SWFLAOK

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.

Our previous experience on Viking was a river cruise, and there were just the 2 of us on the cruise. But the bus was assigned based on when we got to the buses based on the time on our tickets (and on TV), and not a bus number preassigned on the ticket. Most of our cruise experience is 100 nights on Regent on a number of cruises from 2017 through this year. The bus assigned was based on when you checked in for the excursion in the lounge, in most cases, or at the bus if it was a "meet on the dock" excursion which was announced on the TV, and in the printed bulletin on the bed the night before on Regent. I suspect it's the same on Viking Ocean. We traveled with 2 other people in 2 other cabins on Regent last April. We agreed on the excursions we wanted at the time we wanted, and all got online at the assigned time to book them. On Regent, we knew all of the times for excursions before we booked them, but on Viking Ocean, there were additional times shown when booked that were not shown before the actual booking time. It wasn't a problem for us since we're alone on the upcoming Viking Ocean cruise. On Regent, we were able to book restaurant reservations for all 3 cabins so we did that for all 4 of us. Our Viking Ocean dinner reservations can't be made until next Friday, so I don't know if they allow other cabins to be added. We almost always make reservations ourselves rather than having our cruise TA do it since if something comes up, we can react faster. For example, I normally use my Jet Blue MasterCard for my travel expenses, and that's what my cruise TA has. With the Viking Ocean excursions last Friday, she would have needed to call us to get a Visa card number.

We just booked our excursions today at 3PM EDT for our Viking Mars Panama Canal cruise in December. We booked the first 2 excursions that required an additional payment, and the rest of our excursions were included. If you booked your 4 bookings separately, then you will all need to get online at your earliest booking time, and book them. You will find that there are more than 1 booking time, especially for the included excursions. There was as many as 5 booking times. If you want to be booked together for all of your excursions, you will need to coordinate your bookings. It might to be easyest to give one person all of the user id and passwords to myviking and have them book all of the excursions as soon as they are available. If you have a cruise TA, it might be easier for them to bookj your excursions for 4 different reservations. We needed to supply a Visa or American Express card, or a bank checking account for the excursions that required an extra fee. We used a Visa card, and Mastercard and Discover are not allowed. They said our reservations for the Visa paid excursions were not guaranteed until our credit card payment cleared, but the included excursions were booked immediately. We did not hear whether our Visa paid excursions were paid for today. We also paid today for our Silver Beverage package, and used our bank checking account for a 3 percent discount. We didn't hear anything about that being paid for today,

Our previous Viking experience was on a river cruise that we paid in full for more than 3 years before we took the cruise due to Covid cancellations on their part. We had paid for the 2 room Veranda Suite on deck 3, and the Viking Air Plus with a Business Class upgrade from MIA to Amsterdam and Prague to MIA after a 3 night post with a Premium hotel upgrade in Prague after our cruise ended in Budapest. The only problem we had was with the Viking Air Plus. They booked us on Delta from Miami to Atlanta to Amsterdam in Business class. There was only 90 minutes between arriving in Atlanta, and leaving for Amsterdam. We complained at least 3 times that the connection would not work, and Viking said "no problem". Shortly before the trip, the connection was down to 75 minutes, and we asked Viking for a change. They said no, since Delta still said there would not be a problem. It was an early morning flight, and we stayed at the hotel in MIA, but the flight from ATL to MIA was late arriving, and there were many people who brought their luggage to the gate and gate checked it. From our window near the front of the plane (which was not worthy or business class, but was called first class on this flight), I could see that there was 1 elderly man moving 1 bag at a time from the gate checked baggage pile to the escalator to the baggage hold. I knew we were doomed on our connection. We arrived with just over 30 minutes to make our Amsterdam flight at the opposite end of the airport, and our flight attendant told us to run for it. There was 1 other passenger who was headed for the same flight, and the 3 of us were the first to exit onto the jetway. As we got to the door into the terminal, a Delta employee closed the door in front of us. We knocked and called out, and she looked around, and after 3 or 4 minutes she opened the door with no explanation. The 3 of us ran, and made it just in time to see them lock the door 2 minutes early for our flight. They had given our business class seats away, and didn't want to face the consequences. Coincidentally, 3 seats in Premium economy (Delta One?) had opened up on the next flight. There was only 1 business class seat on the next flight, and we were OK with letting the business man taking it instead of 1 of us. He was already going to be late for his business meeting in Amsterdam. The Delta lounge didn't want to let us in since our "new" flight wasn't in business class. We showed them our previous boarding passes and they gave in. The lounge was the worst we've ever experience. Delta One was terrible with seats smaller than Jet Blue "even more space". The cruise was fine, and our flight home on BA and American was very good. But we had trouble getting our money back from Delta since we didn't get the business class that we paid for. Delta told us they had refunded the money to Viking, but it took a while and a number of calls before they gave us a few hundred dollars back. We have our first Viking Ocean cruise coming up in December. We booked our own business class flights. On our other booked cruises, we still attempt to book business class through the cruise line, but we tell them that any flight on Delta, or through Atlanta is not acceptable. This wasn't our first problem with Delta not allowing enough time between flights. We had complained about the flight from FLL to ATL to Vancouver with only 30 minutes in between. When we boarded, I asked our flight attendant if we would make it. She said she was sure we would since the entire crew would be on the same connecting flight. And we did.

