CDNPolar

I had friends that booked a private excursion that literally made it to the ship as they were about to pull the gangway. Personally we are wary of booking private excursions unless the return time is well before all aboard and we know that we might have options to get back to the ship if something goes wrong... such as Uber.

If you start any booking process online you generally see the available cabins?

If I am going to leave my checked bag AND my carry on with the cruise line, I have a back pack that I transfer a few things to: 1) Any type of medication or supplement - you never know where luggage is stored before being loaded to the ship. Especially in hot climates, your luggage could be in direct sun or hot truck beds for who knows how long and this could ruin medication. 2) Anything valuable such as jewelry 3) Laptop if we brought it 4) Any documents or ID that are critical Most often if we are getting on the ship, but don't have immediate access to our cabin, we will keep our carry on with us.

To us the connection whether domestic or international is never safe under 2.5 hours. Flights are notoriously late for so many reasons. Time if year and weather patterns come into play too. We are not adverse to longer connections up to 4, 5, or even 6 hours. As @FlyerTalker asks "what's your peace of mind worth". We are only focused on getting to our destination with the least stress possible and if you are anticipating the missing of a connection or making the ship port on time, that is stress we don't want or need.

I am certainly more careful now because I have in the past posted something that I "believed" to be true, but then was corrected by others. Now when I do post I will often add, if appropriate, "this is my opinion" or "in my opinion" because your personal opinion is not always the same as fact. Although I never intended to post something that was not true, I am grateful to those on CC that have more experience and are also skilled at politely correcting you with the correct information.

I need to ask, is this because you don't like drones? Drones are difficult to travel with because many countries you have to have a letter of permission in advance to use a drone. Then there are significant restrictions in public areas. There is a lot of advance arrangements necessary to use a drone, including the ship if you plan to use it on the deck of the ship you are on.

Welcome to Cruise Critic! I kind of agree with others, and I would opt to fly to Europe and reposition back to North America. Are "attaching" both the repositioning cruise and the river cruise too much? NOT AT ALL in my mind. If I had the vacation time, I would definitely do it. I am Canadian, and our airports are fairly mild at security. I have experienced the "yelling" at US airports, but also have experienced the same at busy airports overseas. Heathrow is one for sure when you are transiting that is a royal pain just because liquids have to be in their bag and you can only have one bag. I brought home with me bags so when flying through Heathrow in the future I will pack this bag in advance. Other European airports are not yelling free either....

No offence, just curious. Are you cruising for the "gay life" or for the destination, culture, and food? Can you expand on "stuffy people"?

When we first started cruising, we hurried back to the ship - Ocean or River - for lunch because we paid for it in our cruise fare. Sometimes we were close enough to the town on a river cruise that we could wander back after lunch and we were content. Now, we like to find an authentic restaurant - off the tourist trail - to experience the country or city cuisine and we have lunch, wander some more, and then return to the ship. For those that know IKEA and the meatballs, gravy, and lingonberry sauce that you get in the store restaurant, well... now I cannot eat them anymore... Why? We found a restaurant in Stockholm that served the meatballs, gravy, mashed potatoes and sauce... and my goodness, this was like elevating the IKEA meatball experience to a 5 star or even a Michelin level. Meatballs at IKEA are more or less dead to me know. The included tours to us give us an orientation to the city. We often find that optional tours are bus rides to an ancient cathedral or castle and don't interest us. I hate to say it because there are beautiful churches and castles, but sometimes the local life to us in the city or town is more interesting. Once we have the orientation we need, then we break off, find lunch, and the story continues.

This has been discussed on CC for ever about tipping on Viking. Some countries that Viking sells to include grats and some don't - like Canada and USA. We (CAN and USA) either pre-pay or are charged when we disembark to which we have full control if we pay what is charged (suggested) or we can increase, decrease, or remove completely. It has also been discussed how these tips/gratuities are distributed to the crew and this is a mystery. I have emailed Viking to get a phone call back and a very vague generic answer with giving me no more knowledge than I had before asking. Never would I assume that paying in advance would get us a "badge" on our profile once boarding the ship so that the crew would give us better service. Viking service, in our eyes, is one of the main reasons that we keep going back. Viking service in our eyes is amazing with or without the gratuity. Now some will come and say that this practice is a "bribe" but from our standpoint it is not. If a serving team in the dining room is exceptional, we ask for them night after night. We will pass a gratuity in cash to each member of the serving team. This is as a thank you, not a bribe. Notice that I say when we find they are exceptional we pass a tip... not before to get exceptional service, but when we experience great service we give something. On our last Viking Rver cruise, the very first night we loved the serving team of 3 where we sat in the dining room. This team on the second night automatically brought me a San Pellegrino water without asking. The second morning for breakfast the server brought decaf coffee without asking because they remembered from the first morning. These are the type of crew servers that we consider passing a gratuity to directly, but usually near the end of the cruise because we are not doing this as a bribe. These are the type of crew members that do go above and beyond because they just turned over a ship of 180 people and they remember my preference the second time they see me. To us this is exceeds expectations service.

