Mich3554

My trick using those machines is a cappuccino with a shot of espresso. Only problem is you have to get dressed! 😉

Yep. We flew to Bali first so he could dive, then flew to Bangkok where we met up with friends before we boarded.

When we booked it, it was marketed as a single cruise under one itinerary. In reality, it was Bangkok to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Tokyo and Tokyo to Vancouver. This particular cruise disappeared from Viking’s offering as a single cruise, but with the 3 together, it was about 30% less than each back to back. This cruise was booked back in late 2021.

3 cruises. Bangkok to Hong Hong, Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to Vancouver. It was marketed as a single cruise when we booked it, under one itinerary.

I think that the coffee from the room machines is better than the coffee on the tables in WC, but not as good as the barista’s in the LR.

When we did this cruise last spring, they adjusted the ship’s time during the day, not at night. 2pm became 3pm. Viking did shave about a little time off of breakfast and lunch though. We did get the extra day going east. Anyway, I think how they did it for us it worked well.

I wonder if it was the world cruise? This is the only cruise we have taken where beaches were an option, we have not done any of the Caribbean cruises. The first time I saw the towels waiting for us, it took me a few minutes to figure that oh, yeah…..we are going snorkeling tomorrow. We also had a fantastic cabin crew too. I wanted to pack our steward up and take her home with us. Unfortunately, we lost her in Barcelona…..long before we got off in NYC.

If you have a beach excursion booked, housekeeping will leave beach towels on your bed for you at turndown service. Otherwise, there is usually one you can grab as you exit the ship.

If you get on or off the ship in Hong Kong, there are 5-6 stops in Japan before you hit Tokyo.

We did this this past spring. Loved it, but then we really do like sea days and enjoyed the ship. We got on the ship in Bangkok, so it was nice to have some down time.

Our first cruise, we booked the cheapest Veranda cabin as an GTY and wound up with a DV2. That was about a $800 savings per person. At the time, we were booking in Sept for a Dec sailing and a trans Atlantic was the only ship that had cabins available. Our Viking agent (the one we have continued to book with) suggested it as there were a lot of open cabins available. We got booked on deck 5, 5049 if I remember correctly. Since then, that side seems to be our sweet spot. We have been in cabins 5049 through 5095.

Viking’s itineraries have been very similar for the last several years, but for 2021-22 WC where they went around South America and this year/next years where they went around Africa to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal. We were on the 22-23 WC and were the first group to do the original schedule. The 23-24 cruise started out the same and diverted around Africa. We are also booked on the 25-26 WC and will be going around Africa rather than hitting the Med. Along the way, there are some smaller changes. We bypassed Myanmar on the 22-23 cruise but still spent that time (I believe we were originally scheduled 3 days in that area) in SE Asia. We did not dock in Brisbane, but Mooloolaba instead. The current WC on Viking’s website have the new itinerary, where I think we hit Sri Lanka, and maybe Goa but then press on across the Indian Sea to the Seychelles and Madagascar. This is instead of going up the coast of India and spending 3 days in Mumbai. When we booked 25-26, it would have been the same itinerary that we did in 22-23. TBH, I’d have been ok with that too as there were definitely places we missed the first time around. I’m not unhappy with the changes though.

I think that this is really part of it. When we did Northern Lights earlier this year, there were a few large groups that were clearly traveling together, and tended to socialize (rather loudly). As the situation became more difficult, one group got way more vocal about their displeasure. 6 weeks later, we got on the Orion in Bangkok and were on the ship until Vancouver. I really do not remember seeing any large groups traveling together like I saw on the previous cruise. It seemed to be mostly couples. TBH, I don’t remember seeing any jeans whatsoever in either Manfredi’s, CT or The Restaurant on the Orion.

I have had seats change for flights that *I* booked and were ticketed. For us, I had booked us 2 aisle seats across from each other. They moved both of the seats around.

We are on the Bordeaux river cruise next month. Our experience with river cruises is slim, but will be interesting to see if things are different from the last one.

We used Luggage Forward for the world cruise. Our 2 bags made it to the ship without issue to FLL. In London, since we were going on to NYC, we chose to use some of our OBC to send back a bag of scuba diving equipment and summer clothes that we weren’t going to use anymore. We found it very useful and effective, but doubt we would hav3 paid for it if it came directly out of our pocket.

Going to third this! Go directly to the airlines as they will have the most up to date info.

I’m trying to figure out when this was. Our first cruise was Dec 2018 and don’t remember seeing menus before the cruise. We don’t book CT anymore either until on board. There are specific menus we like and will try again. The Indonesian menu was introduced on the 22-23 world cruise and DH was all over that. They had brought an Indonesian chef on board to develop the menu. As DH had spent a few years there, he was happy to see food from that period. Between then and our most recent trip on the Orion, the menu had been dumbed down. The spices were a fraction of what they were on the Neptune. If we go again, he wants to talk to the chef to see if he can’t get his meal back to the original spice level.

LOL! The original flight that Viking Air had was a SEA - NYC - LHR - AMS routing . I knew Delta had a a nonstop flight, but that would have cost us an extra $2000pp. We wound up flying SEA-MSP-AMS (only an extra $500) all in business whereas the first routing was mixed class. I think they gave us an hour in LHR. That was a mess!

Viking’s price on air for business class has been more than what I can get it for. For Australia (the next big cruise in Jan) we were quoted $10k pp for business to Sydney from Seattle when we booked our trip. I just bought our air for $6k pp. That has been the largest discrepancy I have come up against so far. Before this trip, the largest difference was $2800 pp. The only times we have used Viking Air business class has been on a river cruise, if you booked a suite you could get a $1900 business class fare to Europe. The routing we got had us flying across the US in coach. I had to buy Air + to get fully business and pay an extra $500 pp in the process. The second time was for the world cruise, where business air was included. I paid for Air+ to get us on a nonstop flight to FLL (which turned out being smart as there were snowstorms all over the US and so many were delayed….and a few even missed the ship!). At this point, I don’t bother with their air department anymore. I don’t bother with them for ground transport either.

We have never booked reservations for dinner before we board. If a CT menu is up we want to have, we will book either on the TV or at WC in the morning. We book Manfredi’s similarly. The one thing I have discovered is that we never book specialty restaurants on sea days. Everyone seems to want to do this, and we really don’t care. We also try to book later in the evening.

I’m amazed at the number who repeat a world cruise. We are booked on our second WC for 25-26 after assuming this would be a ‘one and done’. I met people on our cruise in 22-23 who had been on every single world cruise that Viking has put out. I admit I’m glad the itinerary has changed a bit for our second one, but we had booked it on the old itinerary.

We did South America and Chilean Fjords twice, once in each direction. I’d do it a third time too! The scenery is spectacular.

Depending on the amount of luggage you have, you might need to take 2 taxis rather than one. Getting one outside the terminal was very easy.

This was one of our best Penguin excursions! This was also the excursion where the bus got into an accident with a semi (the semi clipped the side view mirrors off) and we wound up back in port almost 90 min late. The Penguin colony is so large that even with several busses there that the facility wasn’t horribly crowded.