longterm

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.

Nonsense. So, I should have called it a "discretionary hotel and dining charge?" What's discretionary about it? Oh, I see--it's at VIKING'S discretion and not mine. Got it. My post wasn't a confusion of terms, and that's hardly the point of the original post. My post was a comment on the fact that Viking automatically adds a prepaid gratuity fee (call it whatever you want, that's what it is) per passenger, without being authorized to do so. Regardless of the nomenclature, it's a bad policy and needs to be discontinued. To be sure, you can insist that the fee be removed, but if you don't notice (and I suspect lots of passengers don't notice), it gets quietly added to your final bill. I mentioned it in a phone call with Viking; if enough people complain, perhaps they'll stop the practice, but I'm not going to hold my breath. We always tip certain staff members; we also value the unseen workers who rarely get personal tips, and we've always chosen to opt into the prepaid gratuity in the past--but this time, I had waited until the last day to do so, and realized then that it had been added in already. Enough already. On our next cruise in July I'll be sure to either opt in or out before the end of the cruise.

Actually, some Viking river ship staterooms don't have verandas; I was on the Grand European a little more than a week ago, and my brother and his wife had one of those rooms. But no, there are no inside cabins on Viking ships.

Put orange juice in it and it tastes the same. For those of us who don't care for either Prosecco, champagne, or sparkling wine, they all taste the same anyway.

That's not exactly what I said; what I said was that they sometimes charged her for them in the bar, sometimes not. In the restaurant, they always made them for her without charging. As to the difference between sparkling wine and champagne, there is none, other than the name.

Yes, exactly; however, my wife often got mimosas other than lunch or dinner without charge as well, which was a nice unexpected perk. Prosecco is essentially another name for sparkling wine, which is what champagne is; it's made in the Veneto region of Italy, while champagne is made in the Champagne region in France. The process for producing it is slightly different, but for lots of drinkers, the taste is very similar. Not being a champagne drinker, I don't care for either. it's like "Kolsch," which is a protected name for beer made in the Cologne region. Nowhere else in Germany can a beer maker use the name Kolsch except for the region around Cologne, but of course anyone can make beer that tastes just like it; in fact, my brother makes beer in Houston using the Kolsch recipe, and it's actually very good. At any rate, waiters seemed more than willing to make and serve mimosas to my wife at dinner, without any additional charge. In the bar, it was hit or miss.

We always go for the cheapest DV category because I've found that getting the excursions we want, and getting into the restaurant we want, has been no problem at all. So far, I've always gotten us booked on the excursions we preferred; so far as the specialty restaurants go, we don't care for Chef's Table, so 1 or 2 dinners there is all we would care for anyway. When it comes to Manfredi's, I found that, even when we were in a penthouse veranda, available spots were all gone by the time I tried to book--and I tried at the moment reservations opened up for our category. On our next cruise in July, we'll eat at The Restaurant most nights and get Manfredi's whenever we can, and that'll work fine for us. In my opinion, the slight advantage that is gained by paying more for a higher DV cabin is not worth the extra price. So far as location goes, I always select a cabin away from the atrium, and this too has been no problem at all for us. As to the snarky "steerage class" comment, I would give that exactly the respect I'd give to someone telling me that.

My wife likes Mimosas, and on the river cruise we just finished a week ago, they served mimosas to her whenever she asked for them, without a charge, unless we were in the bar. Not sure if this is fleet-wide, but I would assume that, since champagne is technically sparkling wine, it would be included as well with lunch and dinner, on ocean as well.

My guess would be the mid-60s; from what we've seen, the average age definitely isn't getting lower.

Judging by the Grand European river cruise we just completed, anything goes... There was a guy who, in all sorts of weather--cold, rainy--wore wrinkled khaki shorts and flip flops every day of the cruise. I have no doubt it was the *same* pair of shorts, too. Yuck. On the first night of our Caribbean cruise, our bags were late getting to the stateroom, and I was wearing jeans; the host at Chef's Table sat us without any trouble at all.

Our experience was different; we always enjoyed The Restaurant, and I can't recall ever thinking that it was noisy or boisterous. Preferences vary; I've read some posts where they said Chef's Table was their favorite--it was our least favorite and we rarely ate there and will probably eat there perhaps once or twice on our upcoming British Isles cruise. As to whether the staff "ignored" our reservations, I can't speak to that, only to say that when we arrived and referenced our reservations, we were always immediately seated at our table of choice (port side rear corner).

I guess I'm mistaken; I could've sworn we always got reservations for the Restaurant on our last ocean cruise, but that was 15 months ago, so perhaps things have changed.

We switched from AT&T to T-Mobile and are really glad we did. On our last 2 overseas trips in May and just last week, I was able to use my phone for a hotspot whenever I needed to (on the river cruise last week, it was necessary several times because ship wi-fi was painfully slow); I also made calls back to the US for just 25 cents per minute. When on the ocean, I switch off cellular roaming and try to use wi-fi calling when it works... if not, I just wait until we hit a port.

