SWFLAOK

To bring this back to the "immersive" topic that started this thread, that would be the end of our Regent cruising. We go for the ports. We have no desire to stay longer in ports, and spend more days at sea. I have no desire to spend multiple nights in a commercial port, and more and more cruise ships are being docked in commercial ports rather than in the heart of the destination. I think we were already hit with this on our Bangkok to Abu Dahbi in April. One of the most important stops to us was Phuket. When excursions opened for us, the first one I booked was SPECTACULAR PHANG NGA BAY, which was our most anticipated excursion. After a few months, we were notified of a change in our itinerary. We would be skipping a small island that few ever visited in Indonesia so we could spend an overnight in Phuket. I had actually been looking forward to that as well, since who doesn't want to visit a small tropical island where your small ship is the only one there? But it meant that I needed to quickly rebook our anticipated excursion for 1 day earlier, which luckily I was able to do. When I looked at what the overnight in Phuket meant to us, it was nothing worthwhile. They had added a number of evening excursions which mostly left from the ship before we returned from our 8.5 hour excursion late in the day. I doubt we would feel up to a night on the town after that. And some were expensive dinners out, so more money coming in for Regent. After the overnight in Phuket, the ship leaves the dock at 8 AM, so no additional excursions the next day, just an additional day at sea in place of our remote island stop that was removed. We go for the destinations, and we already lost one. If they were to do this on our cruise on the large scale done on some of these examples, we would not be happy at all. I think this is a play for the new young cruisers who haven't been on Regent (or maybe any other cruise line) before and are looking for as many opportunities to post on social media about their well known ports of call.

I just checked the bags from my last 3 Regent cruises (Navigator April 23, Splendor back to backs September - October 22, and Voyager back to backs December 19 - January 20). The Navigator and Splendor cruises were in concierge, and Voyager in a penthouse. We received the gold straw textured bag last April. It's very large, with prominent Regent decals, and has only a small zipper pouch inside. It's poorly made, with holes in the seams and the full zipper across the top is nearly impossible to pull. The other 2 bags are smaller, dark navy with small discrete decals. They both have a full zipper across the top, and have a large divider pocket on one side, with 2 small pouches within the divider. On the other side of the interior there's a zippered compartment as part of the lining.They're very nicely made. We had 2 cruises before that, but I didn't dig deep enough into the closet to find them. I seem to remember that one from our first cruise in 2017 might have been open at the top without a zipper. By the end of the cruise, I often have some extras purchased on the trip and I have often used the tote bag. As someone else said, if you're paying more for the same size cabin, they have to give you something to make it seem worth the concierge upgrade. I thought it was the coffee machine, but I haven't been able to get a working one on my last 2 cruises. Replacement machines didn't work either. It was very frustrating. Now I'm happy going to the Coffee Connection when it opens for cappuccino and a cronut.

Absolutely agree with that. People arrive at Aquavit over an hour before it opens just to get a table. We don't mind sharing a table for 4 with a couple we've talked to previously onboard, but sitting at a table for 8 to 10, even if we knew one other couple, was overwhelming to us. We're hoping Viking Ocean won't be like that. We've booked tables for 2 at the Chef's Table and Manfredi's (although we don't normally eat out for Italian since it's so easy to make at home), and will need to check out the other dining venues once we board to see if small tables are available. We might need to use the antisocial excuse if they try to send us to the giant tables. When we moved to our condo here in Florida over 10 years ago, a neighbor asked if I wanted to join the social committee. I said no, but if they needed someone for the antisocial committee, I was available.

