longterm

3 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

If you want more red leather luggage tags, send me your address.  We have at least 10 that are still in their plastic sleeve never used and probably will never use them...

 

Thanks, what a kind offer; we have a bunch of them as well. I agree about the stickers, but like the lemming that I will be in that situation, I'm sure I'll stick it to my shirt. 🙂

They don't give away those nice brown pouches any longer; we have several of them, which are great for packing.

13 hours ago, LeeSusan1 said:

We got everything together. Not sure why your package was not assembled correctly. Good luck sorting it out! 

Figured it out... we booked the cruise, then transferred it to a TA. Apparently, Viking neglected to change the mailing information for my wife, so they mailed her luggage tags to the TA rather than us. They're going to re-mail them, to us this time.

We leave for the Grand European River Cruise in about 4 weeks; today I got our Viking travel package, but it only included 1 red leather baggage tag and 2 paper bag tags, and only 1 of the red paper stick-on tags that we're supposed to wear when we get off the plane.

In the past we've always gotten 2 leather tags and 2 paper bag tags per person, and one round stick-on paper tag for each of us; do they ship them separately to each passenger now, even though we're both part of the same booking number?

Seems odd...

17 hours ago, rbslos18 said:

I came to the same conclusion as @LindaS272. I could not find an included SNUBA excursion on the cruise. Given the cost of such an experience, I would be surprised to see it as a “Included” ie free excursion. There is a comparable but lower priced SNUBA experience offered by Viator.

I was thinking the same thing; this doesn't sound like an included excursion, but rather a paid optional excursion--and some of them definitely do fill up.

As a general rule, the free excursions aren't rated as "demanding."

4 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

 

We were just told on a Viking River Cruise that these vouchers are not going to be offered for sale at some point in the next year.  We were also told that Viking will honour all vouchers purchased - you can purchase up to ten - and they will have no expiry date, but that the selling of these vouchers on the river ships will cease soon.

 

Also good to remember, as this has been confirmed that if you buy these vouchers - which you can only buy on a river ship - you cannot apply to any currently booked cruise.  The cruise that you use them on - ocean or river - must be a new booking with a booking date later than the issue of the voucher.

I had forgotten about these; question:

We're headed on a river cruise in a month; we're also booked on the BIE next summer. Our plan next summer is to book a 2025 ocean cruise.

Please tell me if this is right:

We can use up to 2 vouchers on any 1 cruise;

I can buy 2 for $100/each, and use these as a deposit on the cruise that we book next summer;

My wife can buy 2 as well.

Is that right? Can we each buy 2 vouchers, or is it somehow tied together per booking, meaning that we can only use 2 TOTAL if we book as a couple? My guess is that you can only use 2 vouchers per booking number.

If anyone knows the answer, please let me know, thanks.

1 hour ago, MSEm said:

I have read a posting on people being contacted to change to another cruise because of over booking on  a sailing.

That happened to us; we had a Caribbean cruise planned for December 2020. The day before the cruise, we were offered a longer cruise, $1500, and upgrade to a Penthouse Junior Suite, so I took it.

Then, Covid.

Our replacement cruise, which was supposed to be February 2021, was canceled; when I called to find out when we were going to actually go, the rep told me they wouldn't give me the upgrades that we had been promised. After a frustrating and irritating hour with 3 or 4 different reps, the last one recommended that I contact the "move-over" department, who offer and arrange the upgrade offers. I did so, was told we'd get our upgrades, but if we didn't go (or if the cruise got canceled AGAIN), we wouldn't get the upgrade. We held our breath, and did go on the cruise in December 2021, got our suite, had a great trip.

So if it's a popular cruise that you want (sounds like it is), you might be lucky and someone takes advantage of an upgrade offer. 

1 hour ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

For a variety of port calls you really can’t top Trade Routes of the Middle Ages. 15 days, 10 tours, 7 countries.

https://www.vikingcruises.com/oceans/cruise-destinations/multi-region/trade-routes-middle-ages/index.html

I hadn't ever looked at that cruise--looks really good. 🙂

43 minutes ago, OnTheJourney said:

Actually I'd say no great preference of one over the other. Likes both sea and port days, trying new destinations, etc. As for itinerary length - generally a week to 2 weeks. I know Viking's 20-30+ day cruises would be too long. One thing that concerns me is that he's often said about enjoying some of the things that Viking doesn't have - time in the casino, the larger production shows, game-type shows and activities. Basically has cruised RCCL, X, and NCL. Nothing with smaller ship cruising, etc.

OH. Well, that's not Viking then, but that's why we like it. I worked in casinos for years, and grew to loathe them, and production shows--unless they're first-rate--leave me cold. So that's why we personally prefer Viking (plus the lack of kids onboard, and we love kids--just not on a ship).

I know lots of folks on here love transatlantic cruising, which we've not done; I would be willing to try that, but I personally wouldn't choose that as someone's first Viking experience, since a lot of what I value in Viking cruises is the ability to get a first peek at lots of ports, that I might want to revisit at greater length (Venice, Naples, and Sicily all did that for me).

23 hours ago, OnTheJourney said:

Of course, this is one of the potential issues with any river trip especially depending on river levels.

And as someone who lived in Nashville for 34 years, I don't find Memphis that appealing. If you're an Elvis fan (I'm not at all), Graceland might hold some charm (I found it tacky and a bit sad, myself), but other than that, I never found much in Memphis to draw my interest--except for Memphis barbecue, which is of course really excellent!

On 9/1/2023 at 12:49 PM, OnTheJourney said:

My feeling would be that an ocean voyage would likely give a far better and more generalized feel for what Viking offers.  Anyone else agree? The Mississippi, I assume, is more of a unique experience and thus less representative of much of what Viking has been known for and can offer. While I've not done one, not sure I'd suggest an expedition cruise either for a first Viking trip. Reviews of some of the Mississippi trips would seem to support some of my assumptions.

