Texastraveler555

Actually, we are using a professional service to search & book our flights using our airline miles.

Yesterday (2-22) we booked the outgoing segment of San Francisco (SFO) to Sydney (SYD) (via a 2 hour stopover in Melbourne) for 160,000 AA miles + $65 tax. I don't have time and/or knowledge to trust myself in booking such a long and important flight so I hired a company called 'Book your award'. So far it's worked out well. Their service to watch and book using miles will run us ~$300. Well worth it in my opinion.

 

I've never flown Qantas ought to be interesting. This service only books for Business or First class seats only.

 

I may be comparing apples to oranges, but today I booked another VO cruise, Bergen to Iceland. I was discussing this topic of Viking Air vs booking ourselves with the Viking agent. I went ahead and booked Business Air through Viking and the route of Houston-Bergen then Reykjvik-Houston and the cost was $4390. We might be routed through God-knows-where, but that's he risk you take I guess.

 

Where do you fly out of? Dallas or Houston? I'm assuming you live in Texas by your screen name. We live around the Longview/Tyler area. We are roughly equal distance between DFW and IAH but usually fly international out of Houston (IAH) because it's easier to get to.

Hey I am just now getting back to this. We booked the Australian New Zealand trip too. We are doing the pre-trip to Cairns. We will be flying out of Houston. Working with viking on the air. Have you booked your return trip yet? Wondering what time of day is the easiest? Also looking forward to others joining the discussion. Thinking about the visa application.

We are doing both back to back in Feb/Mar 2019. Auckland to Bali. We figured if we were going that far we might as well stay !😁😁😁

We are thinking the same but Starting in Bali at the end of Nov. and the Dec. 16 from Sydney to Aukland. That would be perfect. But a lot more money.:o

This is the date were are looking at if we did New Zealand. Say did you book your own flight and where will you be flying from? Our dilemma is that I want to see Sydney and New Zealand and Terry my husband wants to see komota and the other trip. T Business class through Viking is very high although you get the impression it is around $3000 in their brochure. NOT so. I would be very interested in your flight into.

As the title says, we've just booked the Australia & New Zealand cruise!

 

A destination I've always dreamed of visiting. Only 600+ days away....:rolleyes:

 

This will be our third cruise with Viking Ocean, the previous two on the Star. My wife and I LOVE the size of these ships (not to leave out their outstanding service!) and are excited that the plan is for Viking to eventually sail 9 total of these ships, offering what I can only imagine will be world-wide destination choices.

 

Just wanted to share with all our fellow 'cruisers' found here.

We are thinking about this cruise and also the Komodo and Australian Coast. Did you guys consider both trips from Viking before you decided on this one. What date are you sailing?

My experience on May-June Homelands cruise as well.

Loved not having to run around and find a safe ATM for local currency.

Put each local currency in a separate envelope with the country name and date/day on it. Easy.

Toilet coins not the issue like on river cruises in mainland Europe. Most were provided via guide, e.g. museum. In Norway on an excursion I used my credit card at a waterfall store stop to get a coin for a toilet. That was it for the entire cruise.

Thanks for the information!

Can I go with you? I am already on withdrawal. We took every currency but rubles and extremely glad we did. We got all of them at a Wells Fargo bank and exchanged the leftovers there, also. It was so much easier than hunting down an ATM and wasting precious port time. A couple of times we ran into credit systems being down so having the cash saved us. We, also, liked tipping in their currency.

 

Euros are sometimes accepted but don't depend on it.

 

I was shocked but not once did we have to pay for restrooms. Our guides always pointed out where the free ones were and at the same time would tell us the next time one would be available.

 

You will absolutely love this trip. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Please check in when you get back. Would love to hear from you!

Thanks for the scoop!

We did the AMAZING Viking Homelands cruise in June.

We ordered currency for each country visited from AAA ( not the only source) at the best rate possible.

We did not have to spend any time hunting down ATM machines while in port...not always available!( try that in SPB in Russian!).

When we returned home, we exchanged our unused currency to our bank at a decent exchange rate.

This way we had local currency in hand to tip our excursion guides, buy souvenirs, street snacks etc.

This made life very easy!

We did NOT get currency for Iceland which we did on our own. One can charge EVERYTHING there..even an ice cream on the street.

We did see people on our cruise stuck in perhaps a local market without means to pay.

Credit cards are not always accepted when you are buying a small basket of strawberries!

Dollars are NOT always accepted but Euros often ok.

