CDNPolar

Viking Air is very good, but they can only do so much and they cannot monitor every flight in every city and country around the world 24/7. You will be given an "emergency number" for Viking Air. We are only to use that while travelling using Viking Air. If you have a delay, cancellation, or any event that is going to impact you, you should call that number and inform Viking. Ensure that you have cell phone access, and email access at all times. Having a data plan or a roaming plan while you are travelling is highly recommended. If I understand you correctly, you are asking if you suffer a delay or cancellation and you miss embarkation, will Viking assist you to get to the next port? Yes, and No. Yes, they will try to, but you also must understand that depending on River vs. Ocean and if the next port or stop is a different country than your original embarkation, then there could be immigration challenges. You were pre-cleared to board the ship in country A not necessarily country B. I have heard of situations where the individual was blocked from embarking at the next port therefore missing the cruise altogether. This would constitute a trip interruption claim. Viking may well help you to book a flight to the next port and do what they can for immigration clearance to board the ship, BUT Viking is not going to do this at their cost. Viking is not responsible for the airlines delays or cancellations, even if you book through Viking Air. You would have to pay for this additional flight and then you would claim this on your trip interruption insurance. Hopefully you have trip cancellation and interruption insurance and this is an interruption. This is why you will read again and again, always fly in one day before embarkation.

Agree. Agree again. There is money there for sure, but like the first quote, in general Monaco is not that special. I had heard so much about Monaco and I felt so privileged to go there, but after being there, I honestly cannot say that I would recommend it to anyone. Nice on the other hand, beautiful city and definitely will go back there to spend more time.

Yep - clear your cabin by 8am. This is a must, and no negotiation on the time. If you are doing your own transportation from the ship, you should arrange with guest services what to do with your 'checked' luggage until you actually disembark the ship. They may give you a luggage tag and time to put out the night before and then it will be waiting in the cruise terminal for you when you finally disembark. If you have rolling carryon bags, or other bags with your essentials, valuables, and medications, you keep those with you, but they have to then be with you at breakfast. You can have a leisurely breakfast in the World Cafe - not sure that The Restaurant is open on turn around day for breakfast. They generally want all to leave the ship by 11am.

I guess that there are some of us that read those 26 pages and some that buy in good faith. I have learned that good faith does not always get you where you want to go. I agree that the insurance company will give you an interpretation that is not necessarily correct, which is why I double check that the call is being recorded, I get the reference number of the call, AND I will call back if I don't think the information I got was correct and ask a different agent. It is all a slippery slope, but I will persist until I have the answers that I feel are correct, and then I am satisfied.

I don't mean to offend anyone on CC with this post, but so many of the questions that come into this discussion forum would be taken care of by reading the policy. My first suggestion is that when you are considering insurance, you get the policy - the complete policy language, not just the highlights. This you should read and understand before paying for your policy. Create a list of questions that are important to you such as: Are my pre-existing conditions covered? What is the stability period for cancelation vs. a medical claim while travelling. These can be different. Is medical evac covered? Is there CFAR What are the actual reasons I can cancel that are covered by the policy. Same as above for interruption. How soon after I put my first deposit of make the booking do I have to purchase the insurance to be covered for pre-existing or CFAR? Can I insure only the deposit and then add insurance coverage as I make payments or the final payment? These are the types of questions that I look for answers in the policy language before buying. Then I call the insurance company for more information or to confirm my thoughts or suspicions. I have not yet bought a policy that I have not read every single word of the policy and I understand inside and out what I am covered for and where I am not covered. It is great to bring your questions here, but that will never - in my opinion - be a substitute for reading the policy.

The cruise line will generally take you from the hotel in line with the hotel checkout policy. Often 11am is the checkout, so the departure from the hotel will be about that time.

My company headquarters in Monaco. I was there for two weeks recently eating out every night and I did not wear a jacket. We were eating in "elegant" places and I was always business casual. One night we were going to a special event at the Monaco Yacht Club and I was advised to wear a jacket but I did not wear a tie. I was fine on all accounts. Personally I would email tellus@vikingcruises.com and ask. I am surprised that the shore excursion description did not say more about dress code, but I agree with above in not wearing a jacket for a walking tour before dinner. That's kind of crazy. Monaco is a "playground" and at the Yacht Club that night other events were going on and I saw the gowns and the tuxedos, but in general dining I did not see that.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. I am going to comment on the inside vs. outside cabin first. If cost is a major factor, then I understand and go for the inside cabin. Personally I want to be able to look out at least a window when I wake to know what the weather is that morning. I want to be able to open a balcony door to know the temperature. We spend most of our "viewing" time on deck because then you have a 360 view, and your balcony may only be looking at water and not coastline, but we still want the balcony. Regarding the port stops, I don't know any cruise line that stops at ports that are not listed. I would suggest that the ports listed are the ports you will stop at.

Yes, for us, because we are in Ontario but don't live in Ottawa, we must go through Montreal. I would have considered driving to Ottawa, but not going to drive to Montreal. We will do the mail thing with prepaid, insurance, tracking, and whatever available.

