SantaFe1

Captain canceled all further tendering about an hour after my post above. Very few of us got to Dublin today. Just those on the first two tender boats. I hope they all arrive back safely. Best tip— go on a sunny day.

Welcome to Ireland! Rainy, windy, rough day. We got on the tender boat, which was more than difficult. The conditions were so bad down there that the rope snapped. No one else could get on. One woman was separated from her husband. Then, the tender pilot said, no way are we going anywhere. So he motored back, tied up with a new rope, and off loaded all of us. Absolutely terrifying. And I’ve been in lots of bad conditions. Tender operations have been “paused,” but I’m pretty sure the captain will cancel them. Problem is, six groups, two tenders had already left and are on their way to Dublin. Stay tuned. Quite nice in Explorers Lounge right now. I’m enjoying a bowl of raspberries🙂

We had the inaugural version of this menu at the end of our 2019 WC. The chef was on board and prepared it. We were eating with our English friends, and none of us liked it. But—we had it again last night and found it delicious. I guess it’s been tweaked over the years.

Agreed! Bottom shelf grocery store wine.

Yes, the pub. It’s as far as a taxi can take you and there were at least ten there when we arrived. But thank you. I suspected the Gipsy Moth was a ship, and now I know!

After a long cab ride from central London to the Cutty Sark, or actually the Gipsy moth, everything was a breeze checking in. They had Viking agents stationed everywhere from the Gipsy Moth to the checkin building (not a tent). Easy check in, then a big kerfuffle— they had our package of excursion tix, but no room keys. So the agent accompanied us to the ship, we met with Guest services manager who told us there were no room cards because we had been upgraded from a PV1 to a PS1— no idea why. All our luggage was tagged for our original PV cabin, but by 2:30 everything had been sorted and all the luggage arrived at our new cabin on deck 8. We may just watch the sail away from deck 8 after all as we are on the port side (rather than from Explorers Lounge.) Nice first day!

Beautiful day yesterday at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. The Rhododendron dell was in full bloom and spectacular!

So happy to be on this adventure with you, Andrea.

I just want to chime in here, because, as I get older, I do read the descriptions and ratings religiously. So on our cruise to Hawaii, last month, I stayed away from a demanding rainforest hike in Maui that my husband did, for 7 hours. Yes, good. But I did a demanding 4 hour hike in Honolulu that was fine. Last year in the Med we did cooking in an Italian Castle that was rated easy. It was one of the most taxing excursions I have done. An hour up and down stone staircases in the castle, the standing for two hours in the kitchen with no place to sit. Pompeii and Herculaneum in Naples were marked demanding, but for me weren’t. It’s just really hard to tell what you get. I sometimes google the same shore ex and find that Princess has much better, hour by hour descriptions than Viking does. But honestly, it just depends on what tires you, I guess. I am fine walking, but standing and stairs are not great. I don’t think I have held anyone up yet. But I would hate to be the one who does that.

We saw pilgrims in Baiona on their way to Santiago on our WC. They carried a card that marked where they had been. Quite a sight!

On the website they have a behind the scenes zoo experience which I would love to do. Being born and raised and living all my life in Southern California, until we retired, nothing on this cruise is really new to us. We are approaching it as a wine-tasting cruise! But yes, we will have to look for you and your camera on April 18 next year.🙂

Yes, Easter is April 20 next year. We will spend it on our Pacific Coast Explorer cruise. It is a sea day for us.

I would hate this change. We are scheduled in Nov. 2025, over Thanksgiving, which wouldn’t make a difference in Europe. But our reason for going is to go to Malta, and hopefully to get to see the Alhambra. I would probably cancel with this change. It is an expensive cruise, and as you say, North African ports are iffy anyway. We have missed Morocco twice now!

I just canceled. The excursions no longer appear on the calendar, but I have nothing from Viking showing the cancelation or the amount. I spoke to Viking and they said the only time they send a request is if your bank “ won’t accept a refund request.” Since this is just a bank transfer, essentially, I just don’t understand this. We shall see.

I also want to cancel an excursion for our trip embarking in two weeks. Usually, I just wait and do it on the trip, where they credit my on board account and I use it to pay for gratuities at the end. But this excursion is more expensive than the gratuities. So I don’t know because we have never had a surplus at the end of a trip. Do they just credit it to our credit card? I don’t want to be running around trying to buy things we don’t need. And our cruise is so port intensive I really don’t have any days for extra spa treatments. Should I just cancel now, I wonder? I paid by ACH draft, so I guess the refund would go to my bank? Any opinions? I have one more week until MVJ closes.

Interesting. We leave 8 days later, and the documents say departure from Greenwich at 2 pm. Quite different tides I guess. I’m getting excited too. Just got packed for luggage forward pick up this week.

Never. Sometimes after booking, we will see the price go up, but we are always locked in at what we bought it for.

Thank you, thank you. I believe I’ve got it now. I thought we might have knock on the Chief Engineer’s door when we boarded the ship to get help.

Here is a photo of what I’ve got. On the left, my iPhone 15 cord, with same size plugs, and on the right my older iPad’s cord with two different size plugs. Will the old one work? Problem is, we have three older devices. Exactly what part of this doesn’t work? The cord or the charger, and why won’t it work. And what about people who didn’t read Jim’s post and just go to the ship with whatever they have? Sorry to be so dense.

I’m wondering if is the difference in the new charging cord for my iPhone 15 and my old iPhone 8? They aren’t the same and they aren’t interchangeable.

Oh, oh. We are on Neptune in three weeks and I don’t really know what this means.

From our 2019 WC

We are taking our first River cruise this fall on one of the typical Longships. 190 pax 53 crew.

OMG,I hate the beds, so hard. Give me a back ache. My husband loves the beds. He hates the pillow top at home. We travel a lot on Viking, so I guess it evens out, lol.

We have this same pic from the observatory at the end of the 2019 WC.