There was no down side to having our local currency delivered to us at home...arrived the next day.

In expensive countries like Sweden we got $100.00 worth, inexpensive countries like Poland $50.00.

We travel quite a bit and always order Euro and those we keep for further travel.

Hope this helps!

Enjoy what I am sure will be a great trip!

Thanks so much! We are very excited. First time on Ocean cruise.

Thanks everyone. I agree. Dollars isn't their official currency and we shouldn't expect them to accept it for our convenience.

Hey JiminyC I think you just returned from the Ocean Homeland trip. I can't find the thread but I want to know abut the currency you took. Did you run across any restrooms that you had to have money. We are traveling in Aug 19 starting in Norway.

That's sad. We did a mini version of the "included tour" of Stockholm as we were being transferred from the ship to our 2 night extension. Our guide was a fellow called Magnus who had been our guide on the paid "Village in the Swedish Countryside" excursion the day before. We so liked him that many of us (independently too) specifically asked to be on his bus as we disembarked. For me, I simply Ignored what the poor Viking person was trying to tell us to do and said "Where's Magnus? Which bus? That's where we're going." And was insistent I'd have no other. He was quite impressed and pleased when he saw how many familiar faces were with him (doubt Viking was any too pleased).

 

Anyway, he took us over to the City Hall a few blocks away from our hotel, the Radisson Blu Waterfront, where we spent a good chunk of time, enough to kill the rest of the morning and have us not arrive at the hotel too early. Now you may think "What's so great about a stupid City Hall"? And usually you'd be right to be skeptical. But this City Hall is where the Nobel Prize banquet is held. And for Magnus, was especially significant because in his college days, he was one of the select group of students (250) who are invited to attend.

 

What I would recommend, unless Magnus only does the paid excursions, is to be on whatever bus he's on. Cuz he's the best!

 

 

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I will look for Magnus!

Definitely sign up for included in each port. They're included!

 

In SP, since you are there 2 days you might do an Viking evening and optional one day and an included the next.

 

In Bergen, the included and changed and is now a panoramic bus tour I believe. We left the walking tour as they took us to a museum that was too overcrowded(museum or Viking fault) and it was September and 80 F with too little air conditioning. Aside from the included you want to do the Funicular as it is close and maybe the Castle tour or Hanseatic museum tour while going through Brygen close to ship. We stayed a couple of nights in Bergen after the cruise and did a Norway in a Nutshell type tour on one of those days.

Okay so we start our trip in Bergen so we have from 8:00 to 6:00 a full day. They offer something called Best of Bergen and Mt Floien it is 4 hours and includes the funicular. Would you recommend this? Thanks for the heads up on the included Stockholm.

OK, the shore excursion desk is always open on the ship so there is an opportunity to sign up one on board. They can help you with any questions there. You are around 90 days out so I'm assuming you are in a DV cabin or higher as I was in V and my sign up was 60 days out. If you are higher than DV then you still have sometime to adjust. This was my first cruise but so worth it. The advantage to Viking is the included tours and the good news is they are offered several times in each port so you want to take advantage of them. In Stockholm, you say the tour is 2 hours. If you can do that in the morning great. We had 4 groups in the morning with the last leaving at 9:45. Though ours was a 3 hour tour, yours, being 2 should be through by 11:45 if you get the last slot. Now that time would be back on the ship but if you leave the tour before they return to ship you will get an earlier start on Nobel and can catch shuttle back to ship for your afternoon tour. We did both of these attractions on our own before the ship docked, as we started in Stockholm and I think they are very good choices and certainly different from what we have in Texas. Since they are on islands on each side of Gamla Stan and this is really your only day, it is nice to have the ship provide transportation. If the last stop on the afternoon tour is City Hall, it's not far for a stroll back to Gamla Stan. I did see something about mobility in a Helsinki post of yours so that will be your call but the shuttles will operate into the evening from town.

 

I would strongly suggest another option than Viking for SP, and skip the included excursion there. You'll see more for less money and this was easy to do. The real urgency, since you can sign up tomorrow is to get the Viking tours in place. My priority was the Malbork castle in Gdansk so I checked to see if that was available when I got online. In our case, with our time in port, if we did that, there was no time for included. It was so that decision was made and had other choices lined up to set up for the included and most of those were at the times I wanted when we were able to commit.