I've told this same story for a Viking River Cruise so I'm sorry if you've read it before. We paid in full for our cruise in November 2018 to get the 3 percent discount, for an Amsterdam to Budapest cruise in May 2020, and included a 3 night post in Prague at the upgraded hotel in the old town. We also asked for Viking Air, Business Class. As we all know, the 2020 cruise was cancelled giving us the option to rebook the same cruise for 2021 (no money back was offered and this was a better deal than an FCC, and we still wanted this cruise). I thought for sure May 2021 would be "good to go" since we did a back to back cruises on Sea Dream in the Caribbean that we booked post Covid shutdowns for April 2021. But once again, Viking River suggested that we postpone our cruise, and we did. If we hadn't, it was cancelled and we wanted to stay in control of our cruise, so we moved it to May 2022. The 3 of us in 2 cabins successfully took our back to back Sea Dream cruises from St. Thomas to San Juan and San Juan to San Juan, and really enjoyed it. We had all had vaccines, and passed the test required to get onboard, which was collected by the onboard doctor, and tested by the onboard nurse. We eventually took our Viking River cruise over a year after our Sea Dream cruises, in May 2022. We were booked on a Delta Flight in business class from Miami to Atlanta (it was actually called a first class seat, but there was nothing special about it other than being close to the front of the plane) then Atlanta to Amsterdam in business class where we had paid Viking for 2 nights pre cruise. We immediately complained because there was less than 2 hours between our MIA to ATL and our ATL to AMS. We asked that our ATL to AMS be changed to the later flight. Viking told us that if it was OK with Delta, and they would not change it. Over the next few months, the time between flights decreased twice. We complained each time, and asked for the later flight, and were told no by Viking since Delta said it was OK. As you might have guessed, our flight from MIA to ATL was delayed, and they told us onboard to run as fast as we could and we might make it. We ran along with a much younger man traveling for business, and Delta slammed the gate door in his face when they saw him because they had already given our business class seats away to people in premium economy on the next flight. There was only 1 business class seat available on the next flight over 3 hours later, and they had already booked it for him since he had paid more than Viking had aid for our seats. We told him we were good with that since he had to work in the morning, but discussed whether we wanted to go home or sit in uncomfortable seats to Amsterdam. Rather than lose all of the money we had paid a long time ago, we took the later flight. Delta wouldn't let us into the business class lounge since they caused us to no longer be in business class. It was nothing like the business class lounges we've been in on other airlines with way too many people and unsupervised kids. The seats in premium economy were the worst seats we've sat in, with no leg room for tall people, and a forward leaning head rest in the wrong place for our bodies. Most of the seats were filled with college students celebrating the end of the school year. There were long lines of them waiting for the bathrooms since free drinks were available to all those 18 and older. I almost had an empty seat next to me (seat 3 of 4 in our middle row), but after we took off, a flight attendant brought a young woman to take that seat since she felt afraid and intimidated in her seat in economy. As it turned out, it wasn't a problem for either of us since I always stay quietly in my seat, and she wasn't one of the party crowd. We had tried to contact the emergency number for Viking Air. They were closed, and asked that we call back the next business day. We did enjoy our river cruise and our pre and post. When we returned home, we contacted Viking Air to ask for our money back for our business class upgrade. They told us it was not their problem and to contact Delta. We did. Since we didn't get our money back, we called Delta again. They told us that they had given our money back to Viking 2 months ago. It took us 2 more months to get Viking to give us back the money that Delta gave them. So, we will never us Viking Air again, and we booked our own air for our first Viking Ocean cruise. We have allowed Regent to book our airfare for us, since we've been OK with what they have booked for us except for our first cruise a number of years ago where they booked a flight through Atlanta to Vancouver with an hour in between. We only made it because it was the same plane, and the same flight crew on both flights. We now tell Regent that neither Delta or a flight through Atlanta are acceptable for our included air.

We took a Med trip on Voyager pre-covid in July. There were many large family groups on board, and the teens and tweens were not well behaved or supervised. They were taken on the excursions but were uninterested, and acted up while the rest of us were listening to our guides. There were 2 sisters that kept pushing me, and laughing. I told them they were acting childish for their age, and they stopped. We had some of that on a Mariner Alaska cruise the previous summer, but at least the kids stayed onboard during excursions since there was a program for younger kids, and the teens and tweens hung out in the pool during the day. After that, we've never cruised in summer again, on Regent or any other cruise line.

