CDNPolar

Are you booked directly with Hurtigruten or through a Travel Agent? If with a TA, you cannot access your booking online.

I think that one thing we have learned over many years of international travel, is just because an airline or a travel agent says you can make the connection, does not mean you will. Airlines have minimum standards for connections but this is in ideal and perfect circumstances. We are not today in ideal or perfect circumstances. YOU have the ability to have influence on your air experience but choosing carefully. HOWEVER, even with the best intentions, and choosing all the right connection times, you can still arrive without luggage, or miss a connection because the flight was cancelled or whatever....

Not sure I exactly understand the question here. The RFG - whether it is 14 days or 24 hours - is an opportunity for you to "cancel" for any reason. There is no restriction on that reason. You can simply decide you don't want to go. I put "cancel" in " " because, you don't get a refund, you get a voucher for the value of the cruise to use at a later date. If we are talking about the same thing then you don't need to have insurance on top of that RFG, as that guarantee gives you complete freedom. Perhaps better to refer to the limited time that Viking offered these RFG's as an option to delay or postpone your cruise and my bet is their motivation on this was to help folks to deal with their Covid fears. You are not cancelling, you are just moving your trip.

Tipping for us brings us great pleasure. We do not tip because we are expected to or from any external motivation. When someone remembers our name the second time they see us, or they go out of their way to assist, we generally tip discretely when we come across them where it is not obvious what we are doing. This gives us pleasure because as was mentioned above, the wages in some of the home countries are extremely low and these are the best paying jobs some of these folks can get. We can afford it so we pay it forward a bit where we can. My company has operations in many of the countries that Viking crew come from. One in particular is the Philippines. It pains me that people doing the same job that got me to where I am today could not dream of travelling like I do because their salaries are so low. Then you take their currency and convert to a US, UK, or CAD fare on a cruise and it would be impossible for them to afford. I also agree - who, and how much you tip should remain a personal choice and private, but to talk about tipping is important.

READ THE DETAILS of your RISK FREE GUARANTEE very carefully. There were two that I know of. Cancel up to 24 hours before and cancel up to 14 days before. We have had both of these RISK FREE GUARANTEEs. If you have the 24 hour risk free guarantee, then if I am correct, you can cancel for any reason for a full credit voucher as long as you cancel a minimum of 24 hours before. You don't need cancellation insurance with this one time guarantee. Same with the 14 day - but the cancellation must be up to 14 days before. As soon as you cross the threshold and are within 24 hours or within 14 days, then you lose the value of the guarantee and you must then rely on cancellation insurance that you purchased separately. AND that cancellation insurance must cover covid positive as a cancellation reason.

There are a number of threads on here in various forums that people are discussing the challenges with airports, staffing, luggage, connection times, etc. From our experience in the past year with multiple flights - all connecting - we don't book any connection now that is not at least 2.5 hours. We have flights coming up to Spain where we transfer through Amsterdam in 23 days and there was a 1 hour 45 minute connection time available and we opted instead for a 6.5 hour connection time. Because we are coming out of Toronto, we are most often connecting in Europe somewhere, and most often in the Schengen region. This means that we have to do a passport control before moving on to our next flight. We have had nightmare close calls with 2 hour connections where our initial flight out of Toronto Pearson is delayed, and of course that means delay in arriving in Europe, then massively long lines at passport control, and then on top of that having to change terminals... and if anyone has had to go from B to A in Frankfurt, you know what I am talking about. To us, air travel is "hurry up and wait" and even though we are extremely seasoned air travellers, we just don't see the need for the anxiety of short connections. Yeah, we would rather not have to endure an extra four hours in an airport, but the comfort of knowing that we don't have to be stressed and we can take our time comes with benefits. We have RUN to gates and barely made it before aircraft doors have closed. We have been the ones saying excuse me, I have a short connection, can I step in front of you. There is no need to get your blood pressure up. We "buy" credit cards that we have no intention of using to charge anything JUST for the airport lounge benefits. The one year annual fee is nothing compared to the value that you get from the airport lounges when you have a longer connection. With a 6 hour connection time, you cannot spend the whole time in the lounge as some only allow you to enter within 3 or 4 hours of your flight time, but you can shop the airport, find a quiet place and listen to an audio book or play a game and then move into the lounge and have a bite to eat and a drink before your flight. Even if you pay per lounge visit, if you look at what you would spend in an airport restaurant for a meal and alcohol, it is often more than the lounge visit costs. We spend a lot of time choosing our airline, our connection airports, our flight times, the aircraft type, and the seating configuration. One key detail that is always there for us now is the connection time. We also often - especially for cruises or a tour type package - arrive the day before and pay the one night hotel. This is also a key consideration when we head into Canadian winter as there can be weather delays. Don't create stress in your travels. There is nothing worse in the world than being late for your cruise or tour. Choose your connection times wisely. Happy flying!

