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We were joking that apparently some did not ever use community washers in their life. They didn’t seem to know the rules!

It dropped and picked up from in front of the opera house.

On the last WC, the laundry room was full of strife. 2 couples got kicked off when one guy, waiting for a dryer finally emptied a drier after waiting 10 min for the owner to show up. While he was waiting for his clothes to dry, he decided to fold the clothes he had taken out of the drier. Owner comes in as the guy was folding his wife’s underwear, hits him with his cane. Folding guy slugs him back. Both get tossed off the ship. As I was tossing my clothes into a drier from the washer, a woman comes in with an armful of wet clothes, demanding my drier. She was most unhappy (and let me know) that I continued to fill the drier, started it and left. I probably should have stuck around, but this was pretty early in the WC and the problems hadn’t gotten bad by then. A friend of mine was doing laundry, started the drier, set her watch to come back in 40 min and left. She came back to wet clothes, and a drier that had only advanced 4 minutes. There were a LOT of laundry room stories on our cruise. When we had Bubbles on the Bridge, the laundry room issues came up with the captain. He laughed and said those stories were only the tip of the iceberg…..he heard them all! He wouldn’t tell though.

I’d argue with you that this document is nothing to worry about. I needed it to show that I had paid for an excursion that was not in their system. I’m not sure where the foul up was, but it was sufficient.

If you have the pdf copy e documents Viking sent you 2 weeks before you sail, you have an electronic copy on of the contract on your electronic device of choice.

I had 5 pair of shorts, 3 pair of khakis, 2 pair of jeans, one dress, 2 skirts, one dress pants. I had a combo of 10 sleeveless and ss t shirts, 2 ss linen sweaters, 3 swimsuits, 2 coverups. I had 2 weeks worth of underwear and socks, 5 bras. One raincoat, one fleece, 3 sets of workout clothes. I took a pair of NB sneakers, waterproof Merrill hiking shoes, a pair of Tevas, water shoes, dress sandals and a pair of flats. DH had 3 pair of long pants, 4 collared shirts, 10 t shirts, 6 shorts, 2 swim trunks, He brought his deceased dad’s Merrill’s, which he buried in Liverpool, a new pair of Merrill’s and a pair of Tevas. I think he brought 2 weeks of underwear and socks too. We also stayed on the ship for 6 weeks after, so I picked up a couple sweaters along the way (badly needed in Norway and Arctic). DH collects t shirts, and I think he brought back maybe 15 new ones? I expected to lose underwear and socks along the way, but didn’t. There were days where we went through at least 2 sets of clothes. There was nothing unworn, I was happy with what I took.

Sadly, yes. I got to look out on everything going on in Monaco from our cabin while I was on Covid arrest. It was the most painful port for me to miss because we were not docked in a shipping harbor, but in the middle of things.

I think we ran out of OBC for booking excursions somewhere around India. We had a lot of jockeying for excursions, as some got canceled, some ports were missed. DH dumped several as he had the opportunity to dive instead. By my best guess, the order you book your excursions on MVJ is the order they are debited from your OBC. That meant all the excursions I missed on Covid arrest were refundable. By the time we got to the end of the WC, most of the balance in our account was refundable credit. Moot point, we went on further, but had we left the ship in London, we’d have gotten it all back.

When we got on board, there was a lump sum in our onboard account. We could not use it before boarding (but the OBC we received covered a very big chunk of the excursions we chose when they opened up for us). Yes, you could buy excursions with this money. When we left the WC, we had a good chunk of it left. Viking let us carry it over in our account for the British Isles cruise, Norway and Arctic and Iceland to NYC. The money we had left was sufficient to pay the gratuities and alcohol tab, and send a bag home from London for 2/3 cruises we took afterwards. It did help that the 5 excursions I missed as I was Covid + got refunded to our account. That added another chunk of $$$, as did booking the Iceland to NYC while onboard. Another thing to note. When we chose our excursions, we changed our mind while we could still make changes in our excursions while home. Unfortunately, the excursion we wanted was sold out (it was for Egypt…..? segments into the WC). So one of the first things I did on boarding in FL was get on the waitlist for this excursion. Sometime through the cruise (not sure when) the home office in LA had decreed that changes to excursions could only be made within the segment you were currently in. Luckily, we got the excursion we wanted before the segment, so released the excursion we had booked. According to one of the managers at the Explorer’s desk, this caused a bunch of problems because they could not see on computers what was coming up, I guess because people only had a short window to make changes during the WC. Only about 2 weeks was seen in advance on the TV, so it felt like there were a lot of segments.

Nope. Everything is very well documented. We didn’t see the Missouri because we didn’t have enough time.

We just went to the USS Arizona on our own. We Ubered there and back from the Neptune, no tour guide. The whole complex is VERY strict as to what you can bring in…..no bags at all (not even my small purse).

We were port side. I found it really didn’t matter. We got a spectacular view sailing into Sydney Harbor at sunrise, but not on the way out.