We got upgraded during a cruise once because of horrible intolerable noise while sailing - creaking and squeaking - and the cabin was nice with extra floor space, but we just did not appreciate the space any more than what we had. We don't understand the desire to be on a higher deck than deck 3, and we have never suffered in booking shore excursions or dining reservations with the lowest category of cabin. This is also why we tend to book as soon as itineraries come out, often as much as 2 years in advance, to ensure that we can get the lowest category cabin.

I personally would not expect to see live coverage of anything on a cruise ship. We were on the Nansen a year or so ago, and I cannot remember what stations were available, but I am sure you will get recaps from the previous day on some sports channel. Satellite stations are very spotty depending on where you are.

Welcome to Cruise Critic! You might get better response to either post this in the Celebrity forum or search to see if there is a roll call for this cruise.

We will often use an included tour - if walking through the city - to get bearings on the city and surroundings and then we inform the tour guide and break off on our own. (Always tell the tour guide if you are leaving the tour.)

Pretty much the same in price. My price converted to Pounds is a bit less but we pay gratuities on top. Thanks for this.

I have never in 10 Viking Cruises had an envelope left in my cabin...? Not River, not Ocean.

Would be very surprised if any insurance covered this. too many variables including where is the next port. the cost to get you to the next port could be quite high.

Don't get mad at me for asking this, but does Viking really encourage this or is it American tipping culture coming to the surface? Are Viking just not addressing it because they don't want to appear that they are anti-tipping? I agree and know that tipping in many cultures outside of USA and Canada is just not expected, but Viking could also appear to be insensitive if they suggested we not tip.

Ok... here goes. West Indies to Iberia - Trans-atlantic from Barcelona to San Juan. October 16th, 2024 We are in a DV6-Deluxe Veranda Our pricing is in CDN: Cabin. $5,099.00 Air. $1,499.00 Total. $6,598.00 CDN per person No SSBP Gratuities NOT included If I pop this in a Google conversion I get 3813.65 GBP

Off topic, but when are you going to sell insurance to Canadians?

Yes, I did omit the wider seat, but many of them have - not sure what to call them - the dividers between the seats and the tray table is in this, and there is a small tray like table between the seats. My only concern with this is on two flights (Australia, and South Africa), on the longest portion I was alone with no one beside me and because of this divider, you cannot take advantage of the empty seat beside you in the same way. But you are right, they are wider, and the recline is deeper.

Probably better to post this in the Silversea forum. You will likely get more traction there.

Gotcha - thank you. I knew that Gratuities were included for UK guests, but never realized that it was common to have SSBP included too. It would be interesting to compare - with current exchange rates - the cost of the same cruise in Pounds vs. CDN dollar. For some of our upcoming cruises, because of the length, the SSBP is over $500 CDN per person. No way I will spend $1,000.00 more for wine and spirits. We would never drink that much.

I don't know if you have EVA Air as an option, but they are a great airline to the far East and their PE product is pretty good.

I think that you will find these PE cabins a bit different on each airline, but they offer: 1) More legroom 2) Generally a foot / leg rest, but NOT a lie flat seat 3) Higher service level I won't fly over 7 hours in Economy. I have flown 20 hours + to places like Australia and South Africa and several Japan and China trips. If Business is out of the question because I don't have the points or don't want to pay that much, then I go PE. For all these long haul trips I did PE and it was so so so so much better than economy. Some of these were work trips and I was on my own and I book an aisle seat on the left side which in PE is only two seats. Sometimes I have had an empty seat beside me. When we fly together in PE we book the window and aisle on the side because they are only 2 deep and that is enough for me to choose PE over economy.