longterm

We were on the Rome, Adriatic, and Greece excursion in 2021, and did the extension in Athens that took us to Mycenae and Delphi, in addition to having visited Pompeii as well. Mycenae - one of our favorite places to visit; you can stay down low and it's not going to be too demanding, although as with any Greek antiquity site, there's some walking involved if you want to see it. The path into the ruins winds up a hillside; although it was late March when we were there, snow started falling and it got really cold up there, so I didn't go all the way to the top, but I don't remember the steps being that treacherous. The path is wide and I seem to recall that it wasn't hard to traverse, but definitely not for someone who needs a walker or is hesitant to leave flat ground. Pompeii - as someone mentioned, the ground is flat, but like most Italian sites, the roads are rough and definitely need one's attention while walking. It ranks as one of the highlights of our trip (there were many), and I wouldn't discourage anyone from visiting it--it's an amazing place to visit. Again, you can choose to see as little of it as you can handle, and at least get the sense of it without having to walk all of it. There are other places we stopped where certain spots weren't suitable for everyone; the most notable would be walking the wall around the old city in Dubrovnik; although I'm scared of heights, I'm proud to say I walked the entire perimeter with our group, and it was a fantastic experience. Tons of steps though (more than 1000, if I recall), so not for everyone. But, there's a lot to enjoy in Dubrovnik without walking the wall. We did a Rick Steves tour in France, and one of our group was a man who was 85; when I met him, I was certain he wouldn't be able to keep up, but he surprised us all, walking with us for miles each day and appeared to enjoy the tour as much as we did. The Mediterranean and Adriatic are some of my favorite parts of the world, and we would love to go back. We've been on excursions with lots of folks who walk with a stick, so it's one of those decisions you'll just have to make--but don't worry about slowing people down. If you were on an excursion with us, we'd be glad to walk with you. 🙂

Because I tend to keep a close eye on travel plans, I went into My Viking Journey just to confirm the excursion booking, and lo and behold, it moved form April 27th to March 19th. So, if you have a cruise coming up, you should double-check your excursion booking date; I was pleasantly surprised that ours had moved up 5 weeks.

Which port did you have to skip? We're really hoping to get to see the Orkney and Shetland Islands, but my impression is that these 2 are probably more likely than most to be at risk of a port skip.

Question: I've been under the impression that June/July are better months for traversing the North Sea; we're boarding the British Isles Explorer on July 4th. Am I correct, or is the North Sea in those summer months just as turbulent as other months? (fingers crossed) Thanks, bob

It's unfortunate that Viking doesn't have single-occupancy cabins, but as a business, their first concern has to be staying profitable so that they can remain in business. I know it's painful for someone to pay so much to do a Viking cruise on one's own, but it's the way the industry is structured. Their single-supplement policy is shared with all the other cruise lines that don't provide SS cabins; because someone chooses to travel with Viking and pay the single-supplement fee, that doesn't justify breaking rules. A parallel would be to argue, "Because we pay thousands of dollars to travel on a Viking ship, we should be allowed to pilfer a shirt and a chocolate bar from the gift shop. We should also be allowed to order an extra entree and sneak it onshore to our friends in the city." No matter how we frame it, it's still wrong. <climbs down from soapbox in Hyde Corner>

Based on all the Viking cruises we've done, both river and ocean, I'd put the average age at somewhere around 60. We're in our late (extremely late) 60s but are healthy, but yes, we see a lot of guests who clearly have serious mobility issues, but I commend them for getting out of their homes and traveling while they can. On a recent Rick Steves tour in France, there was a man who was 85, who looked like he'd never be able to keep up with the long walks we were taking each day. He surprised us all--we walked an average of 5-6 miles per day, and he was there for all of it. This reminds me of another quick story: on another Rick Steves tour this May, through the hills of Tuscany, my brother and his wife accompanied us. On the first day, after walking miles through Florence, my brother started commenting that his ankle was hurting him. Eighteen days later, he was no better, and limped through miles of walking up and down Tuscan hills. After all of that, when he arrived home, he found out he'd torn his Achilles tendon! He walked at least 5 miles a day with a torn Achilles tendon. Amazing.

