CDNPolar

Really well stated. Thanks for this! Can't wait to hear your reviews. I will also add that different regions in France have different profiles, as do those from Italy and other countries. I personally don't believe that you can just love Italian wine. You will like some, love others, and dislike others from the same country. Then we get into light, medium, and full bodied wines. I don't understand Whiskey, Bourbon, and Scotch but there are lovers of all these spirits and they have their favourites and ones they dislike. Same thing. We have a friend that is very particular about Gin, but to me every Gin tastes the same as soon as you add tonic - or even if you drink it straight up.

The biggest lesson I learned when I started travelling extensively was that ship happens. Flexibility is my middle name now. I used to look for the perfect vacation. Now I can plainly say that every vacation I take is perfect because I leave my expectations at home and go with the flow of everything. Everything that happens from an airline delay to bad weather is an adventure. Not that I don't plan, but you will never me say the one thing that I hate to hear anywhere: "This is not how it is, or tastes, at home." I think that forums like CC are amazing for most people but can really complicate the situation for newbie cruisers that want and need a lot of information about the decisions they are making. I have seen one innocent question turn into a debate so often that even as an experienced cruiser and traveller, I don't know what the right course of action is after all is said and done. I have learned so much and continue to from CC and would be lost without it now.

I believe that like food, wine is very subjective and some people - NOT all, but some - have their favourite wines and regions and when they cannot grip onto these they are not pleased. So many wines are influenced by what you are eating with the wine - if you are drinking at dinner. Some foods make some wines sweeter and some make the wine sour tasting. If the wine is first not properly "opened" and had time to breathe and then it is paired with a food that impacts negatively its flavour profile, then we are unhappy. I am a believer that there are no bad wines, just wines that don't meet my expectations. We have friends that have money to burn and they drink regularly at home $80 bottles of wine. We have been served this at their home and would never buy it. We don't like it at all, but they love it. Go figure. We like Viking's selection overall. Have we had wines that we mark as not to drink again based on our likes? Yes, but we always find wines we like on the menu.

Interesting - I also have a Casper at home and this has been the best mattress I have had in my life, but I love the Viking beds. I have a question... I come from the hotel industry originally - from way back. Most often hotels claim that the mattress is part of their experience and they pride themselves on that mattress and use it chain wide. Some hotels sell their mattresses. Do Viking use the same mattress on all ships? On River and Ocean? I see some say that they dislike the Ocean mattress but like the River mattress? Just curious. If they potentially use the same mattress, then perhaps it is age of mattress that is causing some grief?

Welcome to Cruise Critic. I hope that you will not be denied boarding, however know for future that some countries are 3 months and some are 6 months. You can be denied boarding to a ship that is going to a country where the requirement is later than your passport expiry. You can also be denied entry into a country...

I agree with @gnome12 coming myself from a place where winters are below freezing. I don't consider jeans a winter wear fabric if I am going to be out in the cold for any length of time. If I am going to wear jeans then I will have wool long johns on under them.

Yes. Provide the card onboard, and then one or two nights before the end of the cruise you will see the gratuities on your account and it will settle automatically to your card. You can watch your account on your cabin TV throughout the cruise. When onboard the charge could be in USD or Euros depending on where you are cruising. The only thing you might consider is when you pay for gratuities through MVJ before you go, you will pay in the currency that you paid for your cruise in avoiding foreign currency charges and potential exchange.

No, I don't believe that more options will appear as time goes on. If you have used something like GoogleFlights and found alternates, you can add Air Plus and call and see if these are available, BUT you will pay $150 pp for this service. There is no guarantee as to how much time you have before ticketing. Even the reservations department say that flights can be ticketed at any time, but generally not before 75 days from departure. If you are going to opt for one of the options on MVJ with an additional cost, then choose sooner rather than later.

No, you are not. You can if you want to but you are not required to. What they ask is that at some point in the first few days of the cruise that you come to guest services and offer your credit card. We have often had charges on our account before actually giving the credit card. No one seems concerned. Very relaxed.

Don't know about when they get paid, but our first cruise experience we worked with a very large agency chain that specializes in cruise vacations, and out agent by mistake forwarded and email with the cruise line commission statement for our booking. We were a bit shocked at the amount that the agency was being paid. Now that will be divided by the company and then filter down to the individual agent, but if our agent was independent, it would have been a lot. This prompted us to call the cruise line - we did not disclose that we saw the statement - and ask if we would get a better deal going direct... and the answer was no.

