longterm

We would really enjoy the speakers; I have yet to talk my wife into a TA crossing, but we may try one in a couple of years...

I'm afraid Cunard isn't our style... we're way too casual for it. I've watched videos showing the Cunard crossings, and we both feel that it's not quite our thing.

A few thoughts: For the record, Torstein Hagen told USA Today that 82% of Viking's guests are from the United States; so, it would follow that most of the loud voices you'd hear would be American. Walk into any Irish pub, and you'll hear lots of loud voices, and strangely enough, almost all of them will be Irish. 🙂 Second, the bar area: back in my college days when I was a lounge musician, I played literally thousands of hours in bars--restaurant bars, dance clubs, you name it. I've also played lots of times in restaurants on solo piano. I've also played hundreds of nights in a jazz club in Austin (jazz clubs are supposed to be "listening" rooms, but this one certainly isn't). Sometimes people listen, sometimes they drink and get noisy; it's the nature of rooms where alcohol is served. Sometimes people listen to the music, sometimes they talk so loud that they drown out the music--apparently their goal. Is it annoying to a musician or to someone trying to listen? Absolutely, but unless you're at a concert, it's just the way it is when alcohol is concerned. I was on a Viking Caribbean cruise, sitting in the atrium talking to a friend; a woman got up and sang along with the pianist. She was mediocre at best, but because her friends wanted to hear her, they tried to shush me because I was sitting on a couch, having a polite conversation with a friend. I ignored them; it was my right to sit in the atrium and have a conversation; the atrium isn't a listening room, and I certainly didn't need to be quiet so that some maudlin barely-talented woman could belt out songs to the glee of her friends. As someone who has been a professional musician all my life, you've managed to touch on something I've thought about countless times; in a jazz club, loud talking is considered the height of rudeness--yet some clubs, like the one in Austin, and another in Dallas, allow it to go on because they're more concerned about liquor sales than any sense of club integrity. It comes down to a club or bar setting the tone of a room; some enforce quiet conversation--or even silence--during a musical performance, some let patrons do what they want. Go into a jazz club in NYC and you'd better stay extremely quiet during a set; people are there to listen, not to talk. On a cruise, however, the bar area is a place for passengers to mix and mingle, and the job of the musician is to provide ambient background music; it's a venue where being quiet isn't the order of the day, and shouldn't be expected. If it bothers you and you find the drunks too noisy--as I often do--the best thing to do is to avoid the bar--which is exactly what we do. Another thought: sometimes the musicians on cruises are so mediocre that talking over them is a gift to the people in the room; there was a cellist/violinist pair on our Med cruise that sounded like 2nd-year music students, and I couldn't bear to listen to them. Funny thing is, when I was in college I made a living playing bars; I hated bars then and I still to now; we rarely go in the bar on Viking cruises, except in off-hours when it's quiet and sedate.

Thanks... we did book a toursByLocals in Belfast, but with a man named Pat.

Most of the optional excursions we've booked have been excellent, there have been a couple of stinkers though. We're doing the British Isles Explorer in July, and have booked a half-dozen private tours. Having done other touring off-ship (Rick Steves, Odyssey), we've seen the same (or similar) tour guides on those tours as well. Viking clearly pulls from the same pool of local guides, though they have favorites with whom they probably contract with well in advance. We've had great success with toursByLocals.com, and have a couple of tours scheduled with them this summer. Our toursByLocals guide in Rome (Marisa) was absolutely fantastic.

It's "Plaka District," not Plaza (damn autocorrect).

Our excursions showed up a couple of days ago... we're now 30 days from being able to book them.

That's a good idea; I would add the name of the local guide, where applicable; that might be useful if it's a tour in a smaller place where there aren't lots of possible tour guides. Also add: - food included - length of tour - time of year (the same tour can vary depending on the season) - Viking's excursion charge per person

(Not sure why CC showed my photo 7 times... I only added it once) What was special? Well, it's totally subjective, but my wife and I liked the guys who worked there, and bought a couple of small items that we really love. Another thing that made that visit memorable was that we were on our tour in 2022, when Italy was just rebounding from the pandemic. At that time in Italy, cruise passengers had to be accompanied by ship tour directors, so we couldn't go off into Italian towns while we were on the cruise (we spent 5 days in Rome on our own before the tour though), so when we got to Kotor, we were allowed to wander freely through the town, for the first time since boarding the ship in Rome. Just being able to be alone in a town was a relief, after having to be squired through each Italian port. Needless to say, these guys at the rug shop were on the watch for cruise passengers like us, and were slick as can be, but we knew that before we went in, laughed at their rather obvious attempts to upsell, and managed to resist their attempts to send us home after parting with thousands of dollars. Taking into account our limited knowledge of woven goods, the quality of what we saw seemed very fine. We have quite a few nice rugs in our house, but I have to say that the throw rug we bought at that shop is the finest one that we have.

