CDNPolar

Interesting - we were the exact opposite on our recent Homelands Cruise in September. The Spa was empty almost every day. We tend to go in the mid-afternoon about 3pm'ish and at this time it was empty. Maybe 1 or 2 people. Probably very much the demographics based on the cruise destination and during the day, when the popular excursions get back.

We tend to book flights 250+ days in advance, and generally we book them ourselves for better control. It is in my calendar (and DNA) to check and recheck the flights every 3 to 4 weeks. Some airlines have auto emails that come to you when an automatic change is made and some don't. Shocking to me that an airline (or Viking) would take the liberty to move a flight by 2 days without consulting you.

In actual fact, PV1 is a higher category of stateroom to the PV2 and PV3. I would say that the others sold out sooner because they are cheaper? I was upgraded to a PV1 once and the stateroom is great. The only thing that I think for you comes into this is the location of the stateroom on the ship. Personally I will only book mid-ship staterooms for reduction of motion on rough seas. You have to be happy with the deck and the location of the stateroom. There is nothing wrong with a PV1

This is concerning that these delays are happening. We have never used Tripmate, as we always buy our own. Does anyone have a good news story about Tripmate?

I am in the Toronto area and the only locations US based are Detroit and Niagara Falls, but when you go to the site and attempt to book, these sites do not have any appointments available. I think we have to be content to wait...

There are no appointments in Canada at all. No virtual appointments. We are just west of Toronto in Mississauga and we would have to drive to Port Huron or Detroit I think - and cross the border. Not doing that. What I fear is that if and when they do open appointments in Canada, the wait list will be very long. For now, they keep extending my Nexus benefits, so I am not that worried.

I have a translate app called "Say Hi" and you speak in English and it translates to Chinese, Spanish, or anything you want. The same in reverse, the individual responds in their language and it translates back to English. This happens in voice and text. My husband is Chinese and none of his family speak English. We all have this app and when I am home in China I use this a lot to afford me with basic communication skills with all family. It works well. The only piece to this app is that you must have your data live if you are out and about for it to work. It does not work offline. I do know that there are newer stand alone devices for travel that do not need data, but I have not used them nor do I know their price. This Say Hi app has been a life saver for me many times. Restaurants are relatively easy in many languages as you can learn beef, chicken, fish quickly, but if you are in an underground subway and need a ticket and there is no English, without a translate app like this you may be in trouble.

I find this a really frustrating thing... We have used one TA that gave nothing. We have used one TA that had charges for everything outside of the cruise that she booked for us - such as hotel, car, and air. She also has a cancelation charge per person above other penalties. We have used the big box TA for an upcoming cruise and are looking forward to a shop card at 10% of the value of the cruise and the membership rebate as well. This is the most we have ever seen and makes it well worth the extra layer of using a TA, but they don't book some of the cruise lines that we prefer to sail with. I find it a trade off. With the exception of the big box opportunity, I find that the extra layer of a TA for a couple hundred in OBC is not worth it. I generally find TA's not responsive and not knowledgeable.

From what you are saying you are proposing it the right way. You will have to use a SWIFT code and the exchange rates are just a factor of doing this kind of transfer.

My husband and I both renewed at the same time. He got approved online and mine was conditional on an interview. None of my information had changed. If your response says to book an interview, then you will have to go in person.

my renewal started in August 2020 and my in-person interview was cancelled due to the closure of the Pearson location. I just flew into Terminal 3 Pearson two days ago and of the 6 Nexus machines, only 2 were working and they were taking extremely long to process. We just walked to the Nexus immigration officer and handed our passport, nexus card, indicated that they machines were not working and he stamped us through. Sad really what is happening with this and how much money and time are our governments wasting on this back and forth about immunity from prosecution if they commit a crime? I was a bit ***** about that... why would they need immunity from prosecution? Do these US agents intend on committing crimes while working on Canadian soil? Makes no sense to me. The kicker is that we don't use Nexus for the USA - we almost NEVER go to the USA and would not fly through the USA unless there was no other hub to go through. We use Nexus for faster security and arrival back to Canada from every other country that we go to.

We have aways preferred booking directly with Viking because when you have a small question or change to make, then you call and it is dealt with immediately - or faster than going through a TA. Our experience with TA's is that often you cannot get a quick turn around of a question because they are now the in-between entity. We have worked with a TA that we cannot reach by phone and then we email and then it takes days for a response. We happen to be very experienced in booking all our vacations from cruise to air to hotel, and excursions. We just feel more "control" in all of our bookings. We have recently booked a cruise however through a "major retailer" travel department because of the rebate, the shop card, and a discount that we got for paying at the time of booking. We calculated our savings to be $3,000.00 give or take. For these savings we will "deal with" a TA, but in general we find them to be more challenging and not offering - to us - much value. (You cannot book Viking through this major retailer, so this is not a Viking booking.) We only use a TA now if there is significant enough financial value to us to do so. And... yes, I agree to the above comment - book through Viking and then transfer to a TA if you get some sort of value. We have done that too.

I agree with Mrbp1 - call the cruise line and ask the questions directly from them. I have done this as a gay man in the past, and although I feel that I got a DEI type of rehearsed and trained response, it showed me that the cruise line at least had a robust DEI policy and the customer service team was well equipped to answer my questions. You really want to hear the cruise line's policy and responses directly from them. Our experience online is great to get, but always go to the source as well.