We have flown several times in the last few months with connections. Although every flight we have been on was delayed in departure, or we were held on the aircraft (Toronto Pearson) before we were allowed to disembark, our luggage followed us each time to our final destination. If you are flying within Canada, you should not be held at arrival as this is a customs/immigration thing because of overcrowding. Personally, I believe that there is a mess at many airports, but I also believe that the media make it look far worse than it is. I say this because in the times we have flown, we have sped through checkin, bag drop, and security without any delay. Our last flight through Toronto Pearson was the quickest that I have ever gotten to my gate. (We arrived with 3.5 hours to spare and we were at the gate in 20 minutes) Toronto Pearson is definitely in a mess, but if I were in your shoes, I would check my luggage and be fairly confident that it would make it to your final destination. I think that your bigger concern is the layover time. Is 1.5 hours enough. If you are delayed leaving on your first flight then that reduces the time for you to get to your next flight and also reduces the time for your luggage to transfer to the next flight. In this case, if your initial departure delay is significant, and the next flight is not also delayed, then luggage not following you could be a time thing over anything else. We don't do any layover now that is less than 2.5 hours. We have adopted a new strategy - which we should have done always - which is to have one or two changes in our carry on as well as an extra pair of shoes in case the checked bag does not arrive with us. BUT, make sure your carry on bag and personal item are within both the dimensions allowed and the weight allowed. We have had our carry on and personal item checked for dimensions AND weight recently by 2 different airlines and we have seen people at the gate basically "forced" to check their carry on. We have also seen passengers on the aircraft forced to check their carry on because there is no room in the overheads. You don't want that to happen, but because more people are trying to do carry on only, they are sometimes unaware of the size and weight restrictions. I was stopped at Toronto Pearson, flying Lufthansa, at the bag drop because my carry on was 2 pounds overweight and I was made to take 2 pounds out of that and transfer to my checked bag. If the checked bag had already gone down the belt, then I would have been forced to check the carry on. I fly a lot for both business and personal, often 20+ flights a year and I have NEVER had my carry on scrutinized like they are now. Good luck!

I was more worried on our first Viking cruise than my husband was. I am about to say something that may not be popular with some reading this thread, but the comments are with all due respect, if that is possible. My fears were based around the fact that 70% plus of Viking's guests are Americans. I am Canadian. In Canada we are not free from discrimination, but we have a significantly better social acceptance of 2SLGBTQ than the USA. I was fearful that we would be subject to discrimination by the guests, NOT the crew. I personally have American cousins that have a problem accepting my husband and I. They hide it well in most cases, but if the truth were known, they don't accept us. What I found was that the guests on Viking ships (we have been on 6 Viking cruises now) are well travelled and overall very accepting and we have never felt any overt discrimination. My husband is younger than I am and there were people in the spa one day chuckling about us and we heard them refer to me as the "sugar daddy" but to me that was laughable and an age thing rather than a gay thing.... And had I been face-to-face with this comment, I would have laughed and corrected them to the fact that my younger husband out earns me significantly. He in effect is the "sugar daddy" if we go by annual salary and earnings. Haha. I personally think that you will be fine. I don't know what a Viking Antarctica cruise draws in demographics, but my general understanding of Antarctica expeditions is that they draw a wider range of nationalities than a typical cruise itinerary. We leave for Antarctica this December, but we are travelling on Hurtigruten over Viking. Viking had just entered into the expedition market when we were booking and as much as we enjoy Viking, Hurtigruten was significantly less expensive for the same cruise. Significantly with a CAPITAL S. With Viking, I don't ever see you having any issues with the Crew. I feel that Viking Crew are extremely open, accepting, and very humble with everyone. It is sad that we have to worry about these things when we all just want to be our authentic selves and live our lives. I hope you will share your experience once you have completed your voyage!

As the above answer stated, but to add, they really are no different than your restaurant servers. This is their job on the ship and they receive their tips at the end like all other staff. We have found that tipping individual crew on the ship - that we see all the time - is something that we like to do, but we would not tip room service if the server was different every time.

I recently flew from Bergen and I think you would be taking a risk here. Port arrival time is not always 100% accurate and as the above member stated, this is the busiest time of the day. I would not risk it.

