workstocruise

Thank you RJ2002. I did read this, but tbh there wasn’t anything in this article that would make up my mind to definitely go. As I said earlier, it’s not the passengers on either the planes or the ship itself, but the ports are where we all interact with the locals and most places now have some type of outbreak of the virus.  It’s just the chance you take and hopefully things will be better by the time this cruise sails.  That’s what I’m hoping for!

I would like to see a link to the NYT travel article so I could read it as well. Or perhaps show it to my adult kids. They are adamant We should cancel.  There are a lot of health professionals in our family who all say postpone your cruise till this gets better. Ugh!

Our cruise on the Marina is not until May 1st, so we are waiting till the very last day before we cancel.  Things could completely calm down during the next 6 or 7 weeks and we may get to go.  I’m not so worried about getting sick on the ship, rather it’s the ports where anyone could come in contact with someone who is contagious or sick.  I live in Houston and the 8 people who have it here were all on a Viking river cruise to Egypt and they all came home with it and are now hospitalized.  Plus who wants  to worry about getting sick.  I can cruise anytime.  But for anyone not worried, you should go and have a great time.  I just have an important family event 4 days after I get home and I don’t want anything to make me miss that.

Mamaclark I totally understand what you are saying.  I too would prefer a cash refund, but unless Oceania cancels the cruise I don’t see that happening.  On the other hand I would take the voucher and reschedule a cruise after all this goes away.  For me it’s better than losing my money since my insurance won’t cover Coronavirus.  I would just like the comfort of knowing on April 25 or so, we could cancel and not lose our money, which is what Viking is doing.  I’m hoping everything begins to calm down by the end of March and we can go on this cruise.

You’re right Paulchili, my cruise is later in April 2021 too.  I just think Viking is awesome for doing that. We just returned from a South American cruise on the Viking Jupiter and we had a wonderful time.  While Oceania is my favorite, Viking is a very close second.

I just got an email today from Viking regarding any sailings between now and April 1,2021.  In lieu of the situation regarding the Coronavirus, they are offering 24 hour cancellation with 100% refund on a voucher that can be used anytime during the next 24 months.  I have a May 1st Oceania cruise from Lisbon to Barcelona coming up that I wish Oceania would make that offer.

I’m happy to report back that I emailed Viking and 2 days later they emailed back and booked me on the three excursions I was looking for.  Thanks for all your suggestions.

Thank you so much. I’m going to do everything you suggested, and will email Viking right now.

SM77-

i hope you are still answering questions re your recent cruise.  We are sailing on the Jupiter from B.A. to Santiago in early February.   The day the the shore excursions opened for reservations, we were on another cruise with our kids and grandkids celebrating our 50th anniversary.  TBH booking the excursions was the last thing on my mind and unfortunately I missed two things I really wanted to do.  The Punta Tombo and the Tierra del Fuego excursions.  Do you think there will be any extra spaces once we board.  I check every few days to see if there are any openings but so far none have showed up.  Thank you for any help you can give.

Thank you everyone for your advice.  I will keep trying and hopefully will succeed.

This will be our 2nd cruise on Viking Ocean so we are still learning. We are booked on the Feb 10 cruise to South America, Buenos Aires to Santiago.  Some of the shore excursions were sold out before I got a chance to purchase.  Unfortunate for us we were on another cruise at the time the excursions opened up for reservations and we totally forgot about booking.   Does anyone know if there will be any room left when we get on board.  The ones I am interested in are optional excursions that cost a fee.  Thank you.

Ok thanks.  We don’t get off till Sunday, Dec 1st, so we may get to see some for those last 2 days.  We were on a Princess New Year’s cruise 2 years ago and when we boarded on Dec 27 Christmas was still up but starting at midnight on the 31st, the crew began taking it all down.  By the next day, it was gone.  They work so fast!

We have cruised a lot, but never the week of Thanksgiving. Can anyone tell me if the ship will be decorated for Christmas?  We are bringing our grandchildren and I’m hoping it will be.  Thank you

We recently sailed on the Royal Princess after several Oceania and Viking Ocean Cruises.  Sailing to Hawaii will be fun but don’t expect the food on Princess to be as good as Oceania.  However, their entertainment is great and the WiFi is better.  The photographers will also harass you at every port and on formal nights, ugh!  Just go with a good attitude and you’ll have fun.  It’s a Cruise!

