OneSixtyToOne

This is exactly the experience of our daughter and her husband. They took their first ever cruise earlier this year on a Caribbean mega ship and absolutely hated it and vowed never again. After hearing us talk about Viking they were surprised by their negative experience. BTW another couple talked them into going, we had no input. We have no desire to cruise the Caribbean on any line.

For a great wine tasting experience be sure to take the BERNKASTEL HISTORY & WINE excursion. You’ll visit an enormous wine cellar that is run to promote Moselle wines. Every vintner in the region has a bin of their wines. You’re given a glass and you are free to wander about and taste as many wines as you like. Tasting bottles are placed on top of wine barrels and there are over 150 wines to sample. It’s pretty amazing. https://en.bernkastel.de/gastro/vinothek-at-the-wine-cultural-centre

We did Geneva to Paris and it was excellent. The Glacier Express from Zermatt across Switzerland is fantastic. IMO Switzerland to Paris is a better option. On our way to Zermatt we stopped for a snack at a winery on the banks of Lake Geneva, overlooking Montreux. It was a great experience touring the cellars and tasting wine on the terrace above the lake. Not sure how that fits into the schedule going the other way. We took the trip in late July and the weather was great except for one day of rain that unfortunately occured on the day we went to Kleine Scheidegg on the Highlights of the Alps excursion on our day in Zurich. Visibility was near zero. Word to the wise, do not book Highlights of the Alps if you are booking the Zermatt extension. It's redundant and a very long day. Because of weather we missed the sailing out of Basel and had to catch the ship at a dock in the middle of nowhere in France. Our bus driver got lost and we were on streets too narrow to pass. We almost missed dinner aboard. We saw nothing of Basel. One thing about late July, it put us in Paris in August. The big upside of Paris in August is it's much less crowded with locals and the traffic is much better. The mom and pop stores may have closed for the summer but all the main attractions are still open. The access road (now a pedestrian walkway) along the banks of the Seine is transformed into a beach club, with sand trucked in and chaise lounges. A great experience walking along the river from Notre Dame to The Louvre. Aside from bad weather, this was one of our most enjoyable cruises, river or ocean. I highly recommend it.

You should at least try a river cruise that includes the Middle Rhine. It’s a whole day of vineyards and castles as you cruise by. If you select the right excursions you can avoid the tourist shops. Paris to the Swiss Alps B-A along with the Zermatt pre cruise extension was one of our favorites. Taking the Glacier Express across Switzerland was fantastic. Also, the Chilean fjord expedition cruise is on sale now. If you’re a fan of pristine natural scenery and you’re not up for Antarctica, this is the cruise for you.

This is one reason I enjoy river cruising. It’s less about the ship and more about the destinations and view. Not a fan of sea days unless they involve scenic cruising like the Chilean fjords.

This message appeared in MVJ today. First time I ever saw this. Promo FV424, usable on website if you already have a booking.

If you are flying from Toronto, myself and others have horror stories about that airport and Air Canada. I avoid both.

One more point. If you read your invoice, Viking states the air itinerary is selected about 150 days out. They ticket about 100 days out. You have between those two milestones to use MVJ to change your flights, cities, etc. After ticketing you can change things like seat assignments. As stated in another post, Viking is using contracted seats. These may not correlate to seat availability that you see when searching an airline’s website. They are essentially a different inventory of seats. Even if you pay Air Plus, if you want a different flight, there may be an up change because Viking may be purchasing those seats on the open market.

This has been covered extensively on this forum by @FlyerTalker and others. Airlines use placeholders for what they “think” their scheduled flights will be. Everything is subject to change. At 5 months out nothing is in stone. I am 100 days out from our next trip and just had an equipment change that altered our seat assignments. We also have had 2 schedule changes. On our last trip back from Europe, Lufthansa stop flying into our destination city on Sundays. This occurred while we were in the middle of a cruise about 10 days out from our return. It required an insane return route to get us home. Instead of a non-stop from Munich we had to go through Frankfurt and make connections in the U.S. This added 9 more hours to our travel. Viking doesn’t actually ticket and lock down your trip until about 100 days out. You and Viking are operating at the mercy of the airlines.

