CCWineLover

Hi - we did this exact cruise from Montreal to FLL last Sept/Oct on the Mars. I hate to tell you this, but we did NOT hug the Nova Scotia coastline (we were out aways). Coming into PEI, the view was on the port side, albeit brief. I don't recall having much of any view however, of much coastline while sailing, as it is often dark while sailing. And if the was coastline in was in the distance or obscured by weather. I think you'll be fine - but only you know how much a slider will mean.

Good luck. I don't know which itinerary you have, but for all the ones we've had, it didn't make any difference starboard or port. The ships are far from land in nearly all itineraries between ports. If/when they are closer, we find it more fun to be above deck where you can go from one side to the other easily, or be in Explorer's Lounge and see it all (such as South America or Norway Fjords). We prefer sliders over doors and have made that exact decision - choosing a slider over the "supposed" preferred starboard or port side.

Interesting. Had wondered about that as well. It would keep me from doing Viking China (the smoking despite No Smoking allowed).

Exactly what I say - after many Viking Ocean Cruises. Things are different post-COVID.

Hi - I would ask your Travel Agent or Viking if no TA, immediately, to see if it is possible to change to a slider room. Don't wait at all!! Viking Ocean - PV Rooms with Sliders.pdf

Yes I see it now Maria. Thank you! I had already read Peregrina's review in post 48 but somehow had missed that link (probably because it was posted by OneSixtytoOne). Appreciate your taking the time!

Thank you! Which ones did you take? Which ones did you enjoy and which were not worth it? (Including the Includeds too)

We did the Shores & Fjords. (Note - it doesn't depend on which ship name it is). Flam-docked right in town. walked off to everything Kristiansand-docked right in town. Included walking tour left from the pier. Oslo-docked in town facing east, just opposite the Munch Museum. walking tours left from the pier. We were lucky though as most Viking ships dock in town but slightly further west at Akershus. That is also close to Nobel Museum and more. Easy walking. Your results may vary depending on which ships are also in port. Curious as to which tours were sold out that you wanted. We had no problems. We also came back to Oslo on our own and walked around ourselves and using trams for several days with no issues, so that's not a bad option.

Exactly! Viking people seem to walk on egg shells all the time, not just in restaurants, but everywhere, so fearful of people launching diatribes on social media at them! They've lost their backbone.

Exactly! At World Cafe, we often got the grilled to order NY Steak (actually many times) since it was so good. Offered every night! If it didn't turn out like you wanted, they would happily do it again so you were satisfied! In addition, every night (and lunch) they featured a meat non-seafood carving station of some sort - either roast beef, flank steak, turkey, lamb, you name it! Every night! The Asian Station by the Aquavit bar always had some sort of non-seafood item (often chicken or beef stir fry, or with noodles). At Manfredi's there were a number of non-seafood items on our recent voyage. From the standard menu, we tried the amazing Short Ribs, the Parmigana Chicken, the herb roasted pork chop, the grilled bone-in rib-eye, and the thick cut rib-eye. In fact, 5 out of the 7 main courses are non-seafood. So I'm not sure how one can say there were limited non-seafood choices at Manfredi's. (or the other venues) At Chef's Table, if there was seafood you could ask for a substitute, like a steak or something. Absolutely no one who did not like fish was lacking in the number of choices available to them. In fact, we spoke to a gentleman who was fearful they might not have much since he did not like seafood and he was overwhelmingly surprised by how many different choices he had - at every venue!

hmmm - you speak of poor quality and then tag on lack of non-seafood dishes. Both? It may be a location/itinerary thing. We've never had an issue with there not being non-seafood choices, even in Manfredi's. Seafood no doubt is popular on cruise ships since they are on the ocean and dock in ports that have seafood arriving a lot. However, we've always seen plenty of beef, chicken, and pork. Curious as to what items you didn't see that you were expecting that were non-seafood.

Yes - they will ALWAYS provide an included tour to any guest onboard that wishes one. It may not be at the time you want, but you will get one. Viking projects how many will be on a tour and contracts the provider to schedule that many. If more people want them, they will add more. You might see them added on MVJ but you might also not see availability until you are onboard.

