SantaFe1

We’ve used them twice this year, (and will use them again this fall for our Rhine River cruise) Once domestically to L.A. for our Hawaii cruise and once to London for our British Isles cruise. They can go locked domestically, but not internationally. They still don’t allow air tags, but I guess you can sneak them in. The website allows you to track the bags’ progress anyway. The content restrictions aren’t bad—mostly things I would carry on anyway, like medications. The strangest one was no clothes with the price tags still on them (go figure). But the convenience really outweighs the restrictions. Coming back from Iceland three years ago, we would never have made our connection at JFK if we had had to claim our bags!

Agreed, but Viking gets you 20% off. We have been using them for five years. Always on time.

You beat me to it, Linda. I echo all of this.

This is just one more reason not to use Viking Insurance, Tripmate. We have only used it once on the WC where you had to.

Viking wanted to fly us to Dallas-LHR-Amsterdam-Basel with 80 minutes in LHR. NO WAY! Then they told us that coming back from Amsterdam with only one stop would be an extra several $1000. And we had just taken that flight with them a couple of months before for the $5000 pp originally quoted. The next big flight for us is for the Malta cruise next year. We are doing the pre-cruise in Madrid but will fly home from Barcelona. Those flights aren’t open yet, but there are one stop flights currently available. Viking has quoted us $5500 pp again, but I bet we won’t get the good flights with only one stop for that price, even with the complimentary air plus we have.

For our River cruise coming up, we had Air Plus for free when booking our suite. So when they couldn’t find us any acceptable flights, we could just drop it without incurring any fees.

I should modify this and say that when I booked this and took air, before flights actually became available, Viking quoted me $5500 pp, which is what we were used to paying. But they only had ONE flight for that price and it was terrible. When I used air plus and requested the flights I wanted, the price went way up!

I’m afraid airfare is just plain going up. But we had a similar experience. We were quoted $9500pp for our upcoming River cruise, flying to Basel and home from Amsterdam. I was able to get tix on Delta/KLM for $6000 pp.

Well, this isn’t always the case. We always have a final payment six months out and so don’t pay for flights until six months out. If I do flights on my own, I usually have to pay for them about 9 -10 months out, so sometimes Viking’s payment schedule is a bonus.

I don’t think there is a single answer to this. Depends where you are flying from and flying to, and the time of year etc. etc. We use Viking Air Plus (where you get to choose your own flights) about 50% of the time. Then it is maybe 20% cheaper. When not, we book our own. We only fly business class. But for example, we did the British Isles Explorer cruise in May and saved about $1500 pp. But on our upcoming Rhine cruise, Viking Air was about $1500 pp MORE than doing it ourselves. So, just do your homework and do the math and pick what works for you. There is no advantage to using Viking Air, that I can see, if it is more expensive than what you can get yourself. (Even with the transfers to and from airport included).

Yes! We went to a hotel rather than the airport and booked a car because we didn’t really know what to expect. We laughed when we got through the terminal and saw all the taxis.

Can you please tell me how much that one is? TIA.

This is a good one. I’m going to have to plagiarize it soon! But we are still trucking. My first husband died at 46. My second turns 75 tomorrow. I learned carpe diem a long time ago!

Well, I don’ t eat red meat, so I’m out of my league here. To each their own. Enjoy!

Or Bambi! I do not eat deer!!

Probably closer to venison.

Me too!

We go in Nov. 2025. Our last invoice, dated July when we added the Madrid pre-extension, says visa required. So I’m just not going to worry about it for another year. Next thing is getting passport renewed when we return this November.

That is probably true, but I would also say that the “no visa for Algeria”is really only the stance for this cruise. We don’t go for another year, and it may change again, even several times, before that. So I will be checking again next year about this time.

And we are booked, Nov. 2025, so also following enthusiastically.

Who did you use? How much? TIA

Yes, that’s my understanding too. But just passing along what I heard. I think we might try a private tour I have over a year to look into this. The other big question seems to be about the visa for Algeria.

And aches and pains,

I just heard from someone on a November roll call that they were able two nab two previously sold out tix to the Alhambra for $229 pp. we are on this cruise next fall, and I am also interested.

OK, fine. But I will point out that at 80000 people Santa Fe is hardly a city (I’m from Los Angeles—big difference). And I am certainly not “offended” by the term “old man rant.” Too much that’s really offensive in the world to worry about.