CDNPolar

Interesting... demand or dynamic pricing is certainly a possibility. What I said previously about reputable companies NOT doing this was based on some articles that I read just recently on the subject. I was actually researching this "lightly" for my interest. Unfortunately I did not keep the URL's of the articles to share here.

This is entirely possible. There are however a lot of theories about dynamic pricing including returning repeatedly to the same website (Viking for instance) and looking at a particular cruise. The theory being that Viking monitor how often you return and look and the price may increase slightly with each return, so that you will be more encouraged to buy before it goes up again... I have played games with this theory and visited Viking (and other sites like airlines) using my uncloaked browser, then used a private browsing window, and even a VPN, and I have never found differences in what price is offered. There is also a lot of discussion and opinion that the most reputable of companies do NOT do this. You would have to have a Viking insider confirm or deny this. However, the price on the website today is the price, unless it is advertised on a promo email at a particular price... I believe however that Viking don't advertise the cabin price, but rather offer OBC, Air Discount, Free Air, SSBP, or something like this. This allows the cabin price to be fluid regardless of the promo.

No, really? Come on... Now that I have completed my 100th cruise and 5 world cruises, I find that hard to believe!

...and I don't think that this has been mentioned yet, but if you do decide to talk about your past cruises and travels, it can quickly become a situation where you must "one up" their last travel story, because they just "one up'd" your last travel story. This is almost like sharing your air travel nightmares.

Don't think that it was mentioned here, but just to be sure that everyone knows, hand sanitizer does not kill the Norovirus. You must wash your hands, and for that recommended 20 seconds or more. The CDC website will confirm this for those that are trusting hand sanitizer as protection from Norovirus. And, if you look at what is the cause of spread of Norovirus, this will only tell you that people on cruise ships do NOT properly wash their hands after using the toilets. We were recently on a river cruise. On embarkation a few people were coughing on the first few days. By the end of the 10 day cruise more than 1/3 of the ship was sick including myself. I immediately started masking as soon as I felt symptoms, but many did not and I don't believe in the larger population that we learned any lessons from Covid. The number of people that were in the dining room in the morning coughing into their hands, and then up at the buffet and using the tongs... YUCK! People were walking through the dining room and lounge openly coughing without even attempting to cover their mouths. Disgusting. We can be so disrespectful of our fellow humans and again, Covid apparently left now lessons. We are sitting ducks for the next pandemic.

I think that this is a very controversial topic and will vary with each cruise line and each travel insurer. This is one reason why you must ask a LOT of questions when purchasing insurance. This is perhaps an extreme situation, but if you were taking an Antarctica Cruise, and your flight was late and the ship departed, there is no way to get you to the next port because there is not "next port". You are out of luck and missed the cruise in its entirety. My brother recently missed the sailing of his Panama Canal cruise where the start of the cruise was a partial crossing of the canal. The ship left without 46 people delayed on the same flight. This was the main reason for booking this cruise was to experience the Panama lock system. They got on the ship 24 hours later when the ship emerged from the canal, but they are still waiting for anyone - the airline or the cruise ship - to give any kind of compensation and they are not sure they will get anything. They may be entitled to airline delay payout because the delay was mechanical, but that won't replace missing the transit of the locks. With any insurance, medical, or cancel / interruption, you must read the policy in its entirety and then phone the provider and ask questions. You must ask very specific questions and include flight delay because of mechanical, vs. weather, etc. We know that our favourite cruise line, if we booked the air through them would do their best to assist, but I don't believe in the passenger contract that they have any obligation to do so. To this point, I have not had to test interruption insurance for this reason.

We have often looked at the Viking Air price on the booking page, and knowing that typically the upgrade to PE is now $1,200.00 for a flight to Europe from Canada, we will price the air on our own. In most cases - most - Viking's air price is very comparable to the airlines that we would choose to fly PE on, and in some cases, Viking is slightly cheaper. I think it really depends on whether you WANT to fly PE over economy, and then the cost is somewhat irrelevant in my way of thinking.

It will all be about open hours of the World Cafe or the Living Room Bar, and how early you want to get something, but yes, there are always - as carolinetodd said - the paper take out cups for coffee. If you are carrying any food in a bag, I would not expect anyone to stop you with fruit or any food, as on 10 Viking cruises, I have never experienced or heard of any restrictions, but not that they could not exist somewhere. The other thing to consider, is you can order room service breakfast and write on the menu that you want your coffee in paper cups with lids, etc. Room service is open 24 hours. I have coffee / tea delivered every morning for 5am as the coffee maker in the room is too noisy for that hour and will wake my husband, and when walking to the World Cafe at that hour often the coffee machines are in cleaning mode at that hour. Just to note, I also specify on the room service menu to knock once only and leave the tray outside the door.