 

I don't know what your other options are but if there are paid excursions through Viking that you don't get, most are still available at this time elsewhere, so don't throw in the towel for those excursions you really want. If you stay with Viking, it is easier but certainly more expensive but that choice is yours. I figured, as much as the cruise was, if I could save a buck here and there without sacrificing quality, it's a good thing.

 

Anymore questions?

Thanks again for the info. I am going to try for the Vasa and City hall and then the included in the morning. I will try to get to the Nobel on our own as you mentioned. This is also our first ocean cruise and I agree it is quite pricey. We are having to be selective on the excursions. Since I don't know exactly how my knee will be each day, I am looking to make sure it is not too demanding. I guess we can sign up for the included and see how it goes. We have been to SP before so we won't be trying to get everything in again. Do you remember what you did in Bergen besides the included?

Hi Texastraveler555! I will do my best to help you out. I think if you can get in and out of a bus you should be fine on any included tour. If you do any fjord tours (like going to Pulpit Rock in Stavanger) you'll need to be able to get on and off the ferry boat. I don't recall any issues with inclines or hills in St. Petersburg (private tour), Gdansk (Stutthof camp trip), Lubeck/Wismar (optional trip instead of Berlin), Copenhagen (fishing village optional trip/Tivoli), and Aalborg. In Stavanger you do have to go up to see the historic wood houses. My trip included Flam, which I believe is a different port this year. My mom ended up using a cane for the duration of the trip and she did get better each day. There were times when we stopped on a bus tour where she didn't get off. Since we had a private tour (just the 2 of us) in St. Petersburg, we had a bit more flexibility. She had been there before, so didn't get out of the car for some stops plus our guide got us a wheelchair in the Russian museum and at the Hermitage. I hope this helps a little!

Thanks for the info. This helps. Did you remember any feed back about another option in Berlin

Bad Doberan Minster & the Molli Railway. we are trying to pick we have also been to Russia and Germany before

In Stockholm, we did the included tour that ended in the square where the Nobel is located so it would be easy with that and it is close(a few blocks) to the shuttle pick up or it can be walked to the ship from there. We started in Stockholm and the included were all done on a day when we cast of at 2:00. You mentioned reverse order but I don't know what it is the reverse of but this should help.

OK thanks

I am new to this site so I'm not sure exactly what I am doing but we are on the Viking Homelands Aug 20 starting in Bergen and going to Stockholm. I think the fellow that started this thread with the "engine trouble" is on the cruise now and started in Stockholm.

We arrive in Stockholm at 9:00 am and it is the last day...we leave very early the following day. The included tour is two hours. One option is to do the Vasa museum and City hall which is four hours in the afternoon. Did you see this? but the Nobel museum looks very interesting. This is our first ocean cruise. We have done several viking river cruises. There wasn't so much to decide and pay for ahead of time. Is there a decent opportunity to book excursions after we get going?

Any info you can share is greatly appreciated. Our window for booking starts tomorrow. (I know from your posts that you do a lot on your own. Terry and I are not so adventuresome.

I took the included tour last May. My original plan was to do Helsinki on our own, but after my mom hurt her knee on day 2 we had to make some adjustments. We did stop and get off at the Rock Church and the Sibelius Monument. The tour ended at Senate Square. I went on my own into the Helsinki Cathedral and Uspenski Cathedral. Then I walked down to Market Square and picked up the ferry to Suomenlinna. I walked to the other side of the island and back. There are some shops--I picked up some baked goods and licorice. I took the ferry back and had some time to look at the stalls in Market Square and then took the shuttle back to the ship. I saw the sights I had hoped to see and had a beautiful day to do it!

I would love to know what activities your mom was able to do since I have some knee issues. we are going on this trip in August starting in Bergen and I am trying to sign up for excursions. It would be nice to know which ones to totally avoid. Any info you can share would be greatly appreciated

Texastraveler555

Could you share any suggestions/info. about any of the excursions you have taken? I will be there in a few weeks.

We are taking this trip in reverse Aug 20. I am trying to select excursions. Can you tell me what you did in Stockholm? Did you do the included and would there be anyway for us to go to the Noble Museum? It is not offered. Any quick notes you have of the excursions would be helpful.

Texascrusier555

We are taking this Viking ocean trip to the Homelands from Bergen to Stockholm Aug. 20th 2017. This is our first ocean cruise.

I am trying to review the different optional excursions and start planning. Any information on must do or skips would be greatly appreciated. They are too expensive to do everything. Also we have the "choice offer" and wanted to know if which place to apply....beverage package, on-board gratuities or 400 ship credit.