CDNPolar

As Clayton mentioned, we also had a very late flight with the disembarkation at 8:30am. This was in Tokyo. We were transported to a hotel and given a space to rest and leave our luggage. We were provided food and drink. We chose to leave our luggage in the secure storage and take a walking tour of Tokyo. We came back later and were transported to the airport for our flights. I would call Viking and have them comment on what they plan to offer you. I personally would not leave the ship one night early and pay for a hotel when Viking typically takes care of you.

This is what is currently on the Viking web site.

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If my memory serves me you will have about 7 hours in Berlin from the arrival of the train to the departure of the train. The day was basically 7am - 7pm or something like that. The train was 2.5 hours (give or take) each way. Viking charter a train for JUST Viking guests to go into Berlin. This is the way that you would want to travel in and out of the city. You would not want to miss the train back or the ship if you are on a private tour. What I cannot remember is if the Berlin tours were all "Optional" or if one was included? If one is not included then you would have to pay for an optional to get on the train. I think arranging private transport from the port to the city and back would be risky. It is not like the city is walking distance from the ship. Is there a reason you want to book your own tour? There are two different tours that Viking do - if memory serves - and it was quite comprehensive including a full lunch in a German Pub.

If you are booking the same cruise we did, the first night is the package is a hotel stay. Hurtigruten basically stage everyone at the hotel the day before your charter flight to Ushuaia. We were at the Emperador Hotel. We went one night early and paid for that night. The hotel was okay. Mid-level. Nothing fancy. We stayed after and stayed at the Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel and Convention Centre. It was a better location and because we had club floor it was convenient. I would recommend going with the Hurtigruten hotel before unless you want to pay extra and also get yourself to the airport for your flight to Ushuaia.

I have been thinking about this discussion for a few days now and have to make another comment that may not be popular with all... I am 61 years old and went through the 80's and AIDS and all kinds of discrimination in my life. I survived and "it got better", it really did. I personally am out and proud, but I am out and proud in a quiet sense. I don't hide who I am, but I don't advertise it. I will talk openly about my husband in any conversation with anyone. I am all for someone being out and proud in their own way, but we have to understand that sometimes being too out and proud can garner attention that we don't want. We will never (I do hope that one day I don't have to say never) completely eliminate ignorance, bigotry, racism, and discrimination, so we have to be responsible for how we present ourselves to the world. Be out. Be proud. At some point however we have to understand that we are not always going to be accepted in open society.

As far as the ports of call, I would suggest that especially if you are participating in a cruise organized group excursion that you should get off the ship and experience the culture and the country. Eyes are on the group in these kinds of excursions and you blend in to the group and are safer in my opinion in that group. I have very strong opinions about certain countries and ports that are not open and inclusive, and although I would never travel there on our own as a gay couple, I will participate in group excursions and have always felt safe.

Don't know if you are willing to do this as there can be challenges, but we had a cruise booked for this coming August, and all of a sudden it offered free air. After calling Viking would not honour the deal because of the date of our original booking - that date was not inside the promo booking dates published. What we ended up doing was REVISING our cruise dates on the same booking number to the same cruise leaving 2 weeks earlier and we were then eligible for the free air. You have to be careful as you are not canceling, but revising. You have to understand the promo booking dates, but even if you are "revising" the dates, it is viewed as a new booking and eligible for the reduction in air or in our case the free air. You will have a struggle with the reservation agent understanding what you are trying to do, as we did, and we ended up with a supervisor and everything worked out well and we ended up saving overe $2,000.00.

We enjoyed it and then went and wandered ourselves after. It was a good introduction.

First of all everything that you might do is weather dependent. With Hurtigruten - and this will be different for other cruise lines depending on the size of the ship - you are entitled to ONE landing per day, again, weather dependent. Hurtigruten also may give you a zodiac boat cruise each day if time and weather cooperates. The lottery is for the "optional" excursions which are additional cost. These are snowshoeing, kayaking, and camping. You sign up for these, and if chosen they bill your onboard account for the cost and you are given a time to report for your optional excursion. The problem being that they cannot accommodate all 400 passengers on these optional excursions in the time they have. You will get your included landings - hikes on the frozen continent - weather permitting. It is possible that you will have a day, or more, with no landings... we had five days with potential landings, but the first day there were no landings because the weather did not cooperate. So we missed a day of landing.

Well the words you use certainly make it feel that way...

Sorry that I offended you.

I want to ask - are you currently working long-term in another country? My company health insurance covers us for personal or business travel with no condition on length BUT we have to have a valid Ontario Health Card for coverage to be in place. This means that if you are gone from the province for a extended period you would lose health coverage if this is a condition of your company plan.