To my knowledge and experience with Viking, there is no credit given if you make flight arrangements on your own. Air is a totally voluntary add on. Now, someone might know this: If Viking are offering free air, is there any credit if you don't go with that offer? There is obviously still a cost to Viking for that air. When there is free air offered, we always go with it and have never asked otherwise.

If it was food poisoning, I do hope that there was some kind of apology or compensation from Viking? That is a scary thought that food poisoning is coming out of the kitchen, because the kitchens for all three main restaurants are connected. For the Chef's Table, they generally change the menu every three days and it is on the menu boards in advance of the meal. We are two that love tasting menus and will eat anything because we don't have restrictions or allergies, but if you do have restrictions or allergies, the Chef's Table is probably not for you. For instance, if you are vegetarian or vegan, the entire menu from starter to the main could be fish or meat. Changing up a tasting menu to appease allergies may even not be possible without giving you completely different food than the rest are getting. Then the theme is gone. We have a friend we travel with that is allergic to oysters, and often the Chef's Table has Asian inspired dishes that are commonly cooked with Oyster Sauce. The Chef's Table will whip up the same dish, but the sauce will use only Soy Sauce or some substitute.

To take you completely literally, there would be more than a "few". For certain. Haha..... With the Fail videos that you can catch online, there are more than a few that involve cruise ships, and the idiocy of some things people do is outlandish.

The ships that I have been on, there was no mechanism that was apparent to either manually or automatically lock the balcony doors. Assuming that you are suggesting that would override you being able to open it yourself.... I would hope in seas that are rough enough to beg danger being on the balcony, that folks would just stay inside.

I guess the best advice is to not be concerned with how far the all aboard time is from actual departure and just be back on board when the cruise line suggests. Don't test the limit - not that you were suggesting that... Just say'n.

Thanks Fran - I am going to look into this. Why do you mention that we may not qualify? My husband works for a division that separated from Ontario Hydro, so wonder if that qualifies us? The 8K is better than Blue Cross Annual which is only 5K. Cruises that we do are rarely 5K or under per person....

We ONLY use the airline site to monitor our air travel. If we have not flown the particular airline before, we download their App, and if it is a common airline that we fly we have their App. We add alerts to every flight, track status, look at the inbound aircraft that is going to be our outbound aircraft etc. This is the best way to go. I also utilize the TripIt App - Paid Version - and often it alerts us to changes at the airport especially with gate assignments before the changes appear on the monitors at the airport. If you have a long'ish layover often you can be at LHR and not know where your next flight is going to depart from... TripIt in my experience shows the terminal and gate first. I rely totally on the Airline App notifications then you don't have to check all the time.

Bags aside, we will pay for Premium Economy (PE) because the configuration is either 2 3 2 or 2 4 2. We will pay for it if we can get the 2 seats (window/aisle) on the side. PE used to be only about $1,000.00 more for the upgrade, but now seems to be $1,200.00. There is more leg room, a wider seat, china dishes and metal cutlery, better "service" depending on the airline, priority boarding, and depending on your status with the airline you may also get lounge access. We will and do forego PE on Toronto to Europe flights at 7-8 hours, but will fly minimum PE if going to Asia and beyond.

We often look at independent excursion providers and are not tied to the cruise line excursions. Sometimes these can be same or similar excursion at a cheaper cost. I have done this once in the past - hired a taxi for a 4 hour drive to wherever... that is good too. Sometimes ships have shuttle busses to the city centre so you can go on your own. My favourite travel hack is Uber where Uber is available. Take an Uber. Just know your back on board time and ensure wherever you are that they are not using a different local time from the ship time. Leave a window of extra time and be back 45 minutes before back on board time.

We have had our "experiences" with Viking customer service and reservations. Many times on CC it is talked about the land vs. shipboard experience are very different. We deal with the sometimes poor customer service and the fact that the information is not the same from each person you talk to because in our opinion the shipboard experience is worth it.

