CDNPolar

I don't believe that there is any violation in mentioning insurance companies, as many companies have been mentioned in other threads... Would be very interested in a company that offers insurance for missed ports or bus because of low water on a River Cruise. Please name...

The Viking Daily - the daily news letter you receive each night for the next day - will list the port times, both intended arrival and most importantly the back on board time. If you are planning private excursions in advance, then I would be careful when your tour starts as port arrival times are not guaranteed. Generally - generally - most of the cruises I have been on, the port arrival time is 8am. This may vary a bit, but generally, if you want to do independent exploration or you have a private tour booked, you can disembark the ship as of 8am, or slightly after. This is at your will, you don't have to book or reserve anything. You would just go to the exit. For arrival back, please ensure that you know the time back on board. If you are NOT on a Viking excursion, and you are late, the ship will NOT wait for you. To be safe, I would ensure that you were back at least one hour before the all back on board time. I have friends that had issues with a cab tour and they were literally running and just got there in time, and were told that if they had been one more minute the ship would have sailed without them.

I don't think that gym classes are a big thing on Viking. I have been on 6 Ocean cruises and have never noticed that there are classes and I read the Viking Daily from cover to cover. Perhaps others have comments? I am not aware of "Trainers" on the Viking Ocean ships either. There is a well equipped gym, but the staff seems more concentrated on the Spa aspect of that area of the ship.

Tom, my husband and I sailed Hurtigruten Firdtjof Nansen to Antarctica 2 months ago. I know you are asking about Europe but I will give you our insights as to the Expedition sailing. The ship was relatively new - 3 years old - and very comfortable. Cabins very well appointed and very comfortable. Crew very friendly, accommodating and nice. Food was good. Buffet choices were wide and varied every day for breakfast and lunch and great quality, but the dinner a la carte was ok and limited menu choices. Overall food was good. Don't know how this compares to Hurtigruten Europe. Because this was an Expedition sailing, there was not "theatre" or evening entertainment. This cruise was about the destination and the science. Again, not sure how this compares to Hurtigruten Europe ships. We have only sailed Viking before Hurtigruten and Viking are supposed to have a higher standard of food. We were surprised to note that Hurtigruten buffet was better than Viking, but Viking restaurant served meals were better than Hurtigruten. You will not find a lot of activity on Cruise Critic for Hurtigruten because their primary guest is not from the USA. You will have a lot of Europeans on Hurtigruten and they are not Cruise Critic members. If you go to the Hurtigruten forum, you will find that many Hurtigruten threads are not heavily populated, and the roll calls rarely get any real activity. In 6+ months I only got one or two posts to my roll call for the cruise we were last on. I think however that if you really want to know about Hurtigruten, you should ask your specific questions there. You will get responses from people who do know Hurtigruten. Hmmm.... I just went and looked, and it was what I thought - this ship is identical to the one we sailed. Ask yourself what you are looking for other than your daytime excursions and a well cooked meal. This ship will be very comfortable, but only has the one main restaurant, and one you will pay extra for, unless you are in a suite. It has a hamburg/hotdog/taco room too but the food was blah... and the top deck is the bar. If you are going on Expedition, then this ship and the Expedition team will be great. If you are looking for evening entertainment and variety of restaurants, food, and activities onboard, this is not the ship for you.

If this is Far East Horizons, we did that in 2019 and it was one of our best cruise experiences. Highly recommend. This was Viking of course.

Depending on where you are coming from, if this is the first Schengen country you are landing in then you will have passport control as well. Not security, but definitely passport control. The non-Schengen travellers are one by one with a live agent, when the Euro passport holders are automated. It is our experience in both Munich and Frankfurt that 50 minutes is not enough. That is also assuming that you are not delayed in your departure and late in your arrival - how far back you are in the aircraft, etc. If you are arriving at a busy time, you could have a 20 minute wait or more at passport control. We don't book any connection in Europe now without at least 2 hours as we have been the one running a number of times with the threat of the airbridge door closing. WE would go for the four hour connection every time. Would rather spend 4 hours in the airport than miss a connection and perhaps not get where we want to be the same day.

