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I certainly agree with him and I wouldn't recommend that you made that journey in one go. As you probably know international passengers transferring onto US domestic flights have to collect checked baggage from the carousel and take them through customs before re-checking them. This, along with the immigration procedure, makes for a lengthy process and usually results in either an unsettling dash through the airport if the connection time is short or a sometimes lengthy wait at the airport for a later connection. Neither of these is ideal after a transatlantic flight. Our solution (as we have to collect the checked bags and go through immigration anyway) is to book a hotel room at our arrival airport in the US. That way we can go through the arrival procedures without any time pressure, get a good nights sleep in a proper bed, then continue with the domestic flight the following morning. Viking arranged our flights so we could do this on the TA we made from San Juan a few years ago and they have done the same for our Caribbean cruise with them early next year. We land in Miami and spend that night at the airport at our own cost. We then fly to San Juan the next morning arriving around midday. We know from the last time that we will get there rested and ready to enjoy the ship straight away. In contrast fellow Brits who have made the trip in one go will arrive at the ship late the same evening and I expect totally frazzled from the journey. We thoroughly enjoyed both San Juan and the TA that followed. It is a very walkable and historic city with a Caribbean twist. I hope that you can get your wish to visit someday and maybe this post will help persuade your husband that it is certainly possible to make the journey in a reasonably comfortable way.

The first thing to note is that Viking do not have to allow the change and in a worse case you might lose the whole of the sum paid if you cancel. That said, the very good news is that (while it is not guaranteed) Viking will allow you to make a change like this if they possibly can. In fact I was surprised to find that they even go so far as saying exactly this in their terms and conditions for UK bookings. The reason I say that they are likely to be as helpful as possible is based on the following paragraphs from the T&Cs C1.1 If you want to change your travel arrangements in any way you or your Travel Agent must inform us in writing as soon as possible. We will try to help you, although we cannot guarantee that we will always be able to do this as changes are subject to availability at the time. Please note that typically changes to scheduled flight tickets are very restrictive and may not be possible without having to cancel the original flight and rebooking. C1.2 Where we can make a change, we will charge for any additional services, facilities, or other items changed, at the price which applies on the day the change is made. In addition, we reserve the right to apply an administration charge of £100 for each person on the booking together with any further costs we incur, for example with our suppliers, in making any change. I suggest that you use this link https://www.vikingcruises.co.uk/terms-conditions to read through the T&Cs for yourself, to Vikings credit they are written in fairly straightforward English, not legalese. Armed with this information you can then talk to your travel agent tomorrow. One thing to be careful of is to make clear to your agent that you don't want to cancel the booking at this stage, but that you are just enquiring about transferring the deposit over to a new booking. I have read on this board about people who were caught out by an overenthusiastic agent who canceled the existing booking first before setting up the new booking which messed up Viking's system and lost them their money. Good luck with this and do post again to let us know how you get on.

We are doing this itinerary in January and so maybe I could tack on my own question to this thread..... I do like to be up at dawn sometimes to watch the sail-in but I'm not sure that I want to be up that early every single day of the trip. Are there any port arrivals on the West Indies Explorers cruise that are known for being more/less photogenic than others?

If you are looking to get into the forest, the El Yunque Rainforest excursion out of San Juan is described as moderate. We did this earlier this year from the Viking Octantis and I expect the one available in December will be much the same. I would say that 2/3 of the excursion would be accessible even to someone with a degree of mobility difficulties. It was an easy walk from the parking area into the newly reopened forest visitor centre and the bus parked just across the road from the waterfall. The only questionable part would be the walk we made down into a valley to see a rocky river section of the forest. It was about 30 minutes down 30 minutes by the river and 30 minutes back. I'm not sure what you mean by "slipper slopes" if that is a typo for steeper slopes then you might have an issue with that part of the trip. These things are hard to quantify but the pathway zigzagged down into the valley and was somewhat steep in parts. However the path was relatively well made. I have attached a photograph which is not particularly great in itself but is the one which best shows the quality of the path. We very much enjoyed the excursion overall especially the informative and knowledgeable guide who was from the UK, now living on the island, with many years experience in sustainable forestry. Hope that helps!

I'm Happy to join you Liz. Have you tried using the brass telescope? I was surprised to find it really works and it's not just there for show. Just spotted the Francis Ford Coppola Zinfandel on the wine list, so that'll do for me 🍷

I owe you and others an apology. In hindsight I should have titled the thread "Speciality Dining Reservations No Longer Guaranteed" Sorry for any confusion that caused. Just to be clear: The Restaurant on the Ocean class ships does not and has never required advance reservations, apart from a brief period following the start-up after the Covid hiatus. In our experience you can just walk up and get seated almost immediately. The Restaurant on the Explorer class ships is a different matter and reservations have always been required there.