I'd recommend the Dubrovnik walk on the wall around the Old City, but will note that it's not for people with a fear of heights (as I have), and does involve 1,080 steps if you do the entire 1.2 miles around the town. Having said that, I made it all the way around, despite my fear, and definitely plan to do it again. In Kotor we found a great rug shop called Silk and Silky; we plan to revisit it when we do the Barcelona->Istanbul cruise in 2026. I don't recall if you said you'd be stopping in Sicily, but if you are docking in Messina, and if you're a fan of the Godfather movies, the excursion into the hills above Messina, to some filming sites from the Godfather movies, was a highlight for us. In Athens, we took the post-extension and visited Delphi and Mycenae, both of which were some of my favorite spots to visit. Also, in Athens, the Acropolis Museum is easily my favorite archaeological museum and is a must-see. Also in Athens, a visit to the Plaza district is well worth a few hours.

I always look at days that have excursions; so far, nothing is showing. We're 142 days out from our July 4th sailing; I said 125 days earlier, but that's how far out we are from flying over (we're going early).

We're 125 days out from our BIE cruise on July 4; no excursions viewable yet, but I've been checking every day. We're in a DV cabin, so our excursion selection opens up on March 19th.

That's the route we would prefer, but in mid-2025 we're doing a long trip in Africa to see the gorillas...

Viking lists a 48-day cruise (called NEW! Antarctica, Chile & the Americas") that goes from Buenos Aires to Antarctica, then north up the west coast of South America, through the Panama Canal, and terminating in Fort Lauderdale. It would tick 2 boxes for us--Antarctica and the Panama Canal. It's listed only in February 2025, but not in 2026; based on any experience with listings like this from past cruises, here's my question: Is it likely that a 2026 date will be added, or does this indicate that they're not going to do this route anymore? I hesitate to call Viking because the person on the other end will probably know no more than I do from looking at the website. We want to do this cruise, but not next year; we're looking for a 2026 sailing...

Thank you so much! I'll look into it and let me know if we end up booking it. 🙂

We're doing the BIE starting on July 4th; I've already booked 4 private tours for this trip, might be interested in this one if you can recall its name on Viator or any other info that might help me find it. We've had great luck with Viator tours, both in England and in France, and I in fact have one booked for us on our BIE cruise.

On one of our cruises, we were in a stateroom directly across from the laundry. Not only did we never hear any noise from the laundry, but my wife found it extremely convenient to be able to scoot across the hall, put clothes in a machine, then go back at the appropriate time to move our clothes. In fact, she's asked me to try to get future staterooms in a similar location.

We had AT&T, but switched to T-Mobile after we found out that they provide free international data & text (not voice though). After about 6 months or more with T-Mobile, I can report that here in the North Texas area our coverage is identical to what we got from AT&T--which makes sense since they use the same towers. At sea, where there are no cell towers, cell phones aren't going to be able to make cell calls, so the info you got from your Verizon rep seems odd. We rarely make phone calls when we're on cruises, but if we do have to we just wait until we're in port. Wifi-only calling *should* work, but I've never had much luck with it. If you want to stick with Verizon, and you have a fairly new smartphone, look into the Airolo app for iPhone and Android; you can get an eSim for about $30 for a month, and this will allow you to make phone calls anywhere in the are that you select. For example, they have a plan that works all over Europe, and I think it was about $30 for a month. If you start to use up the allotted data, you can top it off anytime. Works great, fairly easy to set up if you follow the excellent guided instructions.

I wish I'd read that before we went for a stroll through Kotor! Although, I have to admit, the rug we brought home is beautiful and we've not regretted it (although we probably paid more than it's worth). It was a funny; the guy in the first store said, "Let me introduce you to my brother!" (brother owned the rug store). Then, because we needed a cheap suitcase to get it home, he said, "My cousin owns a store down the street." So we go there to buy a cheap suitcase, and of course my wife found a jacket she loved as well... You don't suppose they saw us coming, do you? 🙂

I forget--how much before a cruise are excursions normally added to MVJ? We just did a river cruise, but I forget now how much before the trip they start displaying excursions. It'd be nice to be able to finalize our excursion choices before selection day; we've made preliminary choices based on the cruise listing, but there's no way to know what will actually be offered on our cruise.

I'd just put in my current passport information, then update it when you get your passport renewed. I'm sure you're not the first person to be in this situation, and in fact, my wife's passport expires in 2026, so shee'll probably renew it in mid-2025.

That's a good idea, but so far not possible; they don't even post the excursions too far in advance. Our cruise is 163 days away, and the excursions aren't listed yet. I've made a list of favorites from those listed in their cruise listing, although there's no guarantee that all of those will be offered for our particular sailing. I'll keep checking every day or so to see when they actually start posting them.

That happened a month or so ago; I called and was told it was a glitch, and it reappeared later.

We've been seated on both sides of the dining room; we discovered a table and server that we particularly liked, and started asking for that table, and they always put us there after that (we're people who like to eat early, so we're usually among the first in the dining room).

You're probably right; on our last cruise, which was the Grand European river cruise in October, I'd say the average age was early to mid-60s, but on every ocean cruise we've done, I'd put it a little older. Headed out in July for the British Isles Explorer, will be interested to see who we're traveling with.