occruiselady

I called my Princess rep about those elevators a few weeks ago and I was told they are public. I thought so because there are wheelchair accessible cabins next to those lifts on deck 12. I am four cabins away, but I am not worried because the aft of the ship is pretty quiet and we’re high above all the public areas below. Midship is the busiest, people gather by the big elevator lobbies and walk by your room to get there. Look at where the full suites are located, the front and back of the ship because those areas are more private. Hope this helps!

55 minutes ago, rheathslc said:

FWIW, I did a full assessment of the costs comparing a Princess Mini-suite with Viking Junior Suite and because so many things are included in the Viking fare it was actually almost the same final price per person per day (if you include the Plus package, excursions, thermal suite access, etc). The main drawbacks for us currently are that the deposits are much higher and the final payment is due much sooner. And I've heard it's hard to get money back from Viking if you do have to cancel. But we're pretty close to making that switch anyway even though I finally hit Elite status with Princess. It just means we would have to save up in advance versus being able to book a year or more out and make payments over time.

We had a horrible experience with the first Viking Ocean cruise ship years ago. Engine failure on their fourth cruise left us in Estonia for four days, less than a week into a 14 day cruise. They couldn’t fix the ship, we were finally given a few hours notice to pack and get off the ship late on a rainy night. Those of us who booked air with them had no power to rebook our flights. Our premium economy seats ended up being middle seats in economy for a 12 hour flight. East Coast passengers ended up on a chartered freight plane. We found out that no insurance company covered the mechanical failure of the ship, that it was the ship’s responsibility to make it right. Viking was horrible to work with, just prorated a refund for our missing ports and we had to fight to get that. Learned a lot from that cruise, everyone lost a lot of money and the stress of it all was horrible.

I change cabins by calling Princess, I just did this last week. They can tell you if the change is going to affect the price and credits for your cruise. I give them the cabin number I want and have the deck plans on the computer in front of me while we’re talking. They sometimes have available cabins that are not showing up online they can offer you. My fare actually went down, which surprised me.

Thanks, just wanted to confirm this since it’s new to me. I just did some more research and it said that ordering your breakfast by filling out the form and putting it on your door the night before is still complimentary. This is good news because that’s all I usually use room service for. This is is our first cruise since Covid and I am finding a lot has changed.

I was reading the MiniSuite amenities on the Sun Princess and it looks like if you don’t purchase one of the drink packages, they now charge $4.95 for each room service delivery. They also charge a one time fee of $14.95 to deliver food elsewhere on the ship. See the language below. Is that how it works now? I am Elite status on Princess, but I am not sure that helps with this. 

We did the Glacier Bay cruise with Princess several years ago and loved it. There was ample seating outside and they provided blankets and had waiters with carts going around serving hot drinks like Baileys and coffee and hot chocolate. The naturalist on board was amazing and made the trip one of the best cruises we’ve ever taken. I find the Mini Suites on the Princess ships to be a great value. HAL does not have that category and the up charge to go from a Veranda to a small suite is substantial. We did the Mediterranean on the Royal and it is a great ship. We had many ports and were traveling with our son in a wheelchair and the staff was great. I don’t recall any issues with crowds, so I would say take Princess.

Princess keeps the military info in your profile and you automatically get $100 credit every time that person books a trip. I wish HAL would adopt this policy, easier for everyone.

We are taking this cruise in late August and I am really looking forward to hearing about your experiences. Did you have to stay in the baggage area the whole time you were waiting for your luggage? Did you take a taxi to your hotel? We are staying at the Doubletree, which is near the train station. Enjoy Amsterdam!

33 minutes ago, crzr said:

We ended our cruise in Amsterdam two months ago and stayed the night in a hotel near the airport.  Of course, we had to take the time for another Covid test (the rules have changed since then) and we spent time with an old friend who lives there.  Nonetheless, we needed three hours the next morning to go through the airport terminal to reach our gate.  If we had not been premium flight members, it would have been at least four hours. Schipol is a total mess, just as many people have said, for a variety of reasons.

 

We would never have made a morning flight the same day as disembarkation.

 

Another lesson learned - I highly recommend taking the HAL transfer bus to the airport like we did.  The taxi line was ridiculously long at the cruise terminal (maybe 150 poor souls waiting in line). We heard from one passenger later that their driver got lost going to the airport, yet charged 70 euros to flounder around the city streets.

What hotel did you stay at by the airport? We are staying at the Hilton by the airport after our cruise in August before our flight the next day. How did you and your luggage get to your hotel after being dropped off by the airport? 

We were also part of the group that went to Bergen and got our 50% and our excursions refunded. But then, unexpectedly, we got 2 more refunds. The first (August 20) brought us up to 65%. The second of $1,098

was on August 31. All just showed up on our credit card with no explanation. Have no idea why we qualified.