So you dock in San Diego on the 18th? Sounds like I have a photo op to take a picture of the ship. What excursions are you looking at? Pandas are expected to be back at the zoo later this year. Was just there last week. They are refurbishing the enclosure.

We toured The Alhambra with Viking and here are a few things to be aware of. It sells out within minutes. Be sure you try and book as soon as reservations open. Book and pay for it immediately. The Alhambra restricts the number of busses allowed by cruise lines to one single bus per day per line. Admission tickets must have the passenger's name printed on it. Because of this, even if there are cancellations onboard, the seats will not be resold. You are subject to random ID checks during the tour at checkpoints. You must carry your passport and the name must match what is printed on the ticket. It was an awesome experience that has to be seen to be believed. Celestial ceiling

Wonder why they scheduled this cruise with Malta on Christmas and Malaga on New Year’s Day? They now have scheduled them for sea days. Malta is a very Catholic country and I envision that everything will be closed on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve everything will shut down well before sunset.

I’ve been on MVJ extensively this week selecting excursions and checking the status of the sold out excursions multiple times a day and have never encountered “maintenance.” Are you sure you don’t have multiple browsers or connections to the website open simultaneously? This can cause your data to be locked.

The waitstaff serves you when you sit down. They are generous with the refill and people have been known to refill and then take their glass with them to other parts of the ship. If you have the SSP you are given a different glass so the staff knows what to refill.

Welcome to the Viking Ocean board where general questions and comments are posted. There is a separate area for roll calls for specific sailings. For better results and to reach people on your cruise, this request should be posted in the roll call for your sailing which you can find here:

Nordic Balconies are great!

No, unfortunately.

We were on the Santiago to Ushuaia leg last October and there were only 40 pax on the World Cruise. It not real high demand so any discounts you see will probably be going on for at least several months. Booking onboard your next cruise might give you the biggest incentive unless something else pops up first. Be aware of any current promo codes before you sail in July. The tour consultant might be unaware of all that is available. If you provide the code they can compare it with other available discounts. Since the World Cruise has a limited customer base, the legs of the cruise are heavily discounted from time to time. We got ours at about a 40% discount with free stateroom upgrade, free beverage package and free air included. It was a deal we couldn’t pass up. We booked about 10 months out. This is basically a repositioning cruise from the Arctic to the Austral summer. The main draw is the Antarctic leg, which may fill up by being sold as a separate sailing. Here is my writeup of our leg of the trip: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2968838-almost-live-viking-octantis-chilean-fjords-patagonia-explorer-october-17-30-2023/

Viking River’s Paris to Switzerland itinerary is now offering two new extensions that feature rail journeys. That now makes 3 Swiss rail extensions. It appears they are already moving in the direction of more land base options to feed into their various cruise itineraries.

This one in Buenos Aires? It’s right down the street from the hotel we stayed at on the Viking extension.

Yes, both port and starboard sides. Also the far port and starboard elevators are the only ones going to deck 6. There are also two out of the way elevators, one fore and aft. Fore is by the Explorer’s Lounge and will take you to The Hide. Aft will take you to the back of the World Cafe and down to the theater. i love this ship. Walking around is like an expedition in itself.

Also the area between 4024/4026 and opposite is a quite little sitting area.

It is an opening to the stairwells, no wall there. We stayed on Deck 4 aft. Often I would exit the elevator, go straight into this area then veer into the hallway through the opening. I would do the opposite going to the elevator or staircase. On the deck plan diagram, if you erase the thin black line in front of 4028/4029, that is what the floor plan really looks like.

During the summer they project a fantastic multimedia light show on Rouen Cathedral. We stumbled upon it one night when docked there. Video in link: https://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/highlight/rouen-cathedral-light-show/

We only had 8 people on the tour and 2 were crew members who tagged along. The cemetery and wreath laying was moving.