SantaFe1

A question for Heidi13: Andy, we will be in Vancouver at the end of our Alaska cruise in June for a “big” anniversary. We were in Vancouver five years ago for a semi-big anniversary and ate at a wonderful French restaurant. I am wracking my brain, but not sure. I think it was Crocodile. Does that sound right? We want to go there again. Thanks so much, Christine .

Wishing you a smooth flight and easy connections!

Thank you. We are originally from Los Angeles until retiring a few years ago, so I understand your point—although usually not so much rain. I keep watching the weather in various ports, but although we are still a month out, luggage Forward wants our bags on Feb. 2. So I need to make some decisions pretty soon. Layers, I know, layers. But we will probably arrive in parkas! Enjoy you trip, and thanks for posting about it.

We will be on Med. Antiquities in mid-February. In addition to the Athens hotel and restaurants, a report on the weather in those parts would be appreciated. I have no idea what to pack for the Mediterranean in the winter. Thanks so much!

We will definitely lift a glass to you and toast good health for 2024 WC. As to weather, we are using Luggage Forward and they want to pick up our bags on Feb. 2 for a Feb.17 sailing. I can’t even get a 14 day weather report. Oh, well, layers!! Have fun in London.

Well,yea, because that would mean we are in Italy! We will be there again next month! Hope you are doing well, and on the next WC!!!

In my opinion, the first rule of world cruising is to expect the unexpected. Sometimes the losses are very great. We lost Easter Island, we will never have a chance to go back. Kauai, you will be able to visit again fairly easily if it is important to you. We lost Morocco, but added Portsmouth, and we got to go to Stonehenge, where my husband had never been. If you sign on to a five month trip, time and tides will change. It’s not that hard to make lemonade out of these lemons, in my humble opinion.

Well, maybe the easiest is to leave the car out of the picture. For our upcoming Alaska cruise we have flights on Alaska airlines from Seattle to Anchorage and the from Vancouver to Seattle. We have Viking pre and post excursions, so we also have Viking transfers. But if you don’t want to do the excursions and don’t want to use Viking air, you can still buy the transfers, $49pp last I heard.

On the other hand, ours for May 2023 are still not posted. I’m checking every day now. It used to be they were posted about 120 days out, but recently some cruises have reported 150 days out. We are 137 days out.

We currently have four cruises booked. This makes me very unhappy. I hope Tor is listening. He used to say that his clientele was him. This not so much!

On our WC and all others it was also 2 per stateroom at a time, and we were in PV1. I don’t think the cabin level makes a difference.

Third from the bottom

There is not a place where I see that it has been paid. That is on the final invoice. But right away when there was a balance due between the original price of the SSP and the new price, I got red notices at the top of every category on MVJ telling me that I couldn’t access that category (even air) until my balance had been paid in full. So, for example, if yesterday, after purchasing the package in good faith, I had wanted to purchase a spa treatment, I wouldn’t have been able to. And unless I had read about it on CC, I would have had no idea why that message suddenly appeared. This morning my TA paid the difference and the message disappeared. That really doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling about Viking right now!

Well, this is sort of what happened to us. I had the SSP in the cart for $558. I went in and paid for it yesterday. I got a “receipt” for $558 paid and a thank you. But now MVJ shows I have not paid in full for my cruise which is six weeks away. I can’t add shore ex, dining, spa treatments, I can’t even change seats on my Viking air until the difference in SS is paid! And I can’t pay it, because my TA has the booking and the payment has to go through her. I think this is COMPLETELY unprincipled! I may be a Viking cheerleader, but this is very off-putting. I think it has to work both ways. If Viking lowers the price of a cruise you have booked, you don’t get the new lower price, but if Viking ups the price of SSP and gratuities from what it was when you booked, they tack the difference right on. Am I mad about this. You bet!! (And upping gratuities at a time when everyone is complaining about service is just a bad business move, in my opinion.). Sorry to vent…

You get a 3.3% discount if you pay by bank draft rather than credit card. Not much on a $50 down payment but quite a bit on a $20000 cruise!

Thank you for this! We got no email, I just heard about it here. And now we have booked a Mississippi River cruise for May, 2024, over our anniversary. For $48.35 for two, using the 3.3% discount. You can’t beat that! And no final payment until Thanksgiving. Yay!!

We went East to West, Miami to London.

Yep, I now have a notice saying final payment is due, and to contact my TA. So I guess I got charged the whole thing. That’s sort of false advertising. I think Viking is fine raising their rates, but not fine saying you owe 558 then getting paid that abs then adding the the remainder. we are 43 days out from Mediterranean Antiquities. We’re are you off to?

How do I do this?

This was the 2019 WC route. We loved it, as we had never been to S America of Africa. The regular route is predictable on many lines.

Well, I paid, it showed the $538 amount, and thanked me. So I think I got it. It won’t appear on my bank statement for a few days, and I’ll check again. But our Hawaii cruise in 2024 is now $800 for the two of us! We are going to have to stop drinking, LOL.

Valerie, check your cart again. I previously just checked today’s price in the SSP section, not in my cart. The price in my cart is still the old price, $558 for the two of us for our cruise. The price listed if newly ordering today is $700 for the two of us. I just quickly bought the package from my cart, and with the 3.3% discount it was $538 for the two of us.

Ouch! SSP is in my cart and now has increased substantially. That will teach me to procrastinate!!

We are not big New Year’s Eve people. 10 pm is about it. But just wanted to reminisce that four years ago today, we flew two days early to Miami for the 2019 WC. We were supposed to fly Jan 2 for the Jan 3 sail away. But there were blizzards coming and American had already canceled flights. The highway had been closed two days before to even get to the airport. So Viking flew us to Miami two days early, backward through Phoenix. We had to stay at an airport hotel that night, because all else was booked. We arrived at 11 pm, had a glass of champagne at the bar, and went to bed. Two boring days in Miami, and then on to our ship for the adventure of a lifetime! Last year on NYE we were transversing the Panama Canal. Covid was raging on the ship, but I still have a picture of us drinking French champagne and having a good time. So to all who are currently traveling or hope to do so again soon, Happy New Year!

When you go to MVJ to book, you will click on the excursion you want, and then on the right will be your name, the time you want (if there is a selection) and add to cart (or reserve if it is an included excursion.) Then below that there will appear your husband’s name, the time, and add to cart or reserve. They do it this way, I guess, because every now and then we want to do different excursions. In that case, you book yours, then go to the other excursion, and book his. It’s pretty easy.