Our friends who were with us also got the same. They did have a problem though because the credit card they had on file with Viking had been canceled (by them). Took a bit to get worked out. Be sure to check all your credit cards. You may be pleasantly surprised too.

It is clear that Viking Oceans made so many mistakes in the handling of our 7/25 cruise disaster, with no explanation of why and how any of any of their inequitable refunds were made. We all know that this is a new product line and there is a lot of learning from their mistakes occurring here, but why should it be at our expense - literally! Why do I have to pay for a cruise that did not happen? Why do I have to pay for European plane tickets for what turned out to be a long weekend trip instead of the two week trip that we purchased? Why do they not offer the industry standard of a full refund for a cruise that was less than 50% completed? Why can't they admit and apologize for their mistakes and make them right? There has not been one single person that we have told our story to since arriving home that has not been horrified at the way we were treated by Viking. Everyone believes we are due a full refund and found the way Viking threw people off the ship in the middle of the night with no notice unacceptable - the ship was not on fire and we had been sitting in Tallinn for four days! There was plenty of time to review passenger lists and keep groups together and give better communication to their passengers. Viking has lost more bookings than they will ever know by the bad PR generated by our cruise, bad business decision to be so cheap in their reimbursements, it will continue to cost them so much more money in lost bookings.

I forgot to mention that everyone in our group on the ill fated 7/25 Viking Star cruise had trip insurance and found out the hard way that it did not cover mechanical failure. Most trip insurance companies offer three or four levels of coverage and it seems that some do cover mechanical failure in their most expensive policy only. So, I wanted to put that out there for those that still may have a chance to upgrade their policy.

Once again Roothy I am going to have to respond to your fantasy that on my 7/25 cruise the passengers complained only because they did not get 150% refunds and they traveled in coach. There are so many stories told by the actual passengers on cruise critic from my cruise that outline problems far beyond what you continue to describe - without actually being there! Even though the Viking Star sat in Tallinn for four nights, giving the crew and management plenty of time to come up with an exit plan for the passengers, if needed, they did not have a clue when the time came to cancel our cruise. Passengers were sent to the airport in the middle of the night thinking that they were boarding a charter flight to New York, only to find out after waiting for several hours, the charter was not coming after all, but they were now being put on a cargo plane - not exactly coach! Others flew on AirBerlin without any food or anything to drink because they were told Viking did not arrange for this on this very strange budget airline. There are so many crazy stories, I could not begin to tell them all, but they are far worse than just ending up in coach. We had a couple in our group who were awakened at 1am to get off the ship at 6am to fly to Norway, after several connections and over 12 hours, they arrived in Norway with no hotel or arrangements for them from Viking and they could not reach anyone to help them from Viking for two days - again not just a flying in coach issue. As far as the reimbursement, the people that went to Norway received 50% of the cruise only portion of their fare back and, after much begging, those that were sent home received 65% of the cruise only portion of their fare back - not exactly 150% issue - where does that even come from in your world?? One of the biggest issues was there were several small groups on board - four to six couples - and I believe all of them were separated for no reason at all. We were one of them and we did everything right, our reservations were linked, we turned our paperwork in together on the ship and our travel agent was part of our group and none of that was taken into consideration. One couple was sent home, two couples were sent to Norway early, another couple sent to Norway alone and the last two couples sent days after the first. They were not put up in the same hotels and were not able to get together until the day before they came home. Every group on the ship was treated in the same manner, it was as though they threw names in a hat, no one can figure out the logic behind anything that they did.

I know you want to be a great supporter of Viking, and that is your option, but to be so knowing and unsympathetic to a group of people who experienced something far worse than you describe and who handled that situation graciously, all things considered, is not very kind. The real stories are there for all to read and that is what this site is for, not to demean people who have already lost their vacation, thousands of dollars and hardships far beyond your fantasy version. I have been ocean cruising since 1980, so many that I would not know where to begin in listing them all, so I have experienced problems many times before. However, I have never seen a company as ill prepared to handle a situation as Viking was on our cruise and they even admitted it. I will not tell people how to think or what to do, just read the real stories and decide for yourselves.

