CCWineLover

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.

Too funny! We want photos!!

This sounded pretty good, unitl I read the fine print about paying really early . . . A limited-time $25 per person deposit is due at time of booking for select 2024–2026 itineraries; remaining deposit is due with final payment (excludes World Cruise itineraries); call for details. 2024–2026: Book and deposit by March 31, 2024. 2024: Pay in full by April 30, 2024 or at 120 days prior to departure (whichever comes first).

I am also surprised! Sounds like the OP is saying you have be "Rude" to get anywhere with the onboard Viking people. We've had our share of issues and NEVER encountered that. I always approached Viking with a smile, being courteous and polite, but firm and stating things in a business and facts sort of way. I've always had good responses and fixes to the issues without ever having to be "rude". Perhaps you had a very isolated incident. I haven't hear the need to be rude so much. Certainly many passengers are rude onboard to the Viking people, but Viking staff seems to handle it well. We always say that to work on Viking you must have thick skin!!

We've been on all the Ocean ships (not counting Sun). The 9 (not counting Sun) Viking Ocean Ships currently sailing are the "Star" class. They are all nearly identical with some slight differences. Viking made changes to improve things as they moved from each group of three - 1st group: Star, Sea, Sky 2nd group: Orion, Jupiter, Venus 3rd group: Mars, Neptune, Saturn There are some differences between the ships you mention Sea and Orion. Orion is really not that much younger than Sea. However, Orion was the first that has a Planetarium on Deck 8 of Explorer's Lounge (Jupiter is the only other one with it. It was cancelled on future ships). Orion also was the first to implement a food "station" in the World Cafe that you walk up to. (Around the corner from the Gelato area and across from the Aquavit Bar in the back). Now it serves Asian dishes Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Quite popular. The first group (Sea included) also did not have drawers in the closets for DV and V rooms - just shelves. They were added on the later groups. As for showing wear, people who've been on VERY recently would have to answer that. Between these two I'm not sure I'd be too worried, but no doubt there will be strong opinions one way or the other from folks.

This is who Steve Dassios put us onto in 2024. They are offering some good plans now as you discovered (Travel Insured International FlexiPax). One big benefit is they are good up to 3 years out and you can transfer from the original cruise to a new one at no charge as long as the new one is 3 years or less from the date you put the insurance deposit down. Flexible is right!

Fyi One “sparkling” is part on the included wines but not advertised. we dislike sweet sparkling but like the include / not too sweet not too dry.