Very true. I have gotten back on a bus at the end of an excursion thinking that I will never get that 3 or 4 hours of my life back and then I hear couples or small groups discussing how much they loved the excursion. I am not trying to lessen what the OP is saying here, but I look at this through two lenses: If an included excursion, then it can be hit or miss and we have to take it as such. (Although we have rarely been disappointed with optional excursions) If you pay for an optional excursion, it should deliver a higher expectation. We have had poor experiences with both, but also put this down to Viking is not leading this excursion on an Ocean ship. This is a contracted supplier, BUT the ShoreEx group should be checking the quality of these and how the marketing write up displays the experience. When you tell me in your marketing material that: The scenic drive to the "local village hall" consisted of viewing ship containers, sewage pipes, and loading docks. Then you should deliver scenic. However the reality is that many port areas connected to towns are not scenic. This may be a fail on Viking's copy writers where they just needed to drop the word "scenic" and instead said "The drive to the local village hall....". Marketing add the word "scenic" to make you book the excursion... I however do hear your frustration and need for Viking to take ownership. We have had our "battles" with Viking. In a nutshell, we LOVE the onboard experience with Viking but what we have found after 7 cruises is that sometimes the PRE cruise issues, the reservation issues, the voucher issues, and the mis-information that is often given by one person and then disputed by another is often extremely frustrating. We have had customer service tell us A and then when we call back to do A, then we are told no, you cannot do A. We have escalated and the Supervisor confirms that we were told A, but unfortunately A is against policy and that customer service agent should not have told you that you can do A. I ask, well, so you are admitting that we were told incorrect information and now you are not willing to honour what your rep says, how can we ever believe what one of your reps says? They just apologize and insist that policy does not allow A. We sit here now scratching our heads wondering ***** and so we just have to accept it and move on. Viking have a serious training issue with their customer service staff and they need to address that. We have one more booked Viking cruise and we are considering another but if we continue to experience these "off ship" issues, then we will move to another cruise line. We were content in the beginning to remain with Viking, but our eyes are open now to the world of other cruise lines that offer very comparable experiences and we are trying out the competition. Viking has not lost our total loyalty as a customer YET, but is moving very close to that as we are spreading our wings and looking around. The truth is that Viking really offers nothing of true value for loyal customers anyway. $100 or $200 past guest discount... drop in the bucket. Viking could buy our loyalty if their policies and pre/post customer service issues were better. AND it is not always about a credit or voucher, it is about owning the issue.

The last two ocean cruises we were on, there were no binoculars in the cabin. But agree - bring your own anyway if you feel you want them.

We buy Air Plus for all our flights if we book them through Viking. Then we go to Google Flights and put in our multi-city requirements or round trip, whichever it is. We analyze the options and we generally have two or three options to work with, then we call Viking Air to book. We will give option A date, airline, flight number, connection, etc. and then let them look it up. They will tell you if inside contract or not. If first option is not in contract, then move to your option B. We had once that the flight we wanted that was direct, was apparently out of contract. We asked if we could still get it and pay a premium and Viking told us that for $100 we could have that flight instead of booking a connection on another airline. We weighed the cost and decided it was worth the $100 to go direct and booked it. Yes, definitely Viking book with and have a contract with Air Canada as we are in Canada and for many of our flights to anywhere have been either with Air Canada or one of the Star Alliance like Lufthansa.

Absolutely, but this discussion is about someone not arriving that day but is coming to the airport to get a transfer as though they did arrive that day. The initial meeting always happens - in my experience - at the luggage claim and that is a restricted area that you cannot enter if you are just coming tot he airport. My point being that the buses are not always easy to find.

Should not be hard to find the buses, but in Ft. Lauderdale for the Panama cruise, the bus was a 10 minute walk from the luggage area following the Viking Rep. I would venture to say that you would not find these busses if you were not in the group. Also the busses are not Viking Branded, so again, not a given that you will find the buses.

Did I mention anything about wanting to pay a year in advance? NO.

If you have an existing Viking booking and you book a new cruise - at home, not on board - you can get the 6 month payment option. You have to have at least one booked cruise to get this. Viking don't always just give this to you without asking. It is on our list of points to check before we let the reservation agent off the phone. We have had to wait for supervisor approval more than once. For this reason, we never go on a cruise - if the only one booked - without a future cruise booked as well. This is especially easy and cheap to do when the $25 deposit is in place. Also, this option may not be for every country.

Is there not a cost for you to get back to the airport and is the hassle of going back to the airport and meeting Viking and then doing the transfer worth all that? Just asking. Seems like a lot of bother to save 50 or 60 bucks. Also to my experience, generally Viking are at the luggage carousel before you exit that area. You may not be able to get back into the luggage carousel area to meet them?

Good question, but medical I think (my opinion) would still cover this. I am covered medically for the trip and I may venture off the ship on my own or in a taxi or with a planned excursion. I have never asked this question of my insurance broker but will now. I feel that this would be covered UNLESS, any of the excursions fall under the less known clause of extreme activities or sports. You are generally not covered for bungee jumping, parasailing, zip lining, kayaking, scuba diving, etc. Does not matter what the circumstances are for any of these types of medical emergencies, you would not be covered. Not a typical Viking excursion but... On Panama we went tubing in the caves. I did not check with my insurance BUT I would bet that if one of us were injured while tubing in a dark cave, we would not have been covered. Insurance companies will find any reason possible to not pay out.

We always book deck 3 and mid-ship and have been on both port and starboard. We have never had any noise issues with any of these cabins. The only time we did have an issue was when we were deck 3 forward and I think in 3025 we were in the cabin early and heard the Star Theatre music in the background. I think that some folks are much more noise sensitive than others but from our experience of 7 different cabins on deck 3 - go for it - we can analyze too much sometimes.