Sometimes you have to give up a few hundred dollars to save many thousands of dollars for a cruise with bad flights at the beginning and end. After the trip, you don't want to remember the terrible fights rather than the cruise. The deviation fee on Regent flights just became non-refundable. I think it was higher, but refundable (or as a credt ona future cruise?) in the past. I really liked the Springsteen with Edwin Starr video. Their voices really seemed to complement each other.

War, what is it good for, by Edwin Starr. That song just popped into my head for no apparent reason a couple of days ago, and it's been hard to get rid of. I had that single on a 45, and listened to it many times on my turntable back in my high school days. We paid for a deviation on our Regent cruise next April several months ago. Our TA told us the deviation fee was applied right away, and was not refundable. A few days later, she told us that Regent wouldn't even be looking at flights for us until September at the earliest. If we don't have flights agreed on by the time our final payment is due a few months later, we'll cancel and ask for all of our money back. We did that with Ponant last year since they could not ticket us before final payment was due. We recieved a full refund, but still wouldn't book Ponant again.

Obviously, the first thing I do is go on "the web" and check what gates the flights are departing from and landing at. Unfortunately, they aren't always available to us as passengers before we arrive for our flights. If they're not available to Flight Attendants, then why would they be available to passengers? I would think that once onboard a flight that's continuing on to our next destination with the same flight attendants that they would know where they are heading for the rest of the day. Since what I described was the only GOOD experience we've ever had in Atlanta flying with Delta, we will never fly on Delta again. And we will also avoid Atlanta if possible on any airline. Thanks for your input.

Our first Regent Cruise was back in late August 2017, with air included. They gave us a flight from FLL to ATL to Vancouver. There was a less than an hour transfer in ATL. Our itinerary showed us having less than an hour to make our flight, with a terminal transfer. We asked our TA twice whether we coul make that flight. She asked Regent and Delta, and they both said "yes". On the day of our flight, I asked our Flight Attendant if she thought we would make our connection. She told us we would since they were the same flight crew, and our gate was next to ours after arrival from FLL. Why couldn't tell us that before we boarded? On our flight back from Anchorage, we were on our way to the airport when a flight attendant felt ill, and couldn't board. Luckily we were able to stay with relatives in Anchorage overnight, and didn't have to pay for a hotel overnight as others did. They were able to find a flight attendant who was willing to take the flight the next morning from Anchorage to Dallas, and Dallas to FLL. But we were charged for the upgraded seats on both flights that were originally included in our Regent airfare. But that was our first Regent cruise, and we've done many others since then, with better results. None of them have been to Alaska, and we really didn't enjoy the Regent Alaska cruise at all. We did, however enjoy visiting relatives in Anchorage, and definitely enjoyed using their small RV to visit Denali, Fairbanks, and Valdez.

Does Silversea really have extra capacity that they need to fill? We had to book long ago for the 2025 World Cruise, and at the price we paid, we expect everyone to dress well on formal nights. Tuxedos and gowns should not be required on formal nights, but dresses and jackets with a tie should be. After six on non formal nights, jeans, sneakers, t-shirts, tank tops, ball caps, shorts, and skorts (as well as pajamas, bath robes, swim suits, and swim suit coverups) should be things that you only wear in your cabin, and not to any dining venue or bar, not even breakfast. If you want to dress casually, there's room service i your cabin, and a bottle of liquor or wine in your cabin can also be arranged. What we have found is that behavior and manners are also ignored by those who dress inappropriately. Rule breakers ignore all rules, and not just the dress code. This isn't limited to one cruise line, or only cruise lines, but to other aspects of life.

Which cruise lines have you seen that documents that "heat producing" hair care appliances are exceptions to bringing "heat producing" devices onboard? That's not what our experience has been on the cruise lines we've cruised on. Curling irons were never an exception on the cruises we've taken, and I never missed taking it. They provide a dryer that they know will work safely with their outlets. But when someone asks what does it mean if there's one wide prong an appliance rather than 2 narrow prongs, then they should not be bringing their own "heat producing" appliances. As for all of those who think their jokes about their "heat producing" appliances, and wearing jeans or ballcaps, I'm sure you would not find an electrical fire onboard your ship at sea to be a funny situation. People still try to bring candles onboard to freshen the smell in their cabin even though they're not allowed. Accidentally leaving a curling iron on in your cabin is even more likely than accidentally leaving a candle lit, and just as dangerous. Hopefully Viking Ocean checks the contents of all bags coming onboard to ensure unsafe items are not being brought onboard. All of the cruises we've taken this year and last have done that.

And that's why they don't want passengers to bring their own heat producing electrical devices onboard.

And that's exactly why the cruise ships don't want you to bring your own curling iron, hair dryer, iron, or other electric appliances. Since they scan all of your luggage before you board, I hope they're taking away these things, and returning them to passengers at the end of the cruise (if they can still find them 😊).