Payment date aside, if you are booking air with Viking because it is a deal, or free, then of course you are getting contracted rates and possibly the least favourable times and routes - this is what you have to expect from contract rates. You don't have to do your air through Viking. We book our air through Viking when a free or reduced offer, but we always use Air Plus and select our own flights. We know who they contract with and we have had great results. We are also a gateway departure city directly to European destinations, so we have that advantage too... we are not connecting once inside the US as many Americans may be. We also book our own air and sometimes get much better rates than Viking, or we find that the fares are the same or very similar. If you book on your own you lose the free transfers to and from the ship.

No, I would never move. I may have paid for this seat and I took the time and initiative to select the seat I wanted in the section of the plane that I wanted. I don't move for anyone unless there is benefit for me. I have noticed people separated, and I got stuck with bad luck in a middle seat, and have offered my middle seat to put them back together so I can have their aisle seat and been lucky...

Always install before you leave home, as in some situations depending on what you want to achieve, you can only change some settings when at home. Once you are in another country the option to choose "Rogers" or other Canadian carriers is gone....

The options from Milhouse are good....! I get your concern about the cost. We have had good and bad experiences arriving the day of the cruise, and depending on the cruise line, and if you booked the air through them, you may or may not have a safety net to get to your cruise at the next port or if you are just out of luck. My brother recently did a Panama Canal cruise, and there were 46 people on his flight to Panama City for that cruise departure. They were to land at 3:30pm in Panama City and the cruise did not leave port - to start the partial crossing of the canal - until 3:30am local time. There flight was significantly delayed do to mechanical and then waiting for a replacement aircraft, and they finally only landed in Panama City about 3:30am. The ship did not wait, so they missed the partial crossing, but the cruise line put them up in a 5 star hotel and created a behind the scenes tour of both the original and new canal from the ground. They then got on the ship on the return out of the canal and completed the cruise. The point to this story is my brother and wife will now never plan to arrive the day of and always at least a day before. We also now as a basic rule do day before, but we hedge our bets based on time of the year, especially considering if our outbound flight could be delayed because of winter weather. That is not just where you live but from where the inbound flight of your outbound flight is coming from. In general, and again I get your concern for the cost, but we include the extra day in a hotel as part of out budgeting.

Depending on the cruise line, if you cannot get a solo seat, and if you are good with the buffet, then you could dine in the buffet and allow your partner to dine where she wants. My husband is quiet. I am not. He is always happy that I carry the conversation, and he may only answer direct questions to him if we are forced to sit at a meal with others. On our preferred ocean line, we can always have a table for two, but on river cruising, when we are forced to sit with others, we tend to try and find some folks that we might meet and talk to on an excursion and then if we do hit it off we sit together often. I am fine either way. I am in a profession that I must be in front of people all the time, but the fact is I don't want to be, but I have taught myself how to be social that way. I personally would prefer to be dining alone with my husband, so I don't seek out the company of others, but will carry the conversation for him if we are in the company of others. I found the title of this discussion amusing, with no offence intended. I found it so, because if we are flying internationally and we are flying economy, we don't sit together. We sit aisle on the left side of the plane and one in front of each other. When I saw this discussion this just came to mind as similar, but not...

Well, to add to this... I only LISTEN to audio books. I don't read ebooks or real books. If not available in audio, then I won't be "reading" it. Reading aside, no politics, religion, or climate change because climate change has become political.

I would suggest the following: Make your home country location mandatory in the profile. I know that folks could put any comment there, but perhaps a drop down that you had to select a country and then an open text where you could if you wanted to add a city or region. But make the country mandatory. Why? On many discussions that I participate in, such as Insurance, and Viking payment/deposits, there are such great differences depending on the country that you reside in. Having Cruise Insurance broken into sub forums that are specific to Canada, USA, Australia, UK and potentially other countries. In the ever favourite discussions about Viking (I know I am limiting to Viking but sure this applies to many cruise lines and different countries) payments and deposits, etc, there are vast differences again about country. I am not suggesting sub-forums here, but this is where the mandatory country of residence would help to understand a response that someone gives or lets us know how to respond, or who should respond. For me, I don't use search much, but do know how to effectively use it in its current state. I more look for current discussions that I can add to. I use the "Mark Forum Ad Read" every day after I have gone through the forums that I am interested in, that way when I come back later today or tomorrow, and go back into that forum, I am only seeing NEW activity. This is an essential tool for me as it keeps me current to the discussions that I might be interested in. I also look at any new activity with an eye to when the original post was started. If it was started years ago, and this is the first activity since, then I don't even open it. Sometimes to me we are beating a dead horse to use a saying that is somewhat distasteful...