OnTheJourney

Any thoughts, from your experience as an NP, on the passengers being masked? Surely you were and probably still are masked in your practice. I'm not suggesting nor implying anything, but am just interested in getting your take on requiring masking onboard at least in certain large group / more confined areas. I still am stuck on the dichotomy that would appear to exist between requiring full-scale daily PCR testing and yet not requiring any masking onboard. It's sort of like having football players wear their helmets, shoulder / thigh / knee pads, but leaving out the mouthgards. Inevitable for some % of accidents to occur, or, analogously, a % of positive cases. It was reported that there were at least 10 people quarantined as a result of positive tests on the Chairman's cruise. OR...require masking ashore during Viking-sponsored excursions. Thing is, many (most?) people bent on traveling - and other walks of life - have pretty much had it with masking, so if you go too far on that score, the cruise lines surely will not fill ships. OR, contrarily,...for those who WON'T cruise do to lack of whatever required protocols either were in place and no longer are or else never in place to begin with or simply not enforced, you have a similar issue. Either way, some degree of positive tests / illness will always show up. Noro will always be here, and probably covid as well. Glad I'm not in charge of making the big decisions at least!

Agreed, but the problem there is that it probably (?) requires more time to accomplish this on behalf of the pax doing it themselves. If in a hurry and not done correctly, results will not be accurate. If requiring some sort of proctored monitoring and / or being done by staff, you're tying up additional staff to accomplish testing large numbers of people especially if on a daily basis. As I've stated before, I'm a bit shocked at seeing Viking go completely in the opposite direction. It seems contrary to Mr. Hagen's philosophy of hoping to maintain as high a degree of safety onboard as is reasonably possible. The decision to go no-test, to me, suggests that they haven't been filling ships. I suggest that it (no testing at all) is very possibly a short-term experiment. Guess we'll find out by the time our January cruise comes around!

Reason enough - unless people are choosing other lines over Viking - to continue with testing. I can only imagine the cost of putting the labs in place, and so would not have expected a complete discontinuation. If anything, perhaps a reduction in testing to only every other day or else a somewhat random schedule. Time will tell. I highly suspect they'll have occasion to start using them again - possibly sooner rather than later. There is obviously a segment of pax who don't now want to cruise with Viking because of the discontinuation of testing, but unfortunately as the case may be, probably far MORE people who might be drawn back to Viking (or first timers willing to go) now that they're not testing. Cruising is ultimately a market, like anything else, and people will 'shop' and spend their money where they feel best suits their purposes. Viking surely appeals to a smaller segment of the overall cruise market to begin with.

Well said, especially the last sentence! Most sorry to hear of this as well. And, as was already stated, your posts are indeed always well thought out, well constructed, and well balanced. Surely an excellent point and I hope that anything I've expressed relative to the daily PCR tests does not fall within the realm of those who chose to "complain". My wife and I simply felt the PCR testing to be a bit of an inconvenience from the standpoint of taking much longer than we anticipated, plus it delayed morning medication schedules. We'd wake up with dry mouth and just really had trouble getting up enough 'spit'. Never expected the required sample to be as much as it was. Then, the other issue is that it made us actually more worried about testing positive than if there had been no testing. Positive cases show up either way, of course, but as you correctly point out, the testing surely helps control and hopefully minimizes the spread before it becomes a substantial outbreak. I never meant to imply, as others may have, that the testing is in any way a 'waste of time' or 'ineffective', and such. I think the problem - and perhaps most of the complaining - is from those who have been on other lines that have never done the level of testing that Viking has, and thus simply don't want to deal with it. That angle, unfortunate and inconsiderate as it may be, was probably where we were coming from relative to our thoughts before the Chairman's cruise being that we did a (non-Viking) cruise back in March that only required pre-cruise testing, and just felt more relaxed during it and thought far less about covid, in general, compared to the daily testing - which sort of constantly brings to mind the thought of possibly testing positive. I AM surprised, however, at the about-face for Viking to go from - as you say - the best testing protocol in the industry, to basically no testing. That is something I would have never expected. I can only assume that they have not been filling ships despite some statements made to the contrary. Sorry again to hear about your cancellations. Best wishes going forward, especially health-wise. Hope you can continue your travels again shortly 🙂

No, I can't say that we would have felt that way, but surely can understand your position if you only decided to cruise based on the expected protocol. We came at it from a different angle - not being pleased about the daily PCR testing for various reasons, so had it been announced that we no longer had to do it, we would have been happy enough. Did a cruise back in March (not Viking) that only required pre-cruise testing - nothing at all onboard - and very honestly it felt more relaxing. True that masking was sparse, but so was it on the Viking Chairman's cruise this past May. It made NO sense to me to require all that testing and yet masking was optional. The constant testing just made us think TOO much about covid and thus always wondering...will we wind up positive one of these days? Oh my...this debate on both sides of the fence will just go on and on. Guess the "good old days" of cruising are probably a thing of the past. Travel will likely never be the same at least for the foreseeable future. IF another variant comes along (and it surely will) that is even more vaccine-resistant, watch the protocol be reinstated. People have had enough...so at some point it could affect the number of people signing up for cruises especially if other cruise lines do not increase their currently relaxed protocols as well. Who knows....