Has anyone else experienced a problem with checking in and printing boarding passes?  I got an email from Royal saying I could begin the check in process and I attempted to do it last weekend.  Well after I entered all my info and clicked on continue, the crown and anchor symbol pops us and just keeps on spinning.  I’ve tried every day since and still no luck.  We don’t sail till November so have plenty of time but was just curious if this is normal.  Haven’t sailed with Royal since 2012 and I think they mailed everything to you back then. Thanks.

Well I guess that’s why there are so many cruise lines to choose from.  Everyone has to pick the one that meets their needs.  Oceania is my favorite too, but I also like variety and for us Viking Ocean comes pretty close.  

We booked the 2020 cruise while we were on board in August of 2018. I won’t make final payment till Aug.  I did not know about the booking on board policy, but we also river cruise with Viking and I never pay in full 12 months ahead.

I will say that we were disappointed with the dining room food at night on the river cruises, but we are pretty much done with river cruising.

I just got off Marina and the WiFi was AWFUL!!  Everyone complained about it and O’s comments were everybody has their phone or iPad connected 24/7 which is why it’s so slow.  Slow was not the word, it was non-existent!

Just one more comment about Viking.  We are booked on the January 20, 2020 cruise from Buenos Aires to Santiago.  So far as of today my $1000. Deposit is all I’ve paid.  Final payment is due in late August, 5 mos before we sail.  You just have to tell your TA to give you the latest final payment date.  

I love Oceania but I also think Viking has a great product and we have experienced some service from them that exceeds Oceania. I just don’t want anyone here thinking they would be wasting their money booking Viking cause it’s not true. Our first VO was because their itinerary was much better than O’s.  Also on the O cruise we just got off of, you would not believe how many people on board said Silversea was so much better than Oceania which I totally disagree.  So there you go.  Happy sailings!

We just sailed both Viking last July on their Into the Midnight Sun cruise on the Sky and more recently on the Oceania Marina from London to Barcelona this past April.  Both cruises and ships were great.  We like both lines and I have a cruise booked on the new Viking Jupiter in January 2020 and on the Oceania Riviera in Sept 2020.  I do agree the food is somewhat better on Oceania but not enough to keep me from booking Viking.  We had some great food on both ships and some meals that were just ok on both as well.  We choose our ships for the itinerary first.   i loved the gelato on Viking but enjoyed the ice cream on Oceania.  Waves grill is the best and I love its location but we ate there mostly because the buffet closes at 2 and we rarely were back from our excursion to enjoy the buffet. We also like the included wines and beer at both lunch and dinner.  As far as cabins both ships are nice but the Penthouse veranda on Viking has a ton of storage space some of which I never used.  Also the towels on Oceania were horrible.  None of this would make me choose either line over the other but that’s just me.  We’ve only sailed once on Viking and 4 times on Oceania so we’ll see how the next trips go.

Is the $49 including gratuities?  We are on Liberty the week of Thanksgiving and I booked it for $50 plus gratuities for a total of $59 per day. I’m thinking because it’s a holiday week it might not get any better.

Thank you. I kind of figured it would be different but at least it’s something.

Our family is sailing on the Liberty the week of Thanksgiving. Can anyone tell me if they will be serving a turkey dinner in the MDR that night?

Can’t wait to read your reports. We are on the Sky departing Bergen on July 21. It will be our first Viking ocean cruise and we can’t wait,

We were on this same ship on the Seine the first week of April. We had no holiday issues but our flight from the U.S. was delayed 6 hours which pushed our arrival into Paris from 9 am to 3 pm. Therefore we lost that day in Paris. This was our 2nd time on the Rinda and both times I used my curling iron and left it out on the desk where I put my makeup on and curled my hair. I have taken 5 river cruises with Viking and not once did I read or was told not to bring a curling iron. My problem with the Rinda is we thought the food was not very good at all. There were a lot of complaints from mostly everyone. Last year we were on the Rhine river on the Alruna and the food was excellent. The Rinda’s food was nowhere near as good.

We had a lot of rain on this trip and our travel was affected by both train and airline strikes. We did both the Seine and the Rhône rivers and we are done with France. We loved the places we visited on both rivers but we’re planning to do the Elbe river next.