office, shortly before the end of the Brexit transition period. We hope to sail in March 2022. I wonder whether Viking will contact us to let us know about the changed terms and conditions?

I also wonder whether Viking will finally market their product in the rest of Europe. So far, it’s not possible to book with a travel agent over here at all. Or whether (and why) they really want to stick to mainly English-speaking guests in future. We‘ve only done one Viking cruise up to now, but felt very „exotic“ when we spoke German during the journey. I have dual nationality (thanks to Brexit), but my husband and the hotel manager were the only Germans on board.

Interesting developments and thanks to the OP for making us aware of possible challenges.