We had the same reluctance when we booked our first Viking River cruise, and paid in full more than a year and a half prior to our May 2020 cruise. We did save 3 percent by paying with a bank transfer rather than our credit card (where we would have at least gotten rewards). As it turned out, no Viking cruises sailed in May 2020 so we took the choice of rebooking our Grand European cruise for May 2021 rather than taking a future cruise credit. When it came time again to decide if May 2021 would allow us to take the cruise since we would be traveling from the US to Amsterdam, then entering many other EU countries while they were still worried about us bringing them more Covid, we rebooked to May 2022. There were still all kinds of Covid tests that needed to be done (with the weekend results needed to allow us to fly Monday morning costing 250 each), and the Delta flights to Amsterdam were booked too close to make the connection resulting in us being rebooked on the next flight with no business class seats available. I complained to Viking a number of times as the second fllight moved closer to the first, and they said if Delta says you can make it you will. We will never fly Delta again, and while Delta refunded our upgrade fee to Viking, we had trouble getting our upgrade fee back from Viking. So we paid in full in October of 2018 for a cruise that we were not able to take until May of 2022. We did, however, enjoy it, and had only 1 case of Covid for a passenger who tested positive at the airport in Budapest at the end of the cruise. Many of us did a 3 night post in Prague, and no one tested positive before going to the airport. After returning from our Viking river cruise, we decided to book our first Viking Ocean cruise for December of this year, and once again we had to pay in full within a few days of booking. We made our own flight arrangements this time since we don't trust Viking to do it. We constantly get advertisements from Viking saying that you can book for 25 dollars. I have never bothered looking at these offers to see when the rest is due. It's probably the next week. We've cruised on a number of other cruise lines (Regent, HAL, SeaDream, Paul Gauguin, Silversea), and none of them asked for full payment so far in advance,

How long do we need to continue a question that was asked on the Viking Ocean forum by a person on a Viking River cruise? My biggest question for a Viking cruise would be which ships will be allowed to dock in Amsterdam in the future. I suspect that the river ships will be, but the Viking Ocean cruise ships will not. But the OP needs to find the correct river cruise, with no more discussion on Viking Ocean.

After paying for an upgrade to business class through Viking, and questioning them 3 times about whether we could make the Delta connection, we were told that Delta said we could and they would not let us move our business class seast to the next flight out of Atlanta. Our first flight was delayed on both arrival in Miami, and arrival to Atlanta, as we anticipated. Our business class flights were given to economy plus travelers on the next flight, and we were forced to take their seats on a flight 3 hours later. We asked Viking to refund what we had paid for the business class upgrade, and they told us we would need to contact Delta. We contacted Delta, and they told us that Viking had already been given the refund. It took many months before Viking gave us several hundred dollars back which was much less than we had paid for the upgrade. We have never had a good experience on Delta, and will never accept a flight on them again. We also will never trust Viking for a flight. We enjoyed our Viking River cruise other than the Delta flight which they would not let us change when Delta gave us a connecting flight time of just over an hour. For our Viking Ocean cruise, we booked our own flight in first class, and the flight credit more than covered it. We are only flying one way since the cruise returns to Florida.

Just a question for those who are seeing excursions going from included to being priced. Do you already have an excursion booked for that port? On Silversea, there are included excursions in each port. If you book one of those excursions, the other included excursions then become priced. If you go back and delete the included excursion that you originally booked, the other originally excursions go back to being included. I haven't tried that with Viking Ocean since I was able to book the excursions we wanted, and I don't want to take a chance by cancelling them. But maybe it works the same way as Silversea.