We are smaller ships with no kids. Viking is our choice. 930 guests on an Ocean Ship.

I have done some Googling and it would appear that CFAR is not available in the UK. One of the things that I have noted however is that CFAR insurance is often offered by the cruise line or the tour company directly if you buy their insurance policies. In this case most of the time, it is not cash back but a credit that you hold with the cruise line and they keep your money. Check the travel insurance offered by your cruise line or tour company to see if CFAR is included. If it is an option, it generally must be purchased at the time of booking or very shortly after booking.

In the past year we have had to cancel two sets of air tickets. The first was with EVA and the route was Toronto to Cambodia, Vietnam to Toronto. We cancelled these flights for $200 per ticket. We bought this fare and cancelation option purposely and it was only marginally more expensive than a fare with a credit. The second was just recently and these were with Korean Air and these were Toronto to Shenyang and then Shenyang to Toronto. These had a $250 per ticket cancelation but because there were minor changes to the flight schedules they allowed cancellation for no fee. Again, these fares with cancelation refund were purchased purposely in case... There are fares out there if you are booking far enough in advance that include cancelation. The question is are you going to pay for cancelation insurance or a slightly higher fare with the option to cancel. With both of these the increased fare was cheaper than insurance.

Really - I had not looked at there being a difference between River and Ocean. Interesting....

This is all about the contract rate. I don't believe - others will correct me if I am wrong - that there is one class that Viking books under. I have had flights that I could upgrade with Viking because of the class and flights that I could not upgrade because of the class. Airline miles are based on fare class. You won't know this until you book. Same answer as above. Two ways to do air with Viking: 1) Wait until the air is selected for you and posted in MVJ - this is usually about 150 days from departure. Now you have about 60 days to "play" with your air choices on MVJ until they ticket the air that is selected for you. Once the air selections on MVJ are ticketed, then you are dealing with change fees potentially to both Viking and the airline. 2) Use Viking Air Plus from the start. Pay for Viking Air Plus ($150pp) and research your flights and then call in and give the agent your preferred itinerary. If your choices are available within Viking contract rates, they will book them for you and then you have your desired itinerary. If not within contract rates, they will offer you a fee to pay for what you want, or an alternative. You can also in option "1" move to Viking Air Plus once selected flights are in MVJ if you cannot modify them to your liking. Some have suggested that Viking Air Plus is going away. I don't believe that this is the case. Adding the functionality on MVJ to modify your own air is the DIY'ers version of Viking Air Plus. For others that want more help, you still have Viking Air Plus. We have always used Viking Air Plus in the past and for the first time we are anxiously awaiting to see what flights will pop up for our next cruise. The only downside to this is that we have generally always gotten the flights/seats that we want by booking as much as 270-300 days out with Viking Air Plus. This is a trial for us.

We love the beds. We sleep so well on Viking ships - River or Ocean. Part of that could be the 20,000 steps we do on excursions and exploring each day, but we find the bed very comfortable.

We used a TA for an expedition cruise. We used her for her supposed expertise, and there were fees involved to her agency if we cancelled. We called her for the next cruise and she informed us that there was a $150 charge for the research, and then a fee schedule came by email for all her other fees. Fees for research, fees for booking, fees for amendments to the booking... the list went on. I believe that TA's are getting less and less in commissionable earnings. I do not believe that they get anything today from Airlines, and very little from hotels, unless you are booking a package tour of air and hotel. We only work with agencies that do not charge us but we do all our air and hotel ourselves, and only use the TA for the OBC on a cruise ship.

Because major international airlines still have restrictions the demand is high as others have said. With family in mainland China, we find it hard to find an ECONOMY return through Beijing or Shanghai (then an internal flight to home city) for under $3,500 to $4,000 and pre-pandemic we could get this for $900 - $1,200 Also, our experience is Japan is more costly to and from China. This is our experience. Our best pricing recently has been through South Korea.

Would I assume that they employ Life Guards? Or, at the very least there is someone there overseeing the operation?

Welcome to Cruise Critic! The members above this post have give you great advice. There is no magic pill. You may miss a deal that a TA may not. A TA may not know of a deal at all. Some cruise lines don't always have deals. We personally look at itineraries that we are interested in. We look at the price and consider going early and hotel/meals, transportation to and from airports, flights, etc., and then if this is in our budget we book it. To us it is not always about the "deal" it is about our budget and if we really want this cruise or not. Once we settle on an itinerary and a cruise line, we will price online, through the cruise line, and then perhaps through a TA. We however sail mostly on Viking so we know that the price we are getting is generally always the best price on the market so we book direct, then transfer the booking to our TA for the OBC.