Yep; a lot seems to go unchecked lately. We were on the Grand European river cruise in October, and this one goober wore what appeared to be the SAME pair of nasty khaki shorts every day, along with about 3 different t-shirts. He wore it to dinner, on excursions where it was sometimes very cold outside, didn't seem to care about dress codes... or common sense. On one of our ocean cruises, our suitcases got to our staterooms after our dinner reservation, and I was wearing jeans; I was graciously allowed into Chef's Table after explaining that my clothes had yet to arrive in our room.

We did the Italy, Adriatic and Greece cruise in 2022; one of the stops was in Crotone. I will say in all honesty that it was our least-favorite excursion from Viking. They drove us to the town center, where an actor dressed in period costumes did an oratory. After that, we were guided to a small museum... The best part of our day in Crotone was walking through the farmer's market.

I don't use insulin and can't comment there, but when I was about to leave for our Viking river cruise at the first of October, I called my endocrinologist and told her that I'd be taking my weekly dose of Ozempic a day early (day before the cruise), and asked whether she thought I could just skip the next 2 weekly doses, since our total travel time was going to end up being 18 days. She told me that I could pack my Ozempic, which needs refrigeration, in my suitcase, and then unless it were to get warm, it would survive the flight and would be just fine in a stateroom mini-fridge.

With so many older people these days (including me) needing meds that need refrigeration, it's distressing to imagine that Viking wouldn't have policies in place that would accommodate these guests. With the majority of Viking's customers being over 50 (being kind there!), an acceptable policy needs to be put in place and its ship's officers informed that accommodations must be made. I know Viking's watching this thread, so hope they'll address this issue publicly here so that those of us affected by these policies will be more willing to book cruises in the future.

I use Ozempic, which is supposed to be refrigerated. I stored it in the room's fridge, which kept the medication cool enough to keep it useable. I spoke to my physician before the trip, and was told that, so long as it didn't get hot, I could get away with not refrigerating it at all; I don't of course know the particulars of the OP's medication in question, but a call to one's endocrinologist might alleviate any concerns about drugs being ruined if not kept cold enough. If I were to try to store my meds in the medical area, and then were refused, I'd take it up with the highest authority I could reach on the ship. I wonder if that was tried; regardless, I agree with the poster who recommended that something like this might best be documented in writing.

We decided to cancel the Panama Canal cruise, and instead did a Rick Steves tour in Tuscany. I do wish I could've seen the Panama Canal, but there were just too many sea days for us. One of these days we may try a cruise with lots of sea days, but that doesn't appeal to my wife, so we've held off for now.

Well, probably not; I would guess that a newspaper isn't going to take up too much bandwidth. There's nothing he could do to speed things up, other than to always try to download newspapers when docked; that way, he could choose to use a cell phone for Internet, instead of the ship's wifi. We have T-Mobile, which provides free data on our cell phones, in most of the world, so sometimes I use my cell phone for Internet, rather than the ship's wifi. Another thing you can do, if you have a fairly recent cell phone, is to use an eSim, which allows you to buy a package that would provide you with cell coverage overseas, for a very low price. If you search this forum for eSim, you'll find the thread where we discussed this. The other thing he could do is to be judicious about when he downloads newspapers; in mid-morning, when lots of people are on excursions, Internet use on board will be lower--but of course, you'll probably be on excursions as well. Another choice might be later at night or during the dinner hour; remember, Internet service to a ship is like Internet service to your house; it's one finite pipe, and the more people are using it, the more that available bandwidth is going to be divided up among the users.

