longterm

Us too. We switched from AT&T, got our phones paid off (almost $900 total), and the plan's much better. Same cell towers so no change in coverage. It's been nice to have data usage outside the US. Also includes Netflix & AppleTV+ as well.

We did the 4-day Athens post-extension a couple of years ago, and both felt that it was an excellent value and were glad we had booked it. The only negative for us was the hotel restaurant; we were at the Intercontinental (moved from the original hotel because of remodeling). The hotel was very nice, very clean; the breakfast buffet was excellent, but the restaurant was overpriced and subpar. That, however, wasn't Viking's fault. The Athens extension was really good; we left the ship early the first morning, went directly to the Acropolis, beating the crowds; this was late March of 2022, when crowds were still not back to normal, and our time up at the Parthenon was excellent, despite a chilly wind. Be sure to go to the Acropolis Museum, which I would rate as one of the best archaeological museums I've ever seen. The next days were good as well; Mycenae was one of my favorite sites, but Delphi was even better and we plan to revisit it in 2026 when we do another Viking Med cruise. If you have time and want to hire a local guide, you can visit the temple of Poseidon at Sounion; the drive is really nice along the water, and a stop at a local restaurant on the way there or back is a plus. Also, a walk through the old Plaka district is well worth a visit. I know this is off topic, but I wanted to mention it because not all post or pre-extensions turn out to be bad value.

I agree 100%. I almost never use a VPN these days, except when I need to do business with a site that won't allow connection from a foreign country.

Yes, that's what I meant... duh! 🙂

No, that's not what I was trying to say, but perhaps I wasn't clear. The pipe's size is essentially fixed, so if each passenger on a cruise were to circumvent the rules and use multiple devices, using up more bandwidth than Viking intended, it would adversely affect all the other passengers. On the other hand, if it's just a question of convenience, and someone wants to have all their devices connected to wifi, even though they only use one at a time, then that wouldn't cause any problems... but Viking has its rules.

I forgot to mention this: a simple way to share an Internet connection is to use a Mac and share the Internet connection. In System Preferences, it's easily found and enabled, although I've never found the need to enable it. This isn't available on an iPhone, but it's also a function on Windows machines as well, Power User settings.

It's a simple matter to enable VNC if one is concerned about security in places like hotels, airports, and elsewhere; I have Nord VNC on my iPhone & laptop, and enable it when I feel the need. Perhaps I'm being overly trusting, but I don't consider Viking passengers the types who might be looking to hack into one of my devices. 🙂

It's doable, but not with the hotspot feature--I haven't tried it, but I've read articles about how to go about it. Not something I would want to fool with though. It has to do with spoofing a MAC address, and more involved than I'll go into here. Considering the ease of turning wifi on and off on a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, it's simple enough to move a connection around as needed, and that's how I've done it on cruises for years. Also, a ship has a finite pipe through which all passengers' Internet travels; for someone to cheat the system and use more devices than are allowed is simply bad form. As to travel routers--they're convenient, I suppose, but I already carry enough electronics as it is, and wifi management these days is a simple one-click process.

Just a thought, and not something I'd bother doing, but an iPhone can be used as a wifi hotspot--which means that if I wanted to (I wouldn't), I could connect my iPhone to ship wifi, then use it as a wifi hotspot to connect my laptop to ship wifi. I've never done a definitive test, but I would guess that speed wouldn't be as good as connecting directly to ship wifi. For that reason, I'll continue to simply disable my iPhone wifi, turn on wifi on my laptop (both of which take all of 15 seconds) and do what I need to do.

Please look at my edited reply. I know exactly how they get Internet.

I just did some reading about "travel routers;" Although I own a company that hosts and manages servers and databases, I really don't see much use for travel routers. Connecting to wifi is really simple; a travel router would allow you to connect more devices and enable you to configure it once and use it in different locations, but other than that, I fail to see the point. Furthermore, I would wonder if using one of these would step down the Internet speed at least a tiny bit; given the spotty nature of ship wifi, that's not something I'd want. I always travel with my laptop so that I can manage my company business, and carry an iPad for watching movies on flights; with 2 connections assigned to our stateroom, it isn't a big deal to disable wifi on my iPhone when I need to do things on the laptop or iPad. In fact, at home, when I leave the house, I have automation on my phone that turns off my iPhone wifi, then turns it back on when I return. It's a good idea to turn off wifi when out and about anyway, because otherwise an iPhone or Android is constantly seeking a wifi connection, and that has a negative impact on battery life.

Us too. Easy to book; fortunately, we haven't had to actually file a claim, so I don't know how their resolutions go--probably no better than most insurance companies.

Depends on the cap. 🙂

I’d much rather jeans than clouds of cologne, perfume, or powder. Axe body spray will send me to the door. Almost as bad as cigarette or cigar stench.

Will a hydrofacial grow hair on the top of a man's head? Asking for a friend.

We always use carryon bags plus small backpacks for each of us; I bought tickets for the Thames Clipper for the morning of our boarding.

That may be where we were! I seem to recall it was a couple of doors down... this is a photo of my son who was 13 at the time, back in 2010, in the restaurant. I bet that's the same place. 🙂

I stayed there with my son back in 2010 and we really liked it; back in those days wifi was nonexistent, but I'm sure that's resolved now. Very good location; we're staying at a different place this time due to price, but the M Gloucester was very nice. Good Indian restaurant next door, if I recall.

I went there with my son years ago; he loved it. We already have tickets to the Churchill War Rooms, have some others for which tickets aren't yet available, but I've got 4 days planned for us with lots to do. Our hotel's about a mile from the London Eye but we could either walk it with our carryons or take a car; I like the idea of cruising the Thames to Greenwich. Thanks all for the good advice.

We’re staying in London, near the Lambeth north station. Is there a train that gets to Greenwich from there, or is a bus the only public method? Also, what is the name of the stop in Greenwich? I see several to choose from. Thanks in advance

I stayed there back in 2010; very nice hotel, close to the tube.

Fortunately, I had booked the cruise with a really helpful guy, whose extension I had, and he was great. He did ask if we had another cruise booked--I'm assuming that in order to make that allowance, you have to have another cruise booked--at least, that's how it sounded. At any rate, all good.

I did! I was ready right at the stroke of 2pm, and I only had 3 optional excursions to book, so I did those first, then grabbed all the included excursions. We've got quite a few private excursions booked, so I only had about 9 excursions total to book. I did notice that some are already sold out.

UPDATE: Called my Viking rep and he updated our booking so that we don't have to make final payment until 180 days out...

I don't want to change the cruise date, just the final payment date (that may be what you meant); I'll give them a call and see how it goes, and will report back. Thanks!