Yes, OBC or SBC can be used to pay gratuities. I think that the most recent calculation I did was in CANADIAN Dollars $25 per night per person. This is probably $18 USD per night per person.

We rarely travel with jeans at all. In fact, I don't remember the last time we took jeans with us on any trip. They are exactly that - heavy and not comfortable. We have travel clothing that is durable enough for any excursion, and can also pass for elegant casual onboard. This is an investment that we have made over time.

Most smartphones today you can "drop a pin" when you are departing the ship and then you can run your GPS or map app to direct you back to the ship. The other oldie but goodie is to either take a picture of the ships location on the Daily activity sheet, or most guest service desks have cards that you can pick up with the location and the ships phone number. You can then ask a local to guide you.

Glad that it worked out for you overall. Regarding the coaches, I personally would never complain that it was too cold because we have been on our share of coaches that are so hot that you can hardly take it and that has been in a number of locations.

This is very interesting to me because we have this very pre-extension booked for March of 2025. I have read your review against the information Viking provide, and without any illusions, Viking don't promise more than what you got. The second day of the pre-extension it says that your "day is free to explore more of Bangkok" but what it does not tell you is that because of the time you would leave the hotel you would have to be up at 5am and out exploring to be back in time to get on the bus.... I am not speaking against you, I am simply comparing what you are bringing in reality to Viking's description of the pre-extension package and whether there is any value in purchasing this. We purchased this because we thought we would want to see more of Bangkok than the one day of the ship's itinerary. We are now going to look at this seriously and decide if we will keep this. If we do on our own in CAD it would be approximatey: Taxi (Pre-arranged) Airport to Shangri La - $200.00 Shangri-La Basic room 2 nights - $700.00 Transport to Cruise Terminal - $200.00 One day tour in Bangkok - $200.00 We paid $1,600.00 CAD - To do on own will cost give or take $1,300.00 CAD not including any meals (Viking only include 2 breakfast). No matter how you look at this, I think that it would cost us near the same and we don't have to consider booking any transfers. The transfer times back and forth to Bangkok are what they are. I am not going to consider those. However I don't want to spend 2.5 hours today travelling to the ship in the middle of the day and then back again tomorrow after boarding the ship. That equates to 7.5 hours of total time on a bus that I could be spending in Bangkok. The one BIG thing that I might take from this is to stay at the hotel one additional night and board the ship a day later. Wonder if this can be arranged where Viking take us back to the ship one day late. You got this for $600 USD pp, and our cost is $799 CAD which is about right for the conversion from USD to CAD. Now it is on the MVJ as $$1,299.00 CAD pp. Nice price increase. Definitely would not buy this now at the current cost. Here is what is currently on MVJ Extend Your Cruise with 2 Nights in Bangkok From $1,299 Per Person Overview 2 hotel nights in Bangkok (as shown or similar) 2 meals: 2 breakfasts (B) 1 guided tour: Grand Palace & Wat Pho Services of a Viking Host All transfers Itinerary Day 1 - Bangkok Fly to Bangkok and transfer to your hotel. Depending on your arrival time, you may choose to relax or begin exploring the city on your own. A Viking Host is available to help you plan your time in Bangkok so you can make the most of your visit. Day 2 - Bangkok Spend the morning at your leisure. This afternoon, take a guided tour of the Grand Palace, once the royal residence of the Chakri Kings and an excellent example of an ancient Siamese court. Built in 1782, it was the center of power for more than 150 years. Continue on to Wat Pho, one of Thailand’s most well-known temples. Here, you will see a 150-foot-tall reclining Buddha statue, the largest in Bangkok. Finally, stop at a flower market and browse its large selection of orchids. (B) Day 3 - Bangkok Your day is free to explore more of Bangkok, or you may wish to do some shopping—Bangkok offers everything from colorful open air markets to sophisticated shopping malls. Consider visiting Chinatown for some of the city’s best-tasting fare or a farmers’ market to sample local food. See one of the city’s many museums or embark on a traditional longtail boat ride. Or perhaps you would like to join a full-day optional tour to Ayutthaya, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (B) Hotels Shangri-La Hotel Bangkok Located on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, close to the shopping and business districts, this contemporary hotel has six dining options and three bars, a spa and an outdoor pool set amid tropical gardens. Guest rooms combine Thai tradition with modern comfort and are spaciously appointed throughout.