CDNPolar

Sometimes if you are connecting to partner airlines, the seat assignments are available on the individual airline site using (usually) the same booking number. I booked a flight with Air Canada and United from Toronto to Sydney and the AC portion showed the seat booked for AC, but I had to go to the United site to book my seats for the second leg from LAX to SYD. Neither airline ever showed my seats all the way through, even though they showed the flights. Confusing.

9 days! Exciting! Enjoy

You are correct - India - NO Visas for Canadians currently, and Egypt, you have to show in person at the Egyptian Embassy - no online Visas now.

We watched PBS and saw Viking ads constantly. We had never been on a cruise as a couple. We went on our first Viking cruise and loved the experience and Viking would still be our only cruise line if there was not a problem with the launch of a new ship on the Nile, and our dates were canceled and we went on that cruise with Uniworld. So - a whopping TWO, but in future we have booked two more with Viking. I think we will have done 9 cruises with Viking with what is booked now. I am one that if I like something, I will stick with it. I don't need variety. There are restaurants I have been to many times and only eaten the dish that I ordered on the first trip there, and never tried anything else. Why spoil a good thing! We love Viking and plan to stick with them.

We essentially research and book everything ourselves, and then turn it over to the TA for the financial perks. If no perks then we hold the booking ourselves. We are not retired, but we LOVE the process of researching and booking, and often have 2-3-4 bookings in the future that we are working on at various stages. We have 4 trips - 3 cruises - booked now into 2025. I get why some don't like the research and booking process, but we enjoy it.

You can still book your own excursions - we do. All information in MVJ is available to you except not your invoice, only the TA can see that on MVJ. We use both local and online TA's - whichever offer the best benefits.

Anyone with experience renewing their passport in-person in MISSISSAUGA Ontario? Is your experience anything like ElizabethS above? This all seems very reasonable in time and efficient.

A good plan... My Rogers plan is $15.00 per day roam like home. You can also, as we did, send an email to those likely to call you (friends/family) during this time and suggest that for these dates to call via WhatsApp. This way you may save the buck 50.

I am not sure that I understand if you have a question here or if you are making a statement? I have a 10 year Chinese Visa and I did not use CIBT. In fact I don't know what CIBT is? I do know that requirements have changed to get a Chinese Visa, but from what I see online for CIBT, they are a service provider. We got our Visa directly from the Chinese Consulate. If you have your Chinese Visa affixed in your Canadian passport, you are good to go. Is the Visa actually affixed to one of the pages of your passport? Just know that if your passport expires before the Visa does, your Visa expires with the passport. If you renew your passport, then you must also renew the Visa.

Not to scare you, but hopefully your connection time in Munich is 2 hours or more? If you are a non EU passport, the lines for passport control can be long. We have found the two airports that we want at least 2 hours if not 2.5 hours are Munich and Frankfurt. These are two airports that we frequently arrive to as the first Schengen country. You want that connection time because the likelihood of your flight being delayed in departure is high.

I have not pursued this yet, but have friends that have booked a cruise as a referral from us and the silly part is that one referral credit was given to one of our friends and my husband's name on our booking but the other credit has not been issued to the second guest and to me. We also - as we had in the past - given our friends our booking number and they were told that has no use to Viking, they need our individual customer numbers? We did not even know where to get those. We have referred twice in the past and the application of the referral bonus was done efficiently and quickly and without hassle. Now, this just confirms that there are problems inside Viking with more than just this program. I am NOT going to spend my time calling or emailing Viking for a measly $100. It is just not worth my time. Viking now have some repeat guests from our referrals but my referrals stop when I have to chase them for something that they should be executing quickly and efficiently. This is supposed to be a "Thank you" for referring someone, not something that I have to chase for. IMO Viking should be considering a loyalty program - that is retroactive - for their repeat guests, rather than this $100 pp referral bonus.