I don't know of any formal plan of Viking's for this but please consider these two options - of which I would select #2. 1) If you are booking this yourself, you can go into MVJ (My Viking Journey) site anytime and make a partial payment. You in essence could create your own monthly payment plan. If you are working with a TA then you would have to do this through them. 2). Take the money that you would pay monthly and save it in your own savings account and pay the full balance when due. ALSO with this option you could take advantage of the E-Check option and save 3.3% on the final payment. Not sure you can do that if you were paying in installments. I personally am not a fan of giving anyone money before it is due.

We did not have to check anything out of the ordinary at online checkin. We have our vaccine paperwork printed out and that is all we have printed. Everything else is electronic.

Just note that what you define "Plant Based" and "Vegan" can be very different. Don't go on a label only. Plant based tends to take into consideration eating whole foods which would cut out pasta and breads - even if prepared vegan - as it is made with processed flour. We are not Vegan now, but have been on Viking both River and Ocean. As instructed above, contact tellus@vikingcruises.com and give them an overview. Give them exactly what you will and will not eat. Best is to tell them what you don't want to eat. Immediately on boarding the ship ask to speak with the dining manager - who should already be aware of your requirements. You will work it out from there. Viking have been incredibly accommodating with us in the past, but don't expect a range of options everyday. They will do their best but the selection may be limited. You will get a menu daily at your stateroom, you will circle what you want to eat and they will reimagine the dish to a vegan or plant based option.

We just went AC round trip and arrived back last night. Did the attestation, and had all paperwork with us but were never asked to prove anything.

We currently are or have used both TD and Manulife. We find both to be competitive in pricing. What is important to us now is the Covid part of cancelation or interruption. Both seem to have reasonable coverage to send you home, but if you have to stay in the country the coverage for hotel and meal cost is limited.

Interesting question. We have an account for a long time and often send money overseas to family. We never pay any fee. We transferred smaller amounts three times while in BA Argentina because we did not want to get stuck with Pesos at the end. The first two times they did not charge us any service fee. The third time they charged $15.00 CAD and even with that it was a better deal on exchange. One additional thing about exchange... We stayed at the Sheraton and in our online booking the total cost of our 4 nights was $980 USD. This would have been the equivalent in pesos charged to our credit card, converted to USD and then to CAD. We asked for our total charges in Pesos, and it was $172,000.00 pesos. This in CAD funds was $700.00, so we saved $280 + the exchange to USD. In total we saved about $600.00 when all was said an done by paying our hotel bill in Pesos converted from CAD.

We just came back from Argentina and we were first suggested to take USD for exactly what the poster above is saying - taking advantage of a "middle" and / or "blue" market. When we were there - this is only an example and not necessarily exact: Bank Rate Home: 1 USD = 150 Pesos Middle Rate at the Hotel: 1 USD = 280 Pesos Blue Rate on the Street: 1 USD = 320 Pesos HERE IS WHAT WE FOUND: We took too little USD and ran out. We only used the Hotel to exchange because we did not trust the blue market and the risk of counterfeit bills or being short changed. We started to transfer - online - through Western Union CAD money to Argentina. The transfer takes 5 minutes online and it is complete and you can pick up immediately with your passport for ID. Once you take into account the exchange cost from CAD to USD, then to Pesos, we did better with Western Union's exchange rate from CAD. We got 250 pesos per Canadian dollar which when you do all the math was better than the double conversion of CAD to USD to Pesos. Western Union offices were like Tim Hortons. They were everywhere.

Frustrated trying to figure this out. Bought TripMate cancel for any reason insurance when booking the cruise. We are way ahead of full payment, so only deposit on file. We cannot go - for personal reason - on this date on this cruise. We want to revise our itinerary to a new date and possibly the destination because of the change of dates. We know that we can move the cruise, and deposit, BUT can we also move the TripMate insurance to the new cruise, or is that money paid and lost? Note: We are not really exercising any cancellation - we are revising our itinerary to a different cruise before any penalty. Your experience and thoughts appreciated.

No. I am a fan of talking to the source, and in this case Viking directly. They will not disclose how or even when tips are distributed. I asked if an individual receives tips by cruise, or by contract, and they would not disclose that either. It is a carefully guarded secret apparently. The crew probably have a non-disclosure clause in their employment agreement. My feeling on this is this: If Viking included this in the cost of a cruise, then fine. It is part of what I have to pay to get on the ship and I would not question it, because gratuities would not even need to be mentioned. BUT, because they are putting this on my invoice, and I physically have to go and ask for it to be amended or removed if I don't want to pay it, I think that I have a right to know where it is going if I do pay it. We will continue to pay this as we feel an obligation to these hard working people, but as I have said in previous posts, we also tip ad hoc here and there to people that impress us with their service, and always the cabin stewards. There is a quieter unspoken side of me that wants to NOT pay it unless there is more transparency, but not going to go there.