We have the kind of really light down winter jackets that scrunch up to a small sleeve that is about 5X5 inches, but will also compress into your bag easily if we feel the need to wear that coat to the airport. I tend to "risk it" in that we are only 15 minutes from the airport and we always order a car to take us and bring us back. In this case, we only wear what we want on the aircraft, and that tends to be long pants and long sleeve shirt as we find it cold on the aircraft, especially overnight.

The caution that I add, is that I was under the impression that in some cases, electronics that are purchased in the USA are not warranty covered for repair in Canada. You may have to return to the USA to have any warranty repairs? Check with AppleCare. I may be totally off base with this....

Hello Markham from Mississauga. Cozumel - We did the Ruins of San Gervasio - Informative and OK Belize - We did the Cave Tubing - LOVED IT - Great experience Roatan - We were supposed to do Kayaking and Snorkeling but was cancelled due to weather Costa Rica - We did the Nature Walk and Ariel Tram - Good and informative Colon - We did Panama City By Foot - Good and informative Jamaica - We did Rose Hall and Shopping - Rose Hall was good but the shopping was just a tourist trap I cannot get too excited about any of these EXCEPT the Cave Tubing. I have been to many of these islands before and to me the excursions are all the same. What I will say is the HIGHLIGHT of the trip is the partial crossing of the Panama Canal. Absolutely worth getting up at 5am and being on the deck outside the Explorer Lounge to witness the approach. Approaching in the dark is spectacular. Get there 30-45 minutes before the expected arrival or you may not get a good railing spot. Again - for me the highlight of this trip.

Might be the difference of calling in and asking/complaining. We did not ask or complain on one port missed on our recent Homelands cruise, but apparently some did and they got some compensation.

The elimination of Key West is not new. I was on a Panama cruise in December of 2021 and it was listed on the itinerary on MVJ with all excursions showing sold out. I believe that this is because Key West have limited the guest count on cruise ships and Viking is too big. Not sure why Viking keep this port on the itinerary as it only causes grief like we are seeing here... Oh, and by the way, we fully expected to stop at Key West even though excursions were sold out. We only found out on embarkation day that we would not be stopping.

Same as above... we will often do an early excursion, stay in the city/town or wherever we are, and sample a local restaurant for lunch, then wander. Saves going back to the ship and leaving again.

In looking at your signature, you have been on cruise ships that are 2500'ish guests... I have been on that size of ship in a previous life, before I found small ship sailings. The larger ship has a more diverse night life because of the size of the ship, but also because of the age demographics of the ship. (we are in the 40-60 age range) Viking at capacity is only 930 guests and the average age is much higher than the ships you have sailed. Viking has designed an experience that meets the needs of the older crowd that wants more luxury and is not looking for disco dancing at night. It is true that most of the streets roll up after the second show in the Star Theatre, but depending on what you are looking for, there are some options, but they are all fairly sedate. As I mentioned earlier, we choose not to go to Torshaven as we find it rather enclosed and loud and we are not interested in dancing. We have always gravitated to the Explorer Lounge after the show in the evening and we have generally always found that to be a relaxing end to our day. There will be either the guitar player or the piano player or a string duo there for a set or two. As Clay Clayton said above, it also depends on the cruise itinerary as if it is shorter and really packed, folks are off to bed early. (We tend to book our excursions as early as we can) When I think back to my time on larger ships, I fondly remember why I love Viking so much. It is because it does not have all the choices, noise, and confusion that I feel the larger ships have. On Viking the food is excellent, the service even "excellent-er", the ship is tastefully laid out in a Scandinavian calm colour pallet, and it just fits the level of luxury that we are looking for. I hope you love Viking as much as we do.

The only thing to be aware of is if you move to another date, you may retain all the savings but if the price has gone up on future sailings, you will have to pay the difference.

We did our Mediterranean cruise in May. We are not heat lovers. I know of people that do Europe in the summer and most have come back saying that it is too hot. If you are just sitting on deck, great. Most of the best excursions have a lot of time outside and walking, hiking, etc., and when it is hot it may be unbearable. I have spent time in Florida in the summer, and if just sitting under cover, the heat is fine. I would not want to be on a walking tour without cover.

We have had high powered cameras and now rely 100% on the iPhone. We just got the iPhone 14 specifically for the upgrades to the camera both in still and video. We produce very high quality movies from every trip that we are on and they are a combination of still and video and they all come from the iPhone. Our friends are amazed when they find out that we only used the iPhone. Travelling with a camera is a preference for some, and we used to do it, but that is added concern and often adds issues as it is one more thing around your neck that you are carrying and protecting from damage or theft. The question do you need cell service to use the phone camera - no - but we do have our data roaming on (under Rogers Roam Like Home) as then the camera establishes the meta data - location, time, date, etc, for when we are downloading and preserving our photos later we can sort by location and time. Also, because we both take pictures, when we merge the pictures at home (last trip there were 8000 pics) they all sort again to location and date/time because of the meta data. This however DOES require you to have data roaming and that costs more. Rogers Roam Like Home is up to $15 per day depending on the location.

We have sailed Viking in warm and cold temps. We find that the onboard experience - dining, theatre, etc. - are all adequately kept at a good temperature. Now, that is not to say that you would not need a light sweater or long sleeves. I run hot and my partner runs cold. I can do with short sleeves or a light long sleeve shirt, but he will likely wear a long sleeve sweater at dinner or in the Star Theatre as sometimes you are under an AC draft. In general the temps are what I would say you should expect.

Hey - no worries... I did not know they were there in the beginning either. You will always get some great information here as there are many loyal Viking guests in this forum. Hope you enjoy your first Viking Cruise.