🤣 Well you might have noticed that I did have that one marked! Sorry to disappoint you though, it was about the Elizabethan privateers Drake and Raleigh. Mind you they were fairly snappy dressers onshore, so what they had in their wardrobes while at sea is anyone's guess 😉

Yes indeed 😎 🥂 Although they are a little out of date (it was back in 2018) I have attached the Viking dailies from three of the days we were at sea just to give you an idea. We found there was more than enough to do in fact it was difficult to fit everything in!

Nice to bump into you again in the lounge. Surely you meant to say your daughter's 20th birthday 😁 DW and I are both fine and trust that you are. We too became grandparents at the end of last year, also a little girl. We are only a few weeks away now from our next Viking cruise and even have another TA booked for 2024 - Buenos Aires to Barcelona. It will be hard to match the fun we had on that San Juan to Barcelona crossing but still very much looking forward 12/13 sea days. Each time I try to count them I come up with a different number 🤪 Life spins by so fast and I'm sure those 300+ days to your next cruise will go by in no time. Now, I wonder what the bartender can do with Maker's Mark, apart from an old-fashioned, I'll just go and ask.....

You certainly can dine every night in The Restaurant without reservations on the ocean ships. I think there may have been some misunderstanding and that @May B was referring to their experience on the Octantis where reservations are very much required in The Restaurant and not always available (due to it being much smaller than on the ocean ships) as well as in Manfredi's. When we were on the Octantis we were surprised to find it easier to get reservations in Manfredi's than in The Restaurant! I completely agree. We mostly eat in the world cafe by choice. We love being able to dine to our own timescale and impose some degree of portion control on ourselves. However, given the tempting quality of the food, that's not always easy 🙂 You sum up my gripe with Viking exactly. It was the fact that Viking are not proactively communicating at all with their customers on this issue that prompted me to start this thread. Despite this I'm sure you will have an absolutely wonderful time once onboard. Safe travels and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

If you could post again at some point with your experience of getting reservations on board, I'm sure that would be of great interest to those reading this thread. Thanks for the additional information. I am mystified as to what problem they could be having which would be solved by releasing the tables gradually. My concern is that there is obviously some issue with reservations, otherwise bookings would have been available as normal at 60 days out. How can we be sure that things will magically change when we are onboard? I know that getting additional reservations is not normally a problem once we are on the ships, but then making bookings 60 days out is not normally too much of a problem either! If Viking are certain that we will have no difficulty in making bookings on-board why block us from using our allocated quota of advance reservations online, in the usual way? Like @Queenie my first thought was that this was a simple systems glitch. However the written reply to me from Viking saying that "regrettably by the time the dining was open for you, all of the tables of two have already been selected.” suggests this may be something more serious and could carry over into the on-board experience. It seems that the problems are centred on the Viking Sky. Hopefully we can get some input from @Queenie and others on the Sky now, or in the near future, as to the ease (or otherwise) of getting reservations in the specialist restaurants. I will certainly be happy to report back once I have some firsthand experience.

I don't think that is a loophole that they can rely on. The online booking process did not open at all. As a result we were not able to make an advanced reservation for a table of any size (with others or on our own) in any restaurant at any point on the cruise!

That is really interesting and throws a new light on things. Could I ask which ship you are on? I am beginning to wonder if this issue is concentrated on the Viking Sky?

Thanks for your kind words and I do agree with you. My beef is not with those on the front-line who I'm sure do their best within the restrictions imposed on them. Indeed, I have to confess that they have made a special arrangement to resolve the issue for us. Nonetheless, my motivation in starting this thread remains, which is to highlight the actions of more senior management who have allowed a situation to develop where customers in DV cabins (and apparently other categories too) have not, as a whole, been appropriately given access to "guaranteed" advance restaurant bookings.

The fact that I didn't post back then does not mean that I was unsympathetic, I simply didn't feel I had anything useful to add to the conversation. As it happens Viking have never guaranteed priority excursion booking in any cabin category, the particular word "guaranteed" is only used in relation to restaurant bookings. This may well be because, as Heidi13 has eloquently pointed out, the provision of excursions requires the cooperation of third parties while the organisation of restaurant bookings is completely under Vikings control.

