CDNPolar

We have cruised as a couple, but we most often cruise with others. We have a couple that we have cruised with many times, and we also have cruised with family and friends. Of the 4 future booked cruises we have, all of them are with others. We have very clear "rules" that we set out and we set them out boldly when we cruise with others. First is we don't coordinate the same excursions. We research and book our own excursions. Sometimes they cross and most often they do not. Sometimes we are on the same excursion but on a different bus. We don't even try to get together on the same bus. The days are our own, and if we cross we cross. The only thing we do is commit to having dinner together, going to the show, or not, and then perhaps to the lounge after dinner. Evenings are for catching up and sharing our stories of the day. Often we don't see the ones we are cruising with any day until dinner. This works for us because I never want to feel that I have to conform to someone else's plan.

Sorry to hear this but it just reinforces that you have to be diligent always. you say that this was a "safe" duty free, but that does not mean honest. We went on a tequila tour when in PV Mexico and we liked the tasting that we had of one. The bottle that they were pouring from was one litre, but the one that we purchased - at a price that befitted a litre bottle - ended up being only 750ml. This was kind of a bait and switch because the bottles that were for sale were all wrapped and we assumed that they were one litre. The contents of the bottle were what we wanted, we just got scammed on the size of the bottel. Again, sorry to hear this... it is unfortunate that these things happen.

Welcome to Cruise Critic and to Viking! As formernuke has mentioned... here is a screen shot of the drop down from your name at the top right. Go to add a booking number

We have experienced many specials, including Lobster in The Restaurant a few times. One experience which was our best ever in the World Cafe was a focus on Indian cuisine and we were nowhere near India. This was memorable for me because there was so much selection like a really full Indian buffet. I have hoped to experience that again, but to date have not. I think that Viking focus more on the destination inspired menu that is available each night as an additional daily option rather than one night or two where the menu offering is heightened.

For us it starts with boarding a luxury ship where we unpack once and see places we would probably never fly to on our own. Not that we would not go back after once we have experienced a country, but there are cities and countries that we would never travel to directly to base our vacation on. We love getting back on the ship, relaxing, and being taken to the next port of call - whether River or Ocean. We love that we know the food quality and the service to expect. For us cruising is the perfect vacation. We only discovered cruising in 2017 and have been on 10 cruises since.

Way too sweet for me. Tried it, but could only have one sip. I guess for those that like sweet, this would be prefect. For me coffee is black or with cream/milk but no sweet. You are right however - very pretty looking - the presentation is very appetizing! Looks like a dessert.

You will be assigned to a bus the day before. It is not that they have a set number of busses that go, but they group people together as needed based on departure time. You don't really have much say in when they take you, you have to accept what they give you.

Not to inflame the situation, but we have this exact pre-extension booked and we still plan to go ahead with it. We could still cancel but we are not going to. We have weighed everything here and decided to go ahead with it anyway. We really did not think that it was more than the experience shared here.

The $5K is cancellation / interruption insurance not medical. If you buy the Blue Cross Medical the coverage is 5 Million. Who pays depends on where your medical incident happens - what country - what hospital, etc. No one insurance can guarantee that they will pay. Sometimes you have to pay and then submit for reimbursement. This all depends on where you are. Just remember too that you are required for medical to call the insurance company - if possible - before treatment.

On Viking you must leave your cabin by 8am, but you can still go and have breakfast and hang around the ship. You will put your luggage out the night before and Viking will give you special tags that are colour coded to the time you leave. You claim your bags shore side and then take them to the bus. Viking will typically get you to the airport 3 hours in advance of the flight so depending on the time to the airport - say it is 30 minutes - you will leave the ship 3.5 hours before your flight. If your flight is 12:50pm then you will likely leave the ship between 9 and 9:30am. Don't stress about these things... no matter what flight you pick something will not work exactly as planned - that is what travel is all about.

My understanding of the OP's story is this woman caused the whole incident because she thought that her bag was never transferred from the old gate to the new gate. Bags that are checked at the gate are not always sent to the aircraft until boarding and often taken down the gangway to the door just outside the plane. If her carryon bag that was "checked" was in fact loaded onto the aircraft then the ground crew would have been able to verify that and then put her fears to rest. I am certain that the captain would have checked this before going back to the gate and offloading luggage. This is because the woman also had checked luggage and then decided to check her carryon at the gate. If this is actually the case, and her bag that she checked at the gate was never loaded onto the plane because it was still at the former gate, then the fault was with the gate agents. If I have misunderstood the post, I am sorry if I have. What else was this woman's issue then? Perhaps the OP will clarify?

Guess that I am lucky to be in Canada as any country that I want to travel to our government site is where I would go first and have always been able to confirm that against the country's government site.

You just have to be sure that you are paying only to insure non-refundable costs. We rarely if ever book a hotel that is not cancellable up to the day of or at the earliest the day before. We have had so many plans change, that we just feel it is worth the few dollars extra to have the option of cancelling or changing without cost. If you are booking this kind of pre or post stuff, then you don't have to insure it as long as you can cancel by the deadline. We also when booking our own air, book fares that allow cancellation for a fee with fare returned less that fee. Again, just simpler.

For me, the only way to know what is truly required is the following: 1) Going to a credible and verifiable government site of the country you are visiting and looking for their passport requirement. If it says 6 months it is 6 months. If it says it is 3 months or whatever, it is whatever. 2) Go to the US site for travelling Americans and they will tell you what each country requires. In Canada, I go to the Canadian Government travel site and it spells out the exact requirements to visit any country in the world as a CANADIAN citizen. The requirements for an American could be different. 3) Go to the cruise line and ask. If they come back with 6 months, then trust that it is 6 months. I offer advice on many things on Cruise Critic, but one thing that I will never do is tell you yes or no in a case like this. YOU need to do the proper investigation on this yourself or you or someone you are travelling with could be denied boarding. Don't take our anecdotal responses as your action required. This is your responsibility as a travelling person to understand the laws and rules of admittance to any country you are going to. Sorry - I don't mean for this to sound as harsh as it probably does. I just feel that this is not something that should be discounted and not taken seriously. I say this because I know where people have had poor results in this regard.