We also always bring Euros and make sure we have small change after finding out that many bathrooms in Europe require you to pay to use the restroom. In the US, there are places that indicate a tip would be appreciated, but the attendant in many bathrooms in Europe made it clear that you had to pay to enter. We keep the leftover small denominations and bring it next time. In SW Florida, it is not easy to exchange US dollars for any other currency. We were once able to exchange 100 US dollars for euros at one of our local banks, and not only was the exchange rate bad, but there was a substantional transaction fee. The other option offered was to have the foreign currency sent to us, with a bad exchange rate, a transaction fee, and shipping. Now that we have enough to pay for the bathroom on arrival, and a tip or 2, we find a place that takes US dollars, pay with that, and keep the local currency they give us as change. We've always found that it cost less than exchanging in advance. Even the airports here are very expensive for currency exchange.

Shore excursions are bookable on Regent by Concierge and higher suites 365 days out, while others can book 300 days out. Dining reservations are bookable by Concierge and higher suites 90 days out, while others can book 75 days out. We always book our cruise early, in Concierge or Penthouse, and book our excursions and dining as soon as they open. Since only a few high end suites have an unlimited number of dinner reservations available prior to the cruise, and most are limited to 1 reservation per restaurant, dinner is usually not a problem, but shore excursions do book fast. The disadvantage of booking early is that we have already paid a big deposit by the time special offers become available, with lower fares or very low deposits. We've been told by Regent that taking advantage of those would require us to cancel our reservation and rebook, which could result in losing our suite, or other benefits we may have had from booking early. On our last cruise, we had a friend and a relative booked in 2 separate single cabins. If they wanted to rebook to get a last minute rate, they would have lost the single cabin discount that they had received when they booked, and paid 100 percent single supplement instead of 50 percent. We have a Viking Ocean cruise coming up that we paid in full for last year. All summer, we have received the advertisement for 25 dollar deposit until the end of September for Viking Ocean Cruises. Our cruise is sold out, so it wouldn't have worked for us, but the same cruise 2 weeks later was still available. Since we already booked our own airfare, we didn't even consider cancelling our booked cruise and rebooking 2 weeks later. Viking Ocean opens their shore excursions based on your cabin category with the Owner's suite starting 107 days out, Explorer suite at 97 days, Penthouse Junior suite at 87 days, and so on. Dinner reservations open 7 days after your excursions open, with a limit of 3 reservations for each restaurant for Explorer and Penthouse Junior suites, 2 each for Penthouse Veranda, 1 each for Deluxe Veranda, and no priority dinner reservations can be booked for Veranda suites until after boarding. We haven't been on Viking Ocean before, but enjoyed our Viking River cruise back in May of 2022. We had booked that cruise for May 2020, and paid in full for it late in 2018 to get the 3 percent discount. Since Covid cancelled the cruise for 2020 and 2021, with no refund available, it wasn't a good investment.

While I always bring a book with me on every cruise that I plan to read, I always check the library as soon as I board to see if there's something of interest. I also enjoy a good mystery, and contemporary best sellers, along with a horror here and there, and a science fiction with a historical background. And often I have found a good book to read on our Regent Cruises, and have finished it very quickly. On our Viking River cruise, there was nothing at all of interest in their small library. It was nearly all travel related, not all in the area we were traveling, but I had already read about the area we were traveling through.There was really nothing to read just for pleasure. I finished the mystery I had brought with me and asked at reception if I should leave it in the library. After reading its summary, she said that the crew would enjoy reading it, and put it behind her desk.

We paid for a Silver Suite on our first Silversea cruise. Our previous cruises had been on luxury cruise lines, and the Silver Suite was the biggest cabin we had ever had, but not the most expensive. But, it was amazing, and since we had a single relative onboard with us in another cabin, we enjoyed the extra space for dinner in our cabin when we didn't want to do formal dress. But we didn't receive anything extra on that cruise, and were never offered anything from Silversea after that as far as a good deal or discount. So consider yourself very lucky to get an upgrade to a Silver Suite. We did, however, book the Silversea World cruise in 2025, since the itinerary was what we wanted for many new ports, and those we enjoyed in the past. Dawn is bigger than we like for a cruise ship, but has many public areas (restaurants, bars, fitness center). But there was no way we could afford anything more than a Veranda Suite, and there's no chance of an upgrade that doesn't double the price of the cruise (and is only available now and then when someone cancels). We booked in August of last year with a very large deposit. We won't find out about included flights until sometime next year.