Reservations in The Restaurant are easy to get; we got them as much as we wanted on our last ocean cruise. We got a table for 2 for all but one dinner, when we made the mistake of having dinner with a rather unpleasant couple. We never ordered dinner in the stateroom, but I would assume that you can get whatever you'd like from the Restaurant's menu.

Yes, tipping has been discussed ad nauseam for sure... 🙂 We're big tippers as a rule; the 20 euros per day per guest isn't exorbitant at all. Viking *could* choose to up their employees' pay by a few cents per hour and do away with the prepaid gratuities option. I would be in favor of that plan, but it comes down to saving Viking some money. Here's how I would do it if I were Viking: in the Viking Daily a few days before end of cruise, tell all pax that the prepaid gratuity can be added before the last day. If it's not chosen, it doesn't go on the bill. I can attest that there was a steady line of people talking to guest services after seeing their final bills, and I suspect not a few were asking about the gratuities. I saw a guy give a tour guide one euro. Wow. What a miser.

I did go to Guest Services and removed one of the two charges, because we'd already given tips to quite a few of the staff. If our program director told us it'd be added the day before debarkation, I missed it. At any rate, my opinion is that this prepaid gratuity fee should never be put on someone's bill without express permission or request. It felt inappropriate to me. As an interesting side note: my brother is on this cruise with us. He left an excursion and found himself without any tip money for the guide, but went over to her to thank her and to apologize that he didn't have anything to tip her. When he looked down, her hand was cupped to receive cash. 🙂

We're finishing our Grand European tomorrow morning, and although this is the Viking Ocean forum, I assume that the same policy applies on ocean cruises and wanted to mention this. I've always understood that using Viking's prepaid gratuities option was totally optional. We intended all along to pay the prepaid gratuities, but I hadn't gotten around to adding it. This morning, it appeared on our account without our having asked for it, but a lot more than I remember it being. The fee was 280 euros for each of us, which amounted to about $600 for the trip. Two things: 1. Wasn't this fee significantly lower just a few years ago? 2. Rather than automatically applying it per person, it should NOT appear on my account unless I expressly ask for it. We always tip our room steward and also others we particularly like on the cruise; we did this already this morning for our room steward and a couple of waiters, including the breakfast chef. Now, I'm a generous tipper, and always want to show my appreciation to the staff, but I would have preferred to ASK to have gratuities added, rather than Viking automatically charging us for it. Our next Viking cruise is an ocean cruise on the British Isles Explorer; I'll be sure to address this beforehand, but I don't remember this happening on our previous Viking cruises--but perhaps I just didn't notice, or I had already signed up for it so wasn't surprised when it showed on our account before the end of the cruise.

But the servers would have to keep track of which alcohol package each person had; I suppose it *could* be done, but I can see why they don't. It would be the same as adding multiple levels of food choices to each guest--which they don't do. Easy solution--don't prepay. It's not nickel and diming, it's an option for people who want to make sure they tip something to all the ship's employees rather than just their room steward. We do both; we prepay to compensate the staff, who work hard for fairly low pay, and we leave extra for our room steward. Easy solution: book your own airfare. I don't agree at all. Some of the included excursions are fairly perfunctory, but some are a lot of fun and are certainly not just "shopping." For example, the Budapest excursion today included seeing the famous synagogue, the Chain Bridge, Matthias Church--none of which involved shopping. On other cruise lines, where they charge for specialty dining, laundry, every excursion (none included), stop you to take your photo, which they then charge fees for. Viking's not for everybody, but we like it just fine. We're on the Grand European river cruise right now, in fact.

I've done that too, but my success in upgrading seats has been spotty. We're leaving tomorrow for the Grand European River Cruise, flying on Lufthansa; I had to go to their site a few times before I was able to secure better seats, but I was ultimately successful.

Keep in mind that, with most travel insurance, cancel-for-any-reason insurance has to be purchased within 2 weeks of making the initial payment on a cruise.

I had this same issue on Lufthansa flights for our river cruise in 2 days; I had to wait a while, then was finally able to upgrade seats on Lufthansa's site. My advice would be to check back with American from time to time, or call Viking Air; I doubt they'll be able to assist, but it's always worth a try. A side note: We went to Italy in May, and I upgraded seats on the legs of our flights there and back. In the last couple of weeks, I got refunds for all of them... don't know why, but was happy to accept the money.

To quote Yogi Berra, “Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded.” Relevant? Nah, I just love that quote.

We do the same as CDNPolar; I do the bookings for my wife and me, after we've figured out exactly what we'd like to do. We've now done 4 Viking cruises where we turned them over to the TA after the fact, just for the on-board credits. On land trips that were more complex (2 to South Africa, one upcoming to east Africa), we use a tour company because the arrangements are so complex, but for Viking trips, it's easy enough to take care of things myself, but plan on enjoying some good Bittgerger beers, courtesy of our TA, on the river cruise in 9 days. 🙂