If you go to the "Canadian Cruisers" forum, you will see the top two discussions now are about the ArriveCan App, and other cruise lines are having issues as well. ArriveCan is an issue for more than just cruise lines. Go read the forums there - you may find more information there as the Hurtigruten forum is not that busy. Since ArriveCan is a Canadian App, you are likely to find better information in that forum.

On our last Lufthansa flight, my checked bag was already on the belt heading away when they weighed my carry on and found it overweight. The checkin agent walked the belt and dragged my checked bag back and sent me to remove ONE KG from my carry on and put in my checked bag. Lufthansa are 8KG for carry on (within the right measurements) and 4KG for the personal item. Other airlines (KLM / Air France) are 12 KG total for carryon and personal combined. We find Lufthansa very strict on this. With Lufthansa be safe rather than sorry as I watched them force the checkin of other carry on's.

The emergency number above is the one if you run into travel issues from cancellations to missed connections.

I would suggest that you contact Viking to ask them. Unless someone here has already done that no one would know....

Sure there are business class seats on domestic flights. Many frequent travellers go business class domestically. They are not available on every flight, but they certainly exist. Best thing to do is go to GoogleFlights, select "Business" and find the flights you want, then go to SeatGuru and look at the seating maps. You will see the seating in Business.

We only renew for 10 years and with what has been going on with passports lately, I think that anyone should renew for 10 years. 5 years sails by quickly.

Thank you. Unfortunately there are many that would hide their illness especially if mild. I am sorry to hear that you have Covid and hope you will recover quickly and that it is not too bad.

On Viking Star in December 2022, we were so pleased to see 6 crew members that we knew from a pre-pandemic cruise, in a totally different part of the world. Katerina who was the host at The Restaurant instantly recognized us and called us by name, and each night we were quickly seated in the same section - often the same table - with the same serving team that we adored. She remembered us from over 2 years prior. I prefer "Club Soda" to the Viking sparkling water, and on the second night with the same serving team, the Club Soda just arrived as we sat down. We often asked for additional butter, and that just was on the table with the bread when it arrived. This serving team really took care of us and the leader of this team was Jacobs. Overall, we knew crew in various parts of the ship and this made us feel more than welcome as they all went out of their way to recognize us. On our most recent Homelands cruise, the bartender in the Living Room - I Made - greeted us by name on the second day. This was very special and obvious to us as he would call out to us even if we were just walking by. I could go on for hours about the over-the-top service that we have grown to love on Viking... Thank you for starting this discussion!

We are Canadian cruisers, and we almost always universally tip ship crew in USD. Just the most convenient for anyone to convert.

We have often used Viator and always been happy with their options.

Think always that your first destination in Europe you will have to get through passport control before you move to your connection flight. I have only gone through Lisbon once and don't really remember, but that 1h35m is only as good as your first outbound flight being on time. If your first outbound is on time or early landing then generally that connection time will be ok... but some airports you have to change terminals as you are arriving from international and going to internal Europe flight. We never book anything less that 2.5 hours for our connection in our first Europe airport. A friend recently booked a Warsaw connection of 1h30m but his Air Canada flight was 1h45m late leaving so his connection was gone before he touched down.

This is directly from the Viking site and I have heard the Chairman speak about this directly on videos too. If this is false then what are we to believe?

For our next two cruises, we have opted to book on our own and not book with Viking. We either book premium economy or business, and now with the airlines, we see that when you are booking these classes, you can make changes for the change in fare, or you can cancel and retain the full value of the fare and rebook for a future date. Because we fully intend to travel the dates we choose we don't see major issue in going on our own. Yes, you have to pay up front when you book, but you have full control of the booking too. We have found also, that unless Viking are offering free air, the prices they are quoting are only within a couple hundred of what we pay on our own and they are not always on the side of the price advantage. In fact, we have opted on one cruise recently to book our own business class seats because we got them over $1800.00 per person cheaper than we were given in price from Air Plus. Oh, and for the record, we have always ignored the 60 day recording and booked and no agent has ever tried to discourage us. We generally will book 250-300 days out. Now, also to be fair - we booked first class tickets for a non Viking cruise about 5 months ago and we have 4 months to go. This itinerary has had about 5 or 6 schedule changes to date, but all are still acceptable changes to us and each time the change happened, the airline (Delta) gave us the opportunity to cancel or change with no fee because of the schedule change. If there is no price advantage, then I will always choose to book my own flights.

I don't think that this is an improvement, BUT every Viking Stateroom has its own HVAC unit and does not share or draw air from other parts of the ship or other Staterooms. This is one thing that makes us feel comfortable in our Viking Stateroom.