Exactly - the hauling suitcases is one thing for sure. How many times have we been forced to pick up our rolly bag carryon and carry it down jetway stairs instead of a connected jetway. How many times has an escalator been down and we have had to carry bags down or up stairs. All of this can be a workout in itself.

We did not explore on our own in Bucharest, but rather only what Viking offered. Sorry, cannot be of more help, and hopefully someone else will have more advice for an extended pre stay in Bucharest. One tip is look at what Viking do on their Pre in Bucharest and look to that as your itinerary and create it yourselves.

Unless a new addition for newer ships, the answer is no. There is not a shaving mirror on Viking Ocean. The mirror in the bathroom is large and well lit however, if that is any help.

We purchased online. This is not a physical SIM, but just scan a code from the online site after purchasing.

I don't dispute anything you say here. I agree that there are some - and I say SOME - great TA's that are professional and great at what they do. We have also come across many that are no more knowledgable than we are ourselves and they also charge a fee. One that we have used, wanted a $150 fee to start the research into our trip. It was booking a Norwegian Coastal Cruise. What research am I going to pay her $150 for? Obviously she has nothing to bring to the table in knowledge if she has to do the research and we have to pay for it. We chose to do the research ourselves and then we transfer the booking to a TA for the cash perks that we get through another TA. Most travel we do however we have found it easier to do on our own, but we totally get why some rely fully on the TA to do all the booking arrangements.

Haha... I am doing everything I can to not be the guy that cannot do stairs, walk, and enjoy travel and life in general. Also recent studies show that the more sedentary you are, the higher risk you have of dementia.

True... but, on Viking Ocean we have always had our cabin steward knock on the door within 15 minutes of arriving in the cabin... On river, we did not meet our cabin steward until day 3. On the first day, they were no where to be seen, and did the cabin refresh while the whole ship was at dinner.

Covid coverage was not there in the beginning, and then as time went on the insurance industry was including coverage for before and after. I guess the question is, because we are largely accepting of Covid now, are we checking what is covered for Covid? There is still the risk of serious illness. That would be interesting to see if something like a requirement mid-trip changing that you don't meet, would allow you to interrupt or cancel.

They may also be a strong repeat guest. We know, or we are told, that 75+ percent of every Viking cruise are repeat guests, and ourselves, we have cruised 7 times now with Viking with 3 future bookings. It could be that they just leave well enough alone... Especially if the experience is that other lines do something about this kind of behaviour.

While on the ship you will move to the ship's WiFi.

There were enough for us, but depends on how many things you want to hang. Perhaps there were 10'ish?

Stay tuned to this discussion. We do a movie for each cruise that we were on. The movie for this cruise is still in production. Here is the link to our current videos, and if you subscribe, then you will be notified when the Eastern Europe is uploaded. I will also post it here. You have to copy and paste this link to access the videos. https://www.youtube.com/@lktraveljournal4554

We were on Ullur. Nice Ship. Great crew - if you get Andre and Vladimir in the dining room, Claudiu and Dawid in the lounge and have the Program Director Hana, you will be laughing. I attached a document that outlines what we originally signed up for in both optional and included. When we got on the ship, we had more included excursion tickets than we signed up for because if it could be fit in, the ship just signed us up. (You did not have to go...but we did). We were gone most days all day long. We would come back from a morning excursion have an hour to have lunch and be gone again. The excursions that Viking signed us up for are not on this list, but we loved everything that we did. We would not eliminate any of them. One of the highlights was visiting a family home in Croatia where we were served cake in the woman's dining room, and she told us of her life. This was outstanding. Make sure you do that one. Viking Excursions Passage to Eastern Europe.docxViking Excursions Passage to Eastern Europe.docxViking Excursions Passage to Eastern Europe.docxViking Excursions Passage to Eastern Europe.docx

Email tellus and ask your questions. They will likely respond with a phone call, but then you can ask them to put in writing the response. It is so concerning that you call and get different information from each person you talk to. Please reference this to tellus as well.