On our Viking River cruise, our first lunch onboard offered us a white and a red. We tried them both and they were not to our liking. We asked if there was anything else, and they brought us an alternate white that they told us would go well with our lunch. We each had a glass with lunch and enjoyed it. After we got settled in our cabin, we found that we had been charged 45 dollars for the bottle (which we didn't finish because it wasn't offered to us as our bottle and would have brought it to our cabin to enjoy later). We had also paid for the SSP when we checked in onboard, but "unfortunately" as we were told, the computer hadn't recorded it when our account was charged for it. The bartender at happy hour figured this out, and got our SSP registered on our account, but could not remove the 45 dollar charge for our 2 glasses of wine at lunch. For our upcoming Viking Ocean cruise, we bought our SSP recently when we booked our restaurant reservations. We might have better wine choices for the Panama Canal cruise than the River Cruise through Germany, but it only takes a few bottles of wine that you didn't expect to pay for to cover SSP, and we can have a happy hour drink and/or an after dinner drink at one of the bars without worrying about an extra charge. When we're already paying for a cruise, we don't like to be worry about upexpected overcharges.

No, I wasn't expecting a bar in our cabin, and we've already used the SSP onboard Viking River. But I was expecting that paying for an Explorer Suite would give us at least 1 bottle of liquor of our choice in our cabin. We didn't have that on our Viking River Cruise, but were in the suite below Explorer level. On all of our other cruises, on multiple cruise lines, we've had drinks included, and they gave wine, beer and a bottle of liquor in our cabin. We did have all the wine we wanted in our Viking River cruise suite, which wasn't part of the SSP. The Explorer Suites on the River Cruise had an in suite bar included, but we were one level below Explorer Suite. So I'm just asking if anyone has ever been in an Explorer Suite on Viking, and what exactly is provided in your cabin. If you don't know, then don't guess.

I think the first thing to do is mention it to the staff, and let them have a chance to mention it. If that doesn't solve the problem, then asking them to keep it down is the next step. Since one of us uses hearing aids, which make it much worse with loud talking, I'd let him inform them of that. If that doesn't work either, we would make a complaint against the restaurant's manager since their job is managing the restaurant.

Having hearing aids makes it even worse when the table next to you is yelling. If you have hearing loss, use hearing aids (they're affordable at Costco, and if you're on a Viking cruise, you can afford them), or order room service.

Small alcohol bottles are in PV and above? We're in an Explorer suite on our December Classic Panama Canal cruise, and have paid for the Silver Beverage Package (which we would have hoped was included in an Explorer Suite). Will we really only have small bottles (like those on an airline) in our fridge in our Explorer Suite? That would be very disappointing.

So many Delta lovers on here makes me wonder what we've been doing wrong, other than allowing Regent to book us on Delta. We did fly Delta to Atlanta and back from Newark many years ago, and we had problems way back then. I was hoping they had improved, but after twice being booked by them with insufficient time between flights, we are done with them. We were told our seats would be Delta One. Our flight attendant while sitting in our Delta "first class'' seats on our delayed flight, from MIA to ATL told us we would be on the next flight from ATL to AMS in Delta One, but we should rush to the gate for our original flight since we could make it. But they had already moved people in "Delta Comfort" on the next flight to our business class (Delta One) seats on our original flight before we ran to it, and they slammed the door on us. At least we were able to sit next to each other on the next flight because of that since that free up 2 seats next to each other in "Delta Comfort" But as tall people, we find Delta Comfort to be extremely uncomfortable, and will never fly Delta again. I was happy to see today that Delta is eliminating the use of their "lounge" by passengers with basic economy tickets, but I still won't be flying on Delta again.