Amen to that. At that point I really would rather be at home, but not for the reason that Rudy is referring to. This 'if you're worried about getting sick then maybe you should just stay home and let us (non-maskers) go out and have a good time' mentality got old real quick as the pandemic started to come along. "Let them die and decrease the surplus population".

Yikes. Somehow much of what you report is rather incongruous with Torstein's previous commitment to such extensive covid protocols. Sounds like it (elimination of testing) has been a move in the opposite direction. Maybe we'll still wind up canceling our January cruise. Most ironic that we planned to cancel it if the PCR tests were still taking place, but now might cancel due to the lack of testing, i.e. increased cases. Oh well....still a considerable way off yet. Not really true. Tor's latest video on viking.tv alludes to the change in protocol. Seriously?

You got it...I'd never survive a world cruise.

Like I said, I'm ok with that long a trip by car, since we stay in different hotels (don't mind "hotel hopping"), never quite know where we'll wind up eating, etc. There is a bit more (or at least a different sort of) spontaneity. Cruising is surely great for only unpacking once (which is why so many like it I suspect), but I think by the time the third week would come along I'd have had a bit too much of being in the same room.

Sure it does. Some folks are just so self-centered. This is what's wrong with our society - for some people it's all about them.

Two weeks - ideal....Three....getting a bit too long for me on a ship (road trip totally different story). Four...nope. I'd be ready to jump overboard by then! Cities of Antiquities in January will be three weeks in all. Will see how it goes. I hate traveling during the winter - so worried about the possibility of bad weather, and then have to make arrangements for someone to plow / shovel snow.

Isn't that one "Trade Routes of the Middle Ages"? Or else very similar. We could have done that following the end of the Chairman's cruise, but having done both pre and post extensions, it would have gotten a bit long plus the timing - arriving back in mid-June - would not have been good for me relative to everything I had to do around the house. I've come to realize - especially from talking to others about travel, bucket lists, and such - that unfortunately the "someday" sometimes never comes along if not truly planned for.

Sort of like a Baltic cruise...very port-intensive. It'll keep you busy! Agreed on not flying to Europe for less than 2 weeks, or at least close to it. A month away from home, though, is just more than I want, especially with putting pets in a kennel and securing a plant waterer for my way-too-large collection, let alone getting someone to mow the lawn if the trip would be in spring or summer. I'm also a church organist, so that many Sundays off all at one time creates a bit of an issue. But, with flying all the way from Seattle - makes sense to stay over there longer.

Is that the Athens to Barcelona that you have listed? Have to check that one out, though 21 days on a ship is a bit long for me. We just did one that ended in Barcelona back in May.

LOL....once saw somebody's signature here on CC that said something to the effect of: "spending my kids' inheritance...one cruise at a time" 😆 It was really nice of Viking to still think of us. The original idea was for last January, but of course that was canceled along with tons of other stuff. This second offering came as a bit of a surprise. We only had two weeks to decide on it. So that was a bit hectic for many people I'm sure due to other trips being planned. We really debated on going / not going (had to cancel a cruise that overlapped) but are so glad we did. It was our first time in the Med, so everything was new to us. Like I said, that's just so cool - didn't know you could track it. We've never been to Long Island, but our daughter just graduated with her PhD from Rochester Institute of Technology, so we've been up that way many times. I like the Adirondacks area as well. Yes! Another great picture.

Your departure pictures are really good....as well as approach to Greece. Never know how it'll get when taking from a plane window. Lots of times the windows aren't clean enough and then the camera focuses more on a smudge than the ground.

That's cool...how does one do that? Certainly nice, since that's always a bit of a worry. One of our suitcases was temporarily unaccounted for between the time that we disembarked the Mars and started on the post-cruise Barcelona extension. It did show up at the hotel after a bit, but most distressing to not find it in the terminal with our other suitcase. Somebody grabbed it by mistake I suppose and it went along to the hotel on a different bus since there were like 5 busloads of pax doing the extension. I suppose we all have some level of a suitcase horror story of one sort or another!