My understanding is that you do have a cabin, and if Viking do oversell the ship, then they send an email offer for you to move to another sailing at a great deal, but this offer goes to many people, not just the GTY cabins. They will never - as I understand it - tell you that you don't have a cabin if you want to sail. The last GTY cabin we had booked on Viking was the going price for that cabin level. No discount. There is the hope that you will be upgraded when you have a GTY cabin, but no promise of that. We paid for what we got.

I have a GTY cabin and then called reservations later down the road, closer to sailing, and they had a cabin open in that category and offered it. I don't believe that you are saving money on Viking with a GTY cabin. I don't believe that the cabin price is less. Other cruise lines perhaps, but not on Viking. Those in the know, please chime in. I think inevitably if you are under a busy common area that you can have noise, but that also depends on your tolerance for noise. You can be on deck 3 forward and hear the Star Theatre and Torshavn Lounge. WC is not open late, and we are early risers, so I personally would not care about that location.

In my opinion, short answer - Yes. You have to ask this question of the insurance company. All may have different criteria. Some insurance policies will allow you to cancel the policy and get a refund if you are decide to not travel. Some don't. An individual trip policy may allow you to cancel the policy and get money back. An annual policy probably not.

I hear you with this. We "made friends" with two female friends travelling together on the first day in the hotel (part of the cruise itinerary) and their luggage was delayed. They seemed lots of fun and very jovial. They found us at lunch and dinner each day and for the first couple of days, they were fun to eat with, but the stranger side of their personalities came out and it was a challenge to sit with them. We tried to move tables, but they 98% of the time would either flag us as we walked into the dining room, or would find us and sit with us. It can work both ways. You can find those that you have common ground and enjoy and then you can also find those that you want to distance from. On this same cruise we saw what we think was a "tactic" by one couple. We had sat with them a couple of times in the dining room, and in the lounge. After the port talk, when most are running to the dining room to nab the table that they take every night, this couple would hang back. We would see them enter the dining room when the major crowd had already seated. Our table was full, and they would say hi as they walked by, but then they would find a table with two seats open and sit there. We saw them sit with different people almost every meal. This couple was very pleasant to talk to and had a very welcoming aura around them, but they chose to sit with different people every day. I think that we may take that approach on our next river cruise.

Not to get picky but VIking's tables are Oval and Rectangular. The Ovals are for 6 people, and the Rectangular tables are for 6, 8, or 10. I do not believe that the Viking rectangular tables can be separated. I believe that they are one table, not 3 or 4 pushed together. On Viking Douro River there were 2 tops - 3 or 4 of them, but on all other Viking Longships I have never seen 2 tops. All tables are 6, 8, or 10. I concur with an above statement, that River Cruising is not for you if you are not a social being.

There are two ways to purchase your air through Viking. 1) Viking Air With the first choice - Viking Air - you are paying whatever price Viking have quoted on your invoice, and Viking load an air itinerary in your MyVikingJourney (MVJ) account about 150 days from sailing. You can then go into MVJ and you have other flight options that you can yourself move to if you don't like what Viking have chosen. Some of these may have premium prices on top per person to choose. This is kind of like a self serve option to make changes to your flights, and you can also execute an upgrade in cabin class - if available - and you can choose seats. Flights show up about 150 days and Viking ticket about 75 days out. You must make all or any changes before ticketing or you will then pay a change fee. NOTE: YES, Viking can change your flights here up until the time of ticketing. On an upcoming Viking Ocean TA cruise, we had great flights to start, we picked our seats and we were happy with the selection. Then we got notice that the return flights were changed. Airline changed, departure times changed. We were originally to arrive home about 2pm, now we arrive home at midnight. The original flights that we were assigned are available in the mix on MVJ, BUT they now carry a premium of $349.00 pp. 2) Viking Air Plus With option #2, Viking Air Plus, YOU can call the Viking Air Department as much as 300-310 days before sailing with your flight choices. You can search your preferred airlines and routes and schedules, and give them to Viking and they will book what you want. NOW, understand, that if the flights you want do not fall inside Viking's contract rates, there will be a premium that you have to pay per person. We typically use this option and because we fly out of Canada's main gateway, Viking generally have contracts with the airlines we want, and we have generally always gotten what we wanted inside contract rates. With this option - Viking Air Plus - I may be wrong here but I don't believe that Viking will change your flights without contacting you first. This is the value of Viking Air Plus is you get to choose and you are locking in flights and your schedule. Airlines can however make changes to schedule and equipment that is out of Viking's control. When we do this we also ask for the flights to be ticketed very soon after. When you do this you must at least pay for the flight portion of your invoice regardless of when full payment is due. Once ticketed then you are dealing with airline changes - schedule changes, equipment changes, etc. These are your two options with Viking Air. Hope this helps.

To us it is a cruise by cruise situation. Sometimes Viking Air is cheaper and sometimes the airlines are cheaper. We have found Viking cheaper for Premium Economy than the airline and the other way around. We have never booked Business with Viking, we tend to book that ourselves with points.