On the world cruise, we had to present hard copies of all our visas to Viking’s Explorer desk.

I could not ever choose a favorite cruise, because I would do all of them over again! We have done: Atlantic crossing, Lisbon to Miami. First cruise, we were hooked! Wonderful, sunny sea days. Introduced to the idea of a world cruise. DH response ‘no bloody way!’ (Uh huh) Trade Routes. Almost a port every day. We’d do it again. South America. OMG! Utterly spectacular. DH wanted to go back in the other direction! <Covid hits, cruises get punted> Finally get on a cruise ship again in Oct. 2021. ‘No bloody way’ becomes ‘we need to take a longer cruise to make sure I don’t want to jump overboard on a world cruise’. I piece together 3 cruises. Med Antiquities (Athens to Barcelona), South Atlantic Crossing, and South America (we had the voucher, why not?). 54 days total. Brazil wouldn’t let us in, Morocco and Senegal cancel. We pick up Madeira and Cape Verde. Argentina won’t let us dock for 14 days since we had been in Africa. We had 9 consecutive sea days. We are allowed to pick up passengers (finally) in Argentina. No Falklands. More sea days. DH wants our cabin steward to hide us in the crew quarters, he doesn’t want to get off after 54 days. Grand European river cruise. Wanted to check out this. Have another scheduled next year. World Cruise. Scheduled when I caught DH at a weak moment during Covid restrictions. We started in FL, and tacked on British Isles, Norway and Arctic and Iceland to NYC, so a total of 178 days. Again, DH wanted to stay on longer. I had 2 days of BP meds left when we got to NYC! We tacked on Iceland to NYC while on the cruise. <we have 5 cruises booked, 1 a river cruise for 2024-25> I would repeat any of these!

Nicaragua disappeared from the itinerary last year too on this cruise.

One way to do this is to schedule a deviation, and get yourself from London to Reykjavík on your own. Viking will get you home from there. By booking a deviation, you can add days on the front end of your cruise, and while I’ve not looked, flights from London to Reykjavík are probably cheaper. ETA: Next June, flights from London to Reykjavík are well under $200 pp. We did something similar on our GE river cruise last year. We booked to arrive early in Amsterdam, stayed in Budapest at the end for several days, took the train to Prague and toured there 5 days before flying home from Prague…..this was using Viking air plus.

We used Luggage Forward to get our luggage on the World Cruise. Our luggage was picked up about 2 weeks before we embarked (FL, from WA). It was in our cabin when we arrived. We also used it to send a bag from London. I want to say it was delivered in about 2 weeks. As we weren’t here to accept delivery of it, I believe she messaged me it had arrived several days afterwards.

While you can get an idea about excursions from MVJ, when they drop for the highest category is when you can see times and costs. That’s about 110 days out. If you are concerned about getting an excursion, choose the optional ones you wan5 to do and pay as you choose them. Having them in your cart is not sufficient to reserve them, they must be paid. Then go back and book included excursions at times that fir for you. If your friends in DV don’t get on excursions you want to do together, they can be waitlisted when they board. Either this, or plan a private excursion with a local tour guide. There is no way for them to be included in your reservation.

I can’t tell you whether there will be excursions on turnover day in Athens, but when we boarded there (so it was turnover day for others) I noticed the shuttle in the adjacent lot, and there was a shuttle schedule at the entrance. This was fall 2021, so assuming it will continue.

So they not only increased the number, but the size of all cabins. I wonder what this does to the door rooms vs the slider rooms?

They are eliminating a bunch of PV cabins and making them DV. Our go to cabins in PV….5089/91 no longer exist. They’ve snagged a few more from the other side of the ship too on deck 5. We just booked a cruise on the Vela and noticed this. By my count, there are about 10 fewer PV cabins in the Vela than the Jupiter. If each room is 3’ wider, then there is 30’. I don’t see any other additional changes though.

List price, not including my booking discounts.

We booked this last Feb while on the WC. I did NOT go through the cruise consultant, but my Viking rep. The price for the PV1 I booked has gone up $2300 according to list price today.

When you get on board, after watching the safety films, go to Dining on the TV. You can easily book dining here, and the last time I looked, I could get a reservation before 7 pm for every single day of the 3 consecutive cruises I tried in the back to back to back. We had no dining reservations on any of the 3 and easily booked at Manfredi’s. It is important to do this ASAP, as others are doing this too and if you wait a day or 2, they’ll be booked.

We had a wedding to get to in the Caribbean and even from the west coast in the US, it’s painful. I finally booked flights such that we flew in the day before, got a hotel and the next morning flew into Turks. I hated the idea of spending the first day at an expensive resort both jet lagged and recovering from a red eye. Emirates has the right idea. Last year, we went to the Maldives and on our return we had a 10 hour layover in Dubai. We got picked up, taken to a hotel, provided meals and returned to the airport for the long, butt numbing flight from Dubai to Seattle. That was probably the easiest long haul flight I have ever had.