PapaFlamingo, almost all of what you've assumed is incorrect. We have a cruise TA that we have worked with for many years, and trust our agent completely. We never have "bothered" the Regent air employees ourselves. We have taken Regent air on every Regent cruise that we have take, and have deviated on air for all of them. We don't like to wait for our air reservations since it makes getting to the airport and back more complicated. Once we wanted to add a week to visit family who lived where our cruise ended, and had to pay a deviation to stay an extra week before flying home. That flight, of course, was cancelled due to a flight attendant feeling ill on the inbound flight, and no one being available until early the next morning. We were able to stay with family, but we were charged for upgraded seats a second time for our 2 flights home, and Regent wasn't responsible for them since we added the seat upgrade ourselves. Neither airline (one of them Delta, the other American) that we were on to get home, claimed any responsibility for us having to pay twice for our upgraded seats. As I already said, we had to pay a non-refundable 75 dollar fee, each, back in July for Regent air to consider our deviation request, and we were charged at that time on my credit card. A few days after being charged Regent air told us that deviations for our cruise for flights that we needed for our pre-cruise excursion at the end of March would not be available until sometime in September, and that happened very recently. When our TA contacted Regent air, they were able to book flights for us, at the additional cost of the deviation, plus an additional fee for not having 2 stops rather then one, with our departure and return from Miami. The airline was a contracted airline. It was not an airline we requested, and the return flight required us to pay Regent for a post hotel with transfers due to Regent restrictions on when we could disembark, and we will arrive home a day later than we expected. I have always thought that you, PF, were a Regent TA, but now that I know you are retired airline (probably Delta), I know why much of the information you've given in the past seems suspect. After our many travel experiences, with both cruises, and otherwise, our only request to cruise lines when we fly is that we never fly on Delta, and that we never fly through Atlanta. We don't live in Georgia, and have never had a good experience flying to it, or from it, and the problems have always been on Delta. We used to live in upstate NY, and had several problems with Delta way back then, so it's a problem that started way before we started taking cruises, but continued after that. And the Delta business class lounge in Atlanta is the worst lounge we've ever experienced anywhere that we've traveled. After they bumped us from our business class flight because their feeder flight that we were on was late (too many bags brought to the gate and gate-checked, I watched from my window onboard for over 20 minutes to load them) they gave us a hard time getting into the lounge since we were downgraded to delta one. We showed them our business class tickets from our scheduled flight, and after a phone call they let us in. We were sorry we asked. It was filled with screaming kids, with few seats available, and long lines for food. Definitely not where I wanted to sit through our 4 hour delay for the next flight.

We had to pay for Regent Custom Air in July before they would even consider looking at a flight for us in September for our late March cruise. Without that payment, they would not start looking for our flight, That was a quote from Regent, and they still had to be prompted to give us flights in September. We obviously could have booked flights ourselves a long time ago, but our cruise includes business class airfare, and we expect Regent to provide them. We looked at booking our own flights, and they we very expensive for business class. That's one of the reasons we have continued to take Regent cruises. We are gold members on Regent, and will be adding quite a few nights onboard this cruise, and we have never had a problem with their included air in the past. But this time, we were asked to pay extra for our flight in addition to the custom air fee, and were only given assigned seats for our return flights. They couldn't say when our seats would be assigned for our other flights because they didn't know why they hadn't already been assigned by the airline (the same airline that we're flying on return). This doesn't give us a good feeling for our upcoming cruise. We won't be making our final payment in November if they can't confirm our seats by then, and will be asking for a refund of our considerable down payment. I think Regent has been unable to figure out how to deal with the airlines now that there are way more non cruise passengers traveling internationally, especially in business class, than there were pre-Covid.