Ha! Your example above reminded me again about the inconsistency in Viking tours guides that they hire - particularly for included. My point is a tip to share with people. We recently took the Panoramic Corfu & Old Town Walking tour in Corfu. There were probably about 8 groups that went out at the same time in the morning. Bus portion was first. We stopped at a great lookout point with a large large deck area (enough to accomodate nearly all the groups. Our guide took us to the deck, said a couple words and told us to meet back at the bus in 45 minutes. We were on our own. I noticed the other guides all talking quite a bit to their groups. (ie. the guides don't always do the same thing). TIP: I used the quietvox and starting tuning into the number of the guide's lolypop and wound up getting to hear so much interesting stuff! Went from one to the other in fact. Then the walking portion, after a stop outside the "palace", our guide pointed us to Old Town and said you can walk throughout Old Town and be back in 45 minutes to the bus. Again as we wondered in and out of the interesting streets, a little bewildered, we noticed the other groups again with their guides walking through the Old Town. Again I switched to their channel on the QuietVox and heard so much about the churches, history, etc. So - if your guide is no good, you can try to at least "tag along" on another channel. I did report this to the Excursion desk when we returned.

Here's our recent Viking Saturn Officers on Rome-Athens trip in Feb/Mar.

Yes, it is posted on the ship itself ahead of each itinerary in the Viking Daily and a picture on the wall on the way to Chef's Table. It changes frequently from itinerary to itinerary so I'm not aware of any "master" list anywhere. It is common for people to query those on the ship's itinerary ahead of them as to posting a picture of the officers in case they stay on board for their specific cruise.

What's a D and a B ?

Totally agree, Joe. We've been fortunate to experience a "free" upgrade from DV to PV - at the check-in desk. Note - we did not have a choice, it had been done when we checked in. We often discussed maybe that's not so good, since we had a pretty good DV room location-wise. There are some PV cabins I would never want over the DV we had. But fortunately it was a good PV room. I was querying a Viking Manager about it. They said it is indeed random, and often passengers have to cancel at last minute (mostly due to illness, injury, etc). The person who got our good DV had been last minute upgraded from a V, so it often is a cascading thing. You just never know - and certainly can't count or plan on it! Or even know the probabilities. Viking also has been known to "offer" up ahead of time (weeks) an option to pay a fee to upgrade, but those seem to be rare as well. We had friends who had that happen.

Maybe so, Jim. I've seen that happen to so many companies over the years. Some succeed and some do not.

We asked the Head Chef on a recent cruise about this "shrinkflation". Whether true or not, his response was . . . Viking has had SO many comments/feedback that the portions sizes were TOO big and there was too much waster. People predominately said they wanted smaller portions and the big eaters could just order more. Interesting, but I'm sure there's truth to that. In the old days I do remember people complaining that the portions were too large! Can't please everyone. We stopped having the steak in Manfredi's. Instead, we get the Steak to order in the World Cafe. Nice size - always cooked to my liking!

IMHO, you didn't miss anything in the Planetarium. It was worthless (well, not totally, but definitely a 3 on a scale of 10). Would be nice if they took the 2 of them (with Jupiter) out of the 8th floor and opened it up again.

an interesting comment . . . we are exploring other products, such as safaris and land tours, that would allow our guests to explore more of the world in Viking comfort.'"

We definitely think alike! Have enjoyed your posts. Hoping we get to travel on the same cruise together sometime in the future!

Pigin - my apologies! I mistakenly should have looked more carefully as I see you were not the person who said they didn't get action until they got rude. So sorry!

We had this happen to us. It had been ordered by our Travel Agent (who knew we had an anniversary coming up). And yes, we also saw it on the invoice so mentioned it to our TA, where we learned what happened. For us, it didn't spoil any surprise. It was just nice that the TA thought of us at all!

I also have been amazed at the large large number of men (I've witnessed it!) who don't wash their hands after being in the bathroom (next to the World Cafe) and then just walk in and start grabbing the serving tongs.... We made a habbit of getting our food at World Cafe back to the table and then going and washing our hands again. Rinse and repeat everytime we went up for more food. You aren't going to stop the large amount of ignorant behavior so all you can do is protect yourselves.