Figure about .5MB per minute, so a 15-minute phone conversation is only 7.5MB. 1.5GB = approximately 1500 MB, so you can see that it would be really difficult to hit that cap from phone conversations. Most web pages only transfer a few megabytes of data; looking at photos or video on a site like Facebook, you can estimate about 1.5MB per minute for photos, about 2.6MB per minute if you're watching videos. So if you spent a half-hour on Facebook mostly looking at text and photos, you might hit 45MB, which is still nowhere near the cap of 1.5GB (or approx. 1500MB).

To use 1.5GB in a day would mean that you're streaming a ton of data; streaming movies would do it, but other than that, it's just not an issue at all. I have a computer consulting company and connect to my 25+ servers in Atlanta every day to back them up, and that results in a negligible use of bandwidth, even though I'm connecting to 25 different machines. It would take a ton of texting or emailing--or web browsing--to get anywhere near the cap of 1.5GB in a single day.

You’re right, sorry about that. 😎

Hey Jim, I emailed w/ the tour company you recommended in Wales, but he's gone mysteriously silent, so I'm going to reach out to other tour companies. Do you have any others that you might recommend?

I had already searched, didn't find any other roll call for that ship on that date...

🙂 I worked with a British drummer for 5 years (he was the drummer for David Bowie & T-Rex, so you can imagine the stories), so I've been fully subjected to a full dose of Cockney slang, British humour (note the spelling), and more than I ever wanted to know about old British TV. We'll be in London early and then getting on the ship on the 4th, so we'll only have to contend with fellow Americans on the ship--a rowdy bunch, no doubt. I've been contacting the tour companies you recommended, already booked a full day in Dover w/ Gary at Horizon. Good recommendations all!

We're on Viking Neptune on July 4, 2024 from Greenwich; I created a roll call, but no others on our cruise have posted there. I'm planning to book some private tours in several cities; if anyone is on our cruise and is interested, please let me know; I'll be watching this thread for replies. Bob

To get the onboard discount, we book while on a Viking Ocean cruise, then transfer the booking to our favorite travel agent for the onboard credits. We plan trips far in advance though—usually about two years. We’re already scheduled out through winter 2025 and will book another Viking cruise for summer 2026, while onboard next summer.

You don't have to agree with me, but that doesn't make me wrong. 🙂

Only one reason: for the onboard credits. We just did our 2nd Grand European river cruise, and it was nice to have $600 each in onboard credits--some from our TA, some from Viking. As to whether they get an inflated commission, I don't know, and it doesn't affect us either way, so it's a win-win for us. An interesting thing about using agents: on our last trip to South Africa, which we booked through an excellent safari tour company, I asked one of the lodges about rates for an upcoming year, and whether it'd be cheaper for us to book directly through them, since our next trip was going to be a little less complicated. He told me the rate to the safari booking agent was as good, if not better, than what he could offer me. Then, when we built our house a couple of years ago, we selected the house plan from the builder, signed a contract with them. I assumed that, since we didn't use a realtor, we didn't need to involve one; surprisingly, the builder actually preferred our using a realtor, which meant they had to pay her; we ended up using a realtor, who did absolutely nothing but who got something (probably not 3%) from the builder. So I think that sometimes companies like Viking (or builders) prefer dealing with agents because they know the ins and outs and make things easier overall for them.

Not true. I paid the balance of our next cruise directly to Viking; I don't recall whether it was by phone or on the site.

I credit this forum for telling me that we could get OBC by using a travel agent. However, you don't have to book through a travel agent; simply book the cruise, either online or on a current cruise, which is what I do so that I can get the onboard discount. Then, contact your favorite travel agent, having already confirmed that the agent does give onboard credits for cruises transferred to him. For the agent, he gets credit for the cruise, without having to do much of anything; for the passenger, you get onboard credits. So far, I've never had to use the agent for any followup assistance, so it's a win-win for everyone. Also, you can make payments directly to Viking; you don't *have to* use your TA to make payments for your cruise.