On our 2 week Viking River cruise, one red and one white were offered with lunch and dinner onboard. If you asked for something other than what was offered, you were almost always charged for the bottle, even if you only had 2 glasses from it, and an additional glass wasn't offered from it. We know this because we looked at our bill online on the first afternoon onboard, and found that we had been charged over 40 dollars for the bottle that our 2 glasses of wine were poured from. We had already paid for the Silver Beverage package when we boarded, but it wasn't entered in the computer. The Batr Tender at Happy Hour made that he entered it before we wasted any more money on wine. Most of the wine was not very good. The Happy Hour cocktails were better. The exursions on Viking River clearly indicated whether or not a drink was included, whether lunch was included or not. We stopped at a brewery that said that 2 small glasses of beer where included, and that food was not. They did have pretzels, and those who wanted an extra glass of beer received it until we left a short time after the tasting. On a few other excursions that were an additional cost, one beer, wine or soft drink was included as described, and one that had fewer people than expected since quite a few people who had signed up didn't show up encouraged us to have as more of their local beer and wine before returning to the ship by foot.

They definitely aren't "free excursions" on Regent although I think they recently called them that in one of their brochures. They're included excursions, because they're included in the cost of the cruise. Since Oceania is owned by the same company as Regent, we have always received many brochures for their cruises. We are not interested in a ship with over 1200 passengers. Some of the ships are in our passenger range, but with O plus, we would have to pick one of the pluses we get on Regent. We could pay more and get all 4 pluses, and get a smaller cabin and still need to pay for more if we want the Regent experience. If you don't need everything that Regent includes, and don't mind a larger ship, then I think Oceania is worth looking at. We don't mind going out on our own to explore a port that we're docked in. We have done this a number of times since a port that you dock in often is close to a town worth exploring, but not always. If we need to travel to get to a place we can explore on foot, then it needs to be a shuttle provided by the cruise line. We avoid independent tours unless we are in a very small port like Fakarava in French Polynesia, where locals can give you a nice car tour of the island where they were born, and will be sure to get you back to the tender dock on time to return to your ship. For large, crowded ports, we don't trust independent operators to get us back to the ship on time.

You need to think twice if you think Regent will be better with their included tours. We have 100 days onboard Regent, and another cruise booked next April. We've had some very bad included excursions, and just pay for what looks like the best excursion for us. We pay extra for "small group" tours, but a few times we've been on the same tour boat with those who did not pay for "small group". And there is no comparison between the cost of a cruise on Regent and a cruise on Viking. We have only done one Viking River cruise so far. We booked the 2 room Verandah suite. It was very nice, and we had wine in our suite's refrigerator (and red on the counter), and free laundry for the entire cruise. We bought the beverage package, and did a 2 night pre and a 3 night post, in the upgraded hotels, and paid for the business class upgrade on our flights, although we were bumped from one of our flights, and received only a minimal refund from Viking after contacting them several times. Almost all of our excursions were included, with a few that had a reasonable charge, and there were only 3 where we headed back to the ship without waiting for our guide to take us there at the end of the tour (but we did tell them) since we were in easy walking distance to the ship, and there were a few other places we wanted to stop on the way. Compared to what we pay for Regent, we considered the Viking River cruise a bargain. And we have never stayed in anything higher than a Penthouse suite, and more often are in a Verandah, with none of them being 2 rooms (a bedroom in a separate room than he living area). Based on that, we booked our first Viking Ocean cruise in an Explorer suite through the Panama Canal from Panama City to Fort Lauderdale. We could never afford a cabin that large on Regent. There were only 2 excursions that we paid extra for, and we paid for the beverage package. We were able to book first class air from Miami to Panama City for less than the air credit since we only needed it one way since we end our cruise in Florida. Viking Mars is the largest ship we've ever cruised on, so we hope it doesn't feel crowded. We found the narrow halls of the Viking Longship , and the large tables in the restaurant to be difficult to deal with, especially since our river cruise was just 2 months after they started cruising again after the Covid shutdown. We had booked that cruise and paid in full in November of 2017 and took the cruise many years later with no refund offered.

We are on a long upcoming Silversea cruise. When I try to logon to mysilversea (which I've done many times before), I'm often directed to a site that is not Silversea. It has something other than Silversea in the website name. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't depending on my device. I always double check the website name before I continue.