I appreciate the information on appropriate use of that expression. I do generally try to qualify my use of American phraseology after all, as George Bernard Shaw may have said, we are " two countries divided by a common language" 😁 It is the continued use of the word "guaranteed" on the website that I am challenging. I think it is fair to say that on both sides of the Atlantic that word is used to indicate the strongest and most formal assurance a company or individual can give. Now we have evidence that Viking have failed to deliver on that guarantee it has no value. In future no one can be sure if they will be able to make advance restaurant bookings until the booking window actually opens or, as in our case, does not.

It seems that Viking’s promise of a guaranteed priority reservation at each alternative restaurant no longer applies – at least to those in DV category cabins. When dining reservations opened and I was unable to make a booking I queried this with guest services and received the following response by email “The higher grade staterooms do have access to pre-book their dining earlier, and regrettably by the time the dining was open for you, all of the tables of two have already been selected.” At first, as with all information from guest services, I took this with a grain of salt. My brother-in-law (who is on a different cruise) subsequently received exactly the same explanation over the phone. Yesterday @crimmj posted in another thread that “Someone in our rollcall finally contacted Viking and was told that all the reservations had already been taken by the higher ranking cabins.” The consistency of the explanations indicates that this was not a glitch in the system but a change in policy which has removed the assurance that priority reservations for DV cabins are “guaranteed”. I have no issue with Viking modifying their policies, they are perfectly entitled to do so and things will naturally evolve as time goes on. Nor am I particularly worried about getting reservations once on the ship, as this has been no issue in the past. What I do find very troubling is that Viking still claim on their website and within their publicity material that DV cabins will have “1 guaranteed priority reservation at each alternative restaurant”. They have then failed to provide those in DV cabins with the opportunity to make any advance reservations at all when the relevant booking date is reached. This strikes me as what I believe is known in the US as “bait and switch” i.e. advertising something as part of the package which is not delivered when the time comes. As I say, I have no problem with a change of policy. However, I will be contacting Viking again to suggest they should immediately remove that valueless “guarantee” from their promotional material so as not to mislead customers who book in future.

Great to hear that you are at least back planning again. What is in the works? They say it will be hot here at the weekend, maybe as high as a staggering 86f (or about the same as a cold summer night in AZ I guess)

Sorry that you won’t make it to the tattoo on your British Isles trip Let Me Travel. I have never seen it first hand but it was shown every year on TV when I was a child and my Dad was a big military band fan so it was compulsory viewing in our house. That was back in the days when we had only one black and white TV and just two channels to chose from. Showing my age now 😊

I am so glad that you enjoy the ambiance of the Virtual Explorer’s Lounge! It never closed so I have just posted to it to pop it back up to the top of the board. Your usual chair is waiting, and I have already placed my order at the bar, so see you in there..😀🥃

Just a reminder for everyone that the Virtual Explorer’s lounge is still here for your enjoyment. The bar staff have been keeping themselves occupied restocking the bar and polishing glasses, so what are you going to have ?Mine’s a Maker’s Old Fashioned, cheers !!

Thanks so much for these wonderful posts. We will be travelling through the same ports in a couple of months. As well as being informative your enthusiasm is infectious and the photos are also building our excitement! The images of the daily are particularly helpful for planning. We look forward to following the rest of the series.

I was simply pointing out the difference between Cruisecritic and Facebook. You are welcome here without giving personal details, that is not the case with Facebook who threaten to block people who use false names - just saying.......

I know we're suffering from serious topic drift here, but I can't resist pointing out that unless you're using your real name on Facebook that puts you in breach of their guidelines and renders your account liable to deletion.

The short answer is that I think I can save you a lot of work in Google docs by posting this photo of the back page of the daily 😃 In our experience the back page has always contained all this information. It is probably in the app too, but I've never bothered to look there. This one is from the first day of our midnight sun cruise and it was waiting for us in the cabin when we arrived. A new version was delivered to the cabin around 7 or 8 pm each evening. The hours are generally much the same in most venues except the restaurant is sometimes open for breakfast and lunch, especially on sea days. Any variations are detailed on the back page of The Daily. All room service items are available 24 hours a day, so you could have breakfast at five in the afternoon if you choose! I'm sure you will love Viking and I suggest you are on deck for your sail out of Greenwich along the Thames. It is largely through an industrial area but it is a tight fit through the Thames Barrier and the sail under the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge at Dartford is not something that many people get to do. As it happens DW and I had our first home together in Greenwich many years ago. Do note though that sail away could be any time of the day or night as it depends on the tide.