Roothy, I was on the 7/25 canceled cruise and I need to tell you that you are incorrect on what Viking offered the passengers and how we were treated. Viking's first offer in written form was 1) Go home 2) Stay in Tallinn for 5 days while boat is repaired, then ride the boat directly to Bergen, arriving Friday evening in time for you to catch your flights home on Saturday. No ports, no sightseeing. I have the form, that is what it said. Many people decided it was very "iffy" to stay with the boat, what if it wasn't repaired in time? what if it broke down while we were at sea? etc. What was the point of staying with a boat to nowhere? We were given maybe two hours to decide. The next morning, before 6 am, another form appeared outside our door, now the option was, as you stated 1) Go home 2) Fly to Norway, stay in a hotel with meals and tours provided by Viking - BUT - Viking will not be able to accommodate all of the passengers due to the lack of hotel rooms. All passengers must be off the ship by 8/4 for the repair, so bottom line, we all entered the "Norway Lottery". They were able to accommodate approximately 50% of the passengers, leaving the rest to fly home from Tallinn. We were a group of six couples, some went to Norway and had a first class experience, some were evicted with a few hours notice during the middle of the night to go home, some made it to Norway days after the first group, but stayed in airport hotels, not close to the city and saw very little. How could the same 50% refund be appropriate for all of these groups? It is true, no one died, but you would have had to endure the long lines trying to get information, the constant misinformation, and the stress of not knowing what to do or how to get the real story, in other words, you had to be there. No one can sit at a computer and pretend to know what others went through. I hope your Viking cruise goes well, but just remember that was not the case for several hundred other passengers who invested several thousand dollars to get one-third of the trip that they purchased.

We are in the same boat - sorry couldn't resist - got home Monday and I called Viking Tuesday. I started posting my experiences here and then I got a call from Viking assuring me that they would be reviewing their refund policy for this cruise on an individual basis. I was told by Valerie that Viking would contact me by the end of the week, or beginning of next week. The other five couples we were traveling with just arrived home from Norway and I found out that Viking has posted the same credit amount for all of us on our credit card. It is extremely difficult to hear about their trip, knowing that we all paid Viking the same amount and those that received an additional week of vacation and accommodation by Viking are being given the same refund as us. I am hoping that Viking will contact me tomorrow to tell me that this was their initial refund for us and more is coming our way. I will keep you posted and please do the same for us. My travel agent will also be talking to them on our behalf tomorrow. She would have done this earlier, but she was part of our group that just got back from Norway - ouch!

Thank you for sharing your experience. I am one of the unlucky ones who was sent home and now I have to spend my time trolling these posts to find some support for our position that a full refund is due us. We were a group of six couples and two were among the first to be sent to Norway, no post trips were booked for them, we were among the first to be evicted in the middle of the night to go home, two couples remained on the Star for a few days and were then sent to Norway, but are in an airport hotel no where near the actual city of Bergen, and I think the other couple was also sent home, not sure yet. We were supposed to stay together as a group - oh well! I hope that Viking will respond to us soon with a decent offer, I really need to move on from this experience. Thanks again!!

I have posted on another thread earlier, but I wanted to make sure my voice was added to this thread as well. We just got home from the Viking Star disaster and, as I said in my other post, I spoke to Valerie from Viking's Woodland Hills office this morning and they are being very firm in offering only a 50% refund and a 50% credit towards a future cruise for all passengers. I pointed out that half of the passengers did not get to go to Norway on a chartered flight, get four nights hotel stay with meals included and free tours, we were sent home on miserable last minute flights. So, how is it that we are all being given the same refund? When you miss 7 out of 11 ports, how does that equate to a 50% refund? I hope all of the passengers who did not get to go to Norway speak up on this issue. I cannot imagine that anyone would accept this as being a fair settlement. A full refund should be demanded by all of us who only made it to 4 ports and then spent days stressed out trying to figure out what was going to happen to us and being given constant misinformation by the staff. Some people were told no one was going to get to go to Norway, I was told only 135 people were going to go, etc., etc. I understand the difficulty of trying to reroute 900 people, however, I do not understand the math and fairness factor that went into the refund decision, it does not make any sense at any level. Viking you can admit your mistake and try to save yourself, it is not too late.

We just returned from the Viking Star cruise disaster and I just got off the phone with Valerie from the Woodland Hills office. Viking is giving us a 50% refund of our cruise and 50% off a future cruise, even though we missed 7 out of the 11 ports on our itinerary. The people on the ship who won the "Norway lottery", approximately half of the passengers, are being given the same refund as those of us who were sent directly home. The Norway passengers were given a chartered flight to Bergen, four nights hotel stay, with meals included and free tours of the area. They are also able to take their original flights home, with the nice seats they preselected, like we did. My 6'2" husband and myself, who has major back issues, were given an 11 hour flight with middle seats in the middle section.

Can someone please explain to me why our refund is the same as the passengers whose vacation continued on? We prepaid for this trip two years ago, as did almost everyone, and it is the most expensive trip we had ever taken. We understand that these mechanical things can happen and we have been very nice about all of this, until now. Not all of us can afford to lose this amount of money for a trip that was not even close to what we paid for.

Please Viking do the right thing for your passengers, your reputation is on the line here.