Absolutely! Sort of nice to "gain" back the time by flying west, but going over the pond is also nice due to the added benefit of the tailwind - I think the seatback map showed at one point we had over 100 mph tailwind - along with -80F. temps? Sheesh...glad I wasn't out on the wing somewhere. Kudos for taking Business class going home. I've started to think that this is the way to go. Life is short. We had a real nice premium economy going from Newark to Rome, but then what was billed as also PE from Barcelona back to Newark was anything but. Same food as economy, no nice headsets, etc. Only difference was a SLIGHTLY bigger seat. I said to DW....I'm done messing around with this. Next time we go big. Yep...go for it. The heart-shaped waffles are very nice, as are the lunch sandwiches, but the real treat is all their different pastries - coffee-cake-type specialties. SO good. Also a really nice quiet part of the ship. My favorite spot of all is probably the upper level of the Explorer's Lounge. We really lucked out since we had a free upgrade to a penthouse suite on deck 8 - so a short walk to the upper rear entrance of the lounge. Mr. Hagen and his daughter Karine were along on our sailing, with the famous Viking dogs - so got to meet them. They pretty much got mobbed wherever they showed up on the ship. Karine did a wonderful presentation relative to what happened to us on the Sky 3 years ago. Brought tears to my eyes since it included video footage of crews from various ships who all offered their support during and following the event. Torstein also spoke to that in his very humor-laced talk. The invitational cruise was, of course, a non-public sailing and was free to the Sky passengers. Economy air was also free, but I paid for the upgrade to PE. This was only our 2nd cruise with Viking. And to you as well!! Looking forward to more places to explore in the Med. Have always had the Holy Land on the bucket list, so if all goes well we will get there.

Just got through it all now. Great pictures! I find it most interesting, though, that you left the ship so late at night. I just assumed that most pax returning from Europe to US have the usual morning / afternoon departures. Also...curious as to whether or not you ate at Mamsen's at all? You didn't mention it so assumedly not. I might suggest giving the spa a try. It was something I really wanted to do during our cruise on the Sky back in '19, but unfortunately I waited till Saturday, March 23. Enough said on that I suppose! Never got to the spa since the cruise ended rather abruptly. SO...on the Invitational cruise I finally had my chance. It's really neat - especially the snow grotto. Your review really makes me anxious for the Cities of Antiquities cruise. Hope all is still ok covid-wise by then. Thanks again...most enjoyable 'traveling' with you!

I'm glad you did this review, especially being that Heraklion, Rhodes, and Athens are part of the "Cities of Antiquities" itinerary that we're doing in January, along with the Holy Land and several other ports. We just had our first Meddy experience on the Chairman's cruise back in May. Loved it! Such smooth sailing too. Looking forward to ALL your pictures and descriptions, etc. !! We will also be on the Sky - haven't seen her since March '19.

Same here. On the recent Chairman's cruise I was originally scheduled for the same room I had on the March '19 Sky voyage (DV2 on deck 5, ) but then saw on MVJ several weeks after we accepted the invitation that our room was changed to PS1 on Deck 8. I questioned it figuring it had to be a mistake. Quite an upgrade for sure. LOVED It...we're totally spoiled now!!! It was so cool to be real close to the upper level entrance to the lounge - convenient and easy way to get from our room to Mamsen's as well. 😉 Enjoy!

Probably about the same (or actually I'd say less) on the Chairman's cruise. Agree with both of these points. I couldn't understand the logic behind having to do daily PCR testing but yet not wear masks either onboard or ashore (with the exceptions of most of the shore excursion busses and in certain churches, etc.) You have loads of pax traipsing through those narrow streets in Europe crowded with people eating in those plentiful outdoor cafes. DW and I generally wore masks during those times. The whole shebang - effectiveness of masking / distancing and so forth is a debate that will probably continue on for years.

LOL....🤔

Wow...I had a pic taken of one of our waiters on a RCCL ship back in March, but I didn't ask him to remove his mask - he did it on his own. Makes sense that what you're referring to could surely lead to additional cases, but I deem it more likely that it's attributable to pax not being masked, plus probably the relaxed (more like eliminated) testing protocol. I wasn't real fond of spitting in a tube every morning, but if cases are going to start reappearing in greater numbers, maybe they should reinstate - at least testing prior to embarkation. That would seem to make sense.

Oh Lordy.....how digital media has indeed changed the world. Anyway, thanks to several posters here for clarification, since I questioned it recently. I'm not a FB member.