Mich3554

My winner was at a cafe in Vienna called Sluka. Not too sweet and apples not cooked to mush. DH suggested sharing, but I wanted my own piece (largely because if we shared, he’d eat 3/4 of it and I’d get the crumbs). Sooooo good.

I can’t tell you what the status of the Star is, but what I can tell you is that Viking takes very good care of it’s ships. For instance, we got on the Jupiter when it was new. 3 months later, the wooden floor in the Explorer’s lounge was damaged due to a water leak. It wasn’t a tripping hazard, just did not look good. This was right before Covid shut things down. When we got on the Jupiter 2 years later, the floor had been totally replaced.

I realize that I’m an n= 1, but this past spring we used Viking Air plus to book flights. The initial flights we were booked on were impossible. Also being a Delta Skymiles member, I called back with several replacement Delta flights that had better connections. There were absolutely NO problems in rebooking one of those. However, our trip was in April/May and we were booking in December. We missed the flight cancellations mess that occurred afterwards. We were also booking business class seats, not sure if this matters. Other than a few minor glitches from the airlines (there were several flight time changes, but largely inconsequential), everything went very smoothly. Summer is not our travel season, so we have avoided the combination of increased passengers, fewer flights and other problems that are happening now. I suspect in the fall, things will be better (or I hope so, our next trip is in Sept!).

I lost nearly 40 lbs before leaving on our 54 day B2B last winter. I was positive that I was going to regain a decent sized chunk of it. I regained…..2 lbs. I was ok with that. Unlike Andy, I found I was able to portion control better in WC than The Restaurant. There were times where I only wanted a few bites of something, not a whole serving. I realized it when WC went from self serve to passengers being served during a brief outbreak of Norovirus. It was hard to explain that I just wanted to try a few bites, about 1/4 of what I was served. Sea days, I was also in the gym. I did a bit more damage on our recent river cruise. I was drinking much more wine and most meals were plated. Also, I imagine checking out ALL the apple strudels at each stop didn’t help much.

Yep! I’ve been on 2 of these and both were wonderful and unique. I can’t wait to see what the Neptune does this year.

I think one Christmas Eve dinner we had at Manfredi’s. New Year’s Day, there was a huge brunch given. You find out menus the day of, usually. We will also be on this cruise, but going the rest of the way to London. We are just planning on playing the holiday dinners by ear. Viking will do a great job, regardless of where you decide to eat. Excursions for this cruise do not open up until Oct. 6 for us.

It was after we received our luggage tags, so within a month of the trip. The only reason why I remember this was I scratched off the old cabin number and hand wrote the new, upgraded one on it while at home. If you do get an offer, make sure you check to see it really is a good offer. First time we got offered an upgrade, the additional cost was equivalent to what it would have cost for that cabin when I booked it. The second time, it was $200 pp.

Just be aware that upgrades are a double edged sword. We were quire happy in our DV until we received a very lucrative offer for an upgrade to a PV. Now we book PVs. Viking wins, we win, our bank account, not so much! I was telling DH that we are really going to be in trouble if we ever get an offer on an Explorer’s Suite. It’s like flying business class….you can never go back to coach!

We did 2 excursions on a river cruise that were 30 min apart. There was some discussion with the cruise director about being able to do them both. We were not the only couple doing both, so the guide on the first excursion was aware of it and moved us along. We got back to the ship long enough to scarf down a quick lunch and catch the second bus. The dining staff was aware of this, so had a list of things for lunch to grab that could be quickly brought out.

We did this on our own while on a trip to Turkey to visit friends. I can’t comment on Viking’s extension, but I do highly recommend it. We did do the dawn hot air balloon ride as well. It was incredible.

Finding things to do on a sea day was NEVER a problem for us. Even if you wanted to disconnect, find a corner in a lounge to watch the world go by, have a drink and read. We had 9 consecutive sea days last year on our Southern Atlantic crossing after we lost Brazil. We did that easily.

Our Trans Atlantic, they had movies at the pool, they streamed Met Opera. There were games, needlework classes, bridge, mahjong and so many other activities that we were never bored.

Is there a chance you can try out P & O before booking a WC with them? I’m not sure I’d want to book something so big with a product unknown to me.

This was my experience too when I renewed my passport in Jan. I expedited it and it took 3 weeks. I had to renew mine early as I was out of pages, and had only a few windows I could do it in.

We did this tour too for the same reasons. It was a very long and busy day and I can’t imagine trying to tack the Vatican in on top of it.

They are a piece of cake compared to other countries. Chile’s make your head spin.

We cross the border several times each month and at this point dealing with ArriveCAN isn’t an issue. We will be crossing again on Sunday. Once everything is uploaded, it stays in the system and merely becomes a chore of going into the record of telling them when and where we are crossing the border.

Seriously doubt this cruise will be canceled. The Neptune is leaving Europe for the start of the World Cruise in FL in Dec.

Being able to make a reservation on board is still an advanced reservation. If you get shut out of a reservation once onboard, then there is a problem. But I don’t see how making a guaranteed reservation NOW complies with their promise.

We were waiting forever to get through security in (I think) Chile last Dec. Other than the normal Covid madness which had slowed things down to a crawl, someone decided to bring some fruit into the country. Courtesy of this, things slowed down even more as EVERYONE got screened much more thoroughly and our excursions were delayed even further. We go across the US Canadian border frequently enough that we bring very limited things back or over.

Not much dressing up either Christmas or New Year’s Eve. We did get an incredible chocolate extravaganza one year. Viking ships are gorgeous at Christmas, they decorate them up well. Our next cruise will be the third Christmas we spent on board.

Vodafone worked in Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Czech Republic. You do not have to get a plan in each country. You just cannot buy a plan in one country and top off with more data in another.

This is what we do when we travel. At least one of our phones has a data plan when we get to Europe. We have used Vodafone in the past, they work in all countries we have tried, but you cannot be in a different country than where you bought it to top off your data plan (we discovered that the plan bought in Germany cannot be topped off in Prague). This was my goof, I should have bought a bigger data plan than the smallest available, even if it was in excess. Next trip, I think we are going to try Airalo. Downloaded the app, but haven’t had a chance to try it out yet.

This is what we do too. We mostly fly Delta, or it’s partners. When we flew Emirates last year, the seating was different and I had to climb over DH to go to the bathroom. We were seated on the side. For the trip home, there were 3 pods in the center of the plane where we were seated, but and no one in the third, so it was easier to get in and out.

So much of being able to check in early depends on whether the rooms are ready. In my experience, we are somewhere around 50% of the time. Smartest thing I did when we flew to AMS in April was to schedule a tour that afternoon. We were able to drop our luggage, freshen up and go to Keukenof. By the time we got back, our room was ready. I’ll be keeping this in mind the next flight overseas. That was probably my easiest recovery from jet lag I have had.