The thing of it is that my favourite food is Asian. My husband is also Chinese so I know pretty well my Asian food and what is authentic vs. the North American version. BUT, if I were to order a stir fry on a Viking ship, or even the Dan Dan Noodles that everyone talks about... I am not expecting it to be the same as the Dan Dan Noodles that we ate in Sichuan province in China. I will try it and if it does not meet my expectations then I won't have it again... but I also don't expect it to be truly authentic... I won't however tell you that it did not meet my expectations because mine are very different from most when it comes to Asian food.

I hear you on this. What I hope EVERYONE is doing is emailing tellus@vikingcruises.com with their feedback about dress code. We cannot have any impact talking about it here, we need to also email Viking. We know that Viking read CC, but often these threads go off topic or rehash the obvious. It needs to hit their customer service division hard for them to do something about it, or it is just us bending an ear on CC. Everyone email tellus@vikingcruises.com to show concern with dress code and that ship crew do not enforce it.

Hope you are going to love Viking Ocean. Our first Viking was Ocean, then we immediately went to River so we had an example of both right up front. We have done more ocean but we love them both for very different reasons. River you tend to see more of one country, and ocean you tend to see more countries. The only thing that I wish Viking would do on Ocean is stay in port to later in the evening or even more overnights. Sometimes I feel the port experience is too short. The nice thing for me with Ocean is I feel that the ships are built for 1200-1300 passengers, but they only carry 930 passengers, so there is always a spot that you can find to sit or hide away... you don't feel crowded at all. Just how I/we feel about Viking Ocean.

Agree with all you say.

I have done some digging on this. TA's are actually "gifting" the OBC to you as their client. They go through a process of paying for and applying a gift to your account, and Viking have limits on how much they can give depending on the length of the cruise. The TA can choose to have it show on your invoice and be used prior to sailing, but as "gifts" often do, they don't show until you board the ship and show on your account then. The standard - I believe - is that it shows when you board, and the TA has to ask for it to be on the invoice as a SBC and to be used in advance. I think however in Clay's situation, it was there, so Viking applied it once everything flowed through their financial system. Often TA's will not apply until close to sailing, because this is a payment that they have to make when they attach it to your account. So, if you book 18 months out, for it to show on your invoice from the beginning they have to pay for that 18 months out. This is why often a TA's OBC may not show until closer to sailing because they don't want to be out of pocket for months at a time.

This is my understanding. You may have to pay for your flights - and Viking Air Plus fee - at the time that you are doing final payment for your cruise. In fact I am sure that they will want the full amount. My understanding is that until flights are actually "ticketed" you can remove them from your invoice and be issued a refund for the amount of the flights. I am not sure that you can get the refund for Viking Air Plus. Same with deviation fees - if you are removing the air - you can claim the refund for deviation fees. Oh, and you will have to ASK for the payment terms. Many of the agents will not just automatically give you this. I think you mentioned your TA - you may need to coach them on this. We had to coach ours. Once flights are ticketed then Viking is liable for the cost to the airline, but until that time, they are only future bookings in their contract with the airline. Suggestion: Viking assign a 6 month payment term to Canadian and US customers if they have a future booking with Viking. Because Viking have so many cruises that are only $25pp deposit (Again, CAD and USA) you can book a late 2026 cruise, that you might want to go on, pay the deposit, and then you ask for 6 month terms on your current and your future cruise. This is doable. We have done it, and others have. As the date moves closer to your placeholder booking in 2026, you might choose to move the deposit to another cruise, or you might want to take that one.... but in the mean time you will book ANOTHER cruise so that you always have one in the future to give you the 6 month payment terms. Yes, we are heading to our 14th Viking cruise, but we have done this for the last number of years, because if you disembark a cruise without a future one booked, you go back to the one year payment terms. Many times we have moved or modified a future booking, but we have always had at least one future booking.

Yeah, all very sketchy to me. If you go to the site that seems to be their official site, there are only Sympatico and Gmail addresses.

I have found and learned as I have aged, that you can go into anything with expectations that are way above what you should actually expect. I have slowly over time learned to temper expectations with reality. Stuff can go wrong. A Server can make a mistake. The Galley can be overwhelmed for whatever reason. A port can be missed. A cabin can creak and squeak. Service may be slower than expected. The excursion may not be as expected. Just recently there was a really scathing bad review of a Viking River cruise, but everything the OP was complaining about was just what river cruising is all about. My only thought reading this review was that they had expectations that were far and above what could be delivered by the product on almost any river cruise line, not just Viking. I got angry at one friend that we travelled with because every dish that came out of the kitchen on this cruise had something wrong with it, but it all boiled down to it was it was not cooked the way they would, or it had an ingredient on the plate that they would not put. The common statement was, "This is not how I expected this to be" When asked if it tasted good regardless, the answer was yes, but every dish was not as "expected" and I just got tired of hearing this. I finally said, "If you want everything like home and how you cook it, you should stay home". That stopped her cold.

Well, as the title says, "lots of views but few replies"... People are looking and perhaps reading, but I guess they don't have an opinion...