Roll calls have their place in my opinion. We have posted that we will be on a particular sailing to absolutely no response from anyone. We meet people on the ship and don't feel the need to meet people virtually first. But back to the openness of the CC forums - roll calls are part of this experience so I appreciate them for what they are and for who they appeal to.

Delays happen. Not a new one for Air Canada or any airline in my opinion. We always have to be prepared for this kind of thing. I will add, and I am not defending this passenger, but if I left my bag with Gate Agents tagged for the belly of the aircraft, and then the gate was moved, I would initially think that the Gate Agents would look after that. I personally would probably at some point before the actual departure think to myself - is my bag at this gate now? But I am equally sure that some would never think of that because they left the bag with Gate Agents and they expect that it is being taken care of. I feel that this problem happened because the Gate Agents were negligent and should have made announcements for those that checked a bag to retrieve it. Because they did not do this, then that bag is now an "unattended" bag sitting at some gate... I will blame this whole incident on the negligence of the gate agents and that this could have, should have been avoided.

Here is my new dilemma which is just for Interruption and Cancellation insurance on the annual plan from Blue Cross. This annual plan has a max payout of $5K per person, BUT you can buy an additional add on plan for the amount above $5K if you wish. This add on is done trip by trip. Here are the challenges that I am still trying to get clarification on because I have a pre-existing condition: The annual plan states, but is not clean in the policy language, but will be clarified if you speak to anyone the following: For each trip, you must be able to demonstrate 3 months of stability against that pre-existing condition before any payment is made towards a non-refundable cost of the trip. It is not about being "stable" when you buy the annual plan, but reestablishing that stability 90 days before each trip. So if you are buying this plan to support several trips over the year, it may or may not be valuable. I will be calling back to get a better clarification on this because this is the part that I don't understand. We pay in full at 180 days. Is my 3 months stability 3 months before paying, or is it 3 months before the first non-refundable cost of the trip that starts at 120 days out and is a sliding scale. This could be a game changer and not cover you for the pre-existing condition when they keep imposing the condition again and again. Now, they have clarified that I can still be covered for other unexpected events, but not for a pre-existing condition.

We had to cancel a trip that was to take place this last January because of a medical situation that popped up. This was a land based tour but regardless the entire trip was in 16-17K range. We had an annual plan with Blue Cross, but the insurance from the land tour company was so cheap we added that. This was Arch insurance in the USA. Submitted the required forms to Arch and the case was settled and paid out in a matter of weeks. Never actually had a phone conversation with anyone - all done online. Needed to deal with Blue Cross because the flights we purchased were not part of the land tour. Same thing - submitted the same information we sent to Arch and in about 3 weeks without any human interaction we received a cheque in the mail. I was amazed. I was about to start to call because I could not find any decision or update online. Then, the cheque arrived.

John - I agree with you here. I have abandoned reading forums like Trip Advisor because the complaints are often nothing to do with the overall experience but one tiny little thing that has no bearing on the full experience. I most often remember a review of a hotel that was absolutely horrible - I think in Venice Italy - because the hotel did not provide washcloths or facecloths which are common in North America, but are not common in all areas of Europe. Comments like never stay there again... Don't book this hotel... When I brought this up to management they did nothing to fix the situation... Makes me laugh actually.

I agree - talk in real time. Address these things with the Restaurant Manager or the Chef when they come up. On our preferred line, the Chef or Manager are always willing to cater to our needs - this is our experience anyway. If we approached and said that we did not want "something" served with "something" I believe that that would be noted on our account and the servers and the kitchen would know. On one of our tours of the kitchen, the Chef showed us where the dietary restrictions were managed and all the passengers with dietary restrictions or preferences were listed there on the board and the kitchen catered to these.

Yeah - I have never done the switch. We make our flight decisions pretty quickly based on certain rules we have created for ourselves. Because we are flying out of Toronto, we are typically direct to the first major city in Europe and so we pick the flight where we like the departure/arrival time. If this city is our final destination then we like to arrive around Noon. If we are connecting in this city then we choose an arrival time much earlier to ensure that we can connect earlier and therefore make our final destination at a decent time. Always a 2.5 hour connection time if we are connecting in a European country to the final destination to allow for passport control, security, and not having to rush in case our inbound flight is late. We look, assess the options, and generally in 10-15 minutes of comparisons we make the decision and lock it in. We fly a lot so we know what we like and what works for us.

Would you share who they are? We can talk about insurance companies, just not travel agents.

I agree with you on this. I left Facebook a number of years ago, but when we were considering various different travel options friends told me about all these great Facebook groups that I should join. First you have to complete your "application" and in that application make an oath to never do this or that or the other thing, and like you say, heaven help you if you are negative. I also noted that as a new member to one of these groups your posts are put into purgatory until a moderator reviews them and decides if they are worthy of being posted. Cruise Critic discussions can get out of hand from time to time, but this is rare, and only if people are being really disrespectful are things shut down. The folks that look after Cruise Critic are top in their game and I love that you can have opposing views and still be part of the discussion.

I think you can change as many times as you want before ticketing, but if there are additional fees, I don't know how that works...

Welcome to Cruise Critic! I am sure someone will flow with recommendations.