Many YYZ airport hotels offer a park / fly option that can be cheaper than just paying for parking. Depending on your flight departure time, this could be a much more relaxing way to depart? You say that you are 1 hour to London, and 2'ish hours to YYZ, and if you fly through London you have a 2 hour stopover in Toronto... To me, I would drive and stay at the Toronto airport and leave all the other considerations behind. Leisurely drive to Toronto the day before, relaxing dinner, good sleep, and you just have to jump a shuttle to the airport in the morning. My brother and wife live just outside London and this is often what they do and they find the stay/park/fly packages cheaper then parking alone.

Practical sense suggests that cruise lines make contract deals with airlines for the majority of people flying in on embarkation day and the majority of people flying out on debarkation day. If you want to come or go a different day, AND you are not buying their pre or post extension, then you will pay a slightly higher fee because it is outside their contract dates. We have found that we can do pre and post cheaper than what most cruise lines offer - much cheaper - and we also find that the air can be cheaper buying on our own... the only downside is you have to arrange your own transfers to the ship. Also, if the cruise line will 'manage' the air if there are changes/cancelations, then you have an advantage over buying air on your own. We have absolutely paid deviation fees before and probably will again, but it all comes down to circumstance for us.

Ben and David are funny, but we have never found that their "taste" matches our taste in any category - from type of cruise to food to anything really. They are just funny to us. Not to slam them in any way... they are just not for us.

You are going to have around 18 hours of daylight in the summer on Homelands cruise and many places are not going to be hot, with temps at a high around 70F with evenings cooler. Norway experiences something like 380 days of rain a year, so prepare for rain when there. Our favourite excursions / outings were: Finding a restaurant in Sweden that served Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and Lingonberry sauce (yes, like IKEA, only 500% better). Finding a perogie restaurant in Gdansk which we did but were not overjoyed with. The best excursion was the 12 hour excursion to Berlin. If you have never been to Berlin before, the day is tiring but you must do it. It is 2.5 hours each way by train, but Viking charter a train just for Viking and it is quite an enjoyable day. You have 5+ hours return on the train, but then 7 packed sightseeing hours in Berlin. We had about 400 of our fellow guests on the excursion, and I think that there were 700 on the ship, so there were 300 that chose not to go. I heard many say that did not go, that they did not because the day was too long... but, if you have never been to Berlin, and unless you are planning to go back to see that city one day, you are so close....

I believe that now Viking recommend Canadian's to go to Manulife.

Overall this is an interesting discussion, but this does just highlight something that has come up several times, that there are differences between UK, AU, CA, and the US in booking, deposits, final payment dates, and also insurance. It would be really helpful for all members to post their country at least in their profile as that is one thing that I always look to when reading a response, because I understand that there are differences. For instance, Canadians cannot buy TripMate insurance offered through Viking.

Yes, but precious few of these cabins have balconies, and as far as living in the rest of the ship, you are always in public. I personally would grow tired of that. I am outgoing for a 12-14 day cruise, but then want my privacy. I don't want to think that my life would be constantly around other people day in and day out. Three years in a cabin you could barely swing a cat? No, thank you.

Yes, but we have had guitar soloists, comedians, and magicians on recent cruises. Change from our original Viking entertainment which was the same group of four performers every night except for the Cruise Directors show. I have complained about ABBA and the Beatles and discovered that this is corporate standard and the ship has no choice in these line ups.

Really? Is this true? Is this why recently our experience with Viking Air was so frustrating? It was not the booking part, our frustration was over Viking policy and air contracts. We had literally booked air for the same cruise one week earlier and then decided to move the date of the cruise by 3 weeks, and when redoing the air we were told the airline we wanted was not under contract. We reasoned with the agent for 10+ minutes explaining that just hours ago we revised our itinerary and that the airline was in fact under contract... Finally after many holds they came back and apologized and agreed that the airline was in fact under contract.

I am not saying that this is no possible as I think that Viking go above and beyond in some cases, BUT, when we have booked our flights independently, Viking don't know our flight itinerary, so how would they do that? Also, there would be change fees associated with changes to our airfare that may not be part of air that Viking books under contract.

I don't know for certain, but I am not sure that you would always be connected to a network when you are at sea - Canada or USA. I think that you need to understand the cruise route and what network you would be connecting to? We often find that we are too far out to sea to be connected to a network, so even when we have roaming, we still rely on the Wifi to connect us when we are not able to connect to a land network.

Yes, in a situation like this there is advantage to having air booked with the cruise line. We were on a Viking Ocean cruise when there was a major strike or something with the airline that many were leaving on. Viking reworked the departures and in some cases it was a day or two later and Viking also put them into a hotel and covered the cost until the guest got home. Our airline was not this one so we were not impacted, but the reality is that "stuff" happens sometimes. If you purchase the air on your own then you are responsible to get yourself home at your own cost... But then, that is what cancelation and interruption insurance is for. You may be out of pocket initially, but you would have a claim after. Hopefully.