Well... a few thoughts:

Our 1st Viking cruise was the Grand European river cruise, which we're repeating again in about a month; it's a great intro to Viking, and I highly recommend it, but it's definitely a totally different experience than an ocean cruise. So, while I think it's a great 1st Viking experience, I'm not sure I'd choose it as the first venture.

The Mississippi is an interesting part of the US, for sure; having grown up in Louisiana, I've crossed it at least a hundred times, not just down there but also at Memphis, in Minnesota, and also in St. Louis. I've been to all 50 states, but I don't think I would recommend a Mississippi River cruise--but that's just me.

A good 1st ocean experience, in my opinion, would be about 10-12 days; if they're beach people, the West Indies Explorer is a great trip, and offers lots of good time on some beautiful beaches--plus, it's not too far away for lots of Americans.

If they're REALLY doubtful about an ocean cruise, Viking used to offer a 5-day cruise in the Caribbean; it's not that expensive, would be a nice small taste of an ocean cruise. Again, if they're not beach people, it might not hold much interest.

Another great first cruise might be one of the legs in the Mediterranean--from Barcelona to Rome, or Rome to Venice, Venice to Athens, Athens to Istanbul--or they're really wanting to go for it--all of them, which is about a month long. 

1 hour ago, Jim Avery said:

Tex we have been to the Caribbean and especially the BVI many times.  Our favorite stop is Jost van Dyke.  A small lovely beachy Island accessible only by boat.  On SeaDream we used to anchor offshore and overnight there.  Off to Foxy's Bar.  In the day the beach at White Bay is near perfection.  Like all places it is beginning to get a bit crowded but still very nice last December.  On Viking you get there from Tortola on a 45 minute power catamaran.  On that trip Viking offered it as an excursion.  About three hours on JVD to soak  sun, have a painkiller at Soggy Dollar Bar or snack on good seafood at Hendos Hideaway.  A new beachy bar built since the last hurricane.  Most places we walk ashore and if we want to go somewhere just grab a cab.  We like the Sunset Bar at Maho Beach in St. Maarten and if you have time in San Juan old SJ is full of picturesque buildings and historical places.  Not to mention food/drink spots.  And if you have never done it, the Bacardi House is a good tour.  Historical facts plus lots about rum.  Accessible with the harbor ferry which docks adjacent to pier 2 across from the Sheraton.  On the other side taxis are easy to get and it's a short ride to Bacardi.  

I second Jost Van Dyke, which may have been our favorite beach as well, and we did enjoy a few drinks at the Soggy Dollar as well. 

We've used the laundry on ocean ships each time we've cruised, to great success; my wife likes doing laundry, and usually chose to do it later at night when no one else was using it.

The best thing though, is to travel with dri-fit shirts and pants, which we do; they dry in about 5-6 hours, so we can wash every 3-4 days and have nice clean clothes all the time, without worrying about always running to the laundry. The pants that I carry are convertible; there's a zipper that converts the pants from shorts to long pants--great for summer trips.

We of course use washer/dryer for other articles of clothing.

We also carry a neat clip-less braided clothesline that we put up in the bathroom.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09KP6BZBJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

22 minutes ago, Texanniew said:

Good morning! We just booked this cruse for October 2024, but as I am searching here for posts on this cruise, I am seeing real mixed opinions. Any feedback on this trip? This would be our first Viking cruise and a 40th wedding anniversary trip. We have been on two RC cruises years ago. 

Thanks so much!

We took that cruise in December 2021, just as cruises were resuming after Covid. At this point, everyone on the ship had to be masked, as well as masking on the buses too. Handwashing stations were outside every ship, as they were on our last cruise as well. Having just had Covid 2 weeks ago and feeling awful for more than a week, my wife and hope that we see handwashing stations on our river cruise a month from now.

It was an excellent trip in every respect; we had no trouble in the airport in San Juan at all--Viking reps were there to shepherd us to buses and transfer our luggage to the ship. 

We enjoy lounging on beaches, so we booked 5 excursions where we could enjoy the beaches; all of them were fun, although we wished we'd had longer on some of them. 

The snorkeling excursion was really great, one of my favorite excursions.

Some of the islands don't have a lot on them to see, so I do remember having the local electric company pointed out to us. 🙂

I will say that the batik excursion was a bit of a disappointment, and a few of the free drive-around excursions were a bit lackluster, but even with that, we had a great time--but then, we always enjoy every trip we take. If you enjoy great sunrises and sunsets, you're in for a treat.

One of our favorite days was when we were walking into St. Croix from the ship, met a one-legged taxi driver named Tony who was so friendly that we hired him for a day's drive all over the island. He took us to the sulphur pits where volcanic activity bubbles to the surface--one of the highlights of the trip. In fact, our day driving around with Tony was probably our favorite day of the whole trip.

A suggestion: you can find lightweight inexpensive beach shoes on Amazon; they're great for walking on the beaches and they're easy to pack. 

Bottom line: we'd do that cruise again for sure because we really enjoy Caribbean beaches.

10 hours ago, ericosmith said:

Did that Bergen through Frankfurt a month ago.  Allow plenty of time.  Bus from the plane was in a traffic jam on the tarmac.  Then waited in line at the drop off.  The airport itself was pretty much chaos.

We went through Frankfurt this past May, coming home from Florence; it was really easy, got through without any trouble--hopefully this next trip will be the same. 🙂

On 8/29/2023 at 12:56 PM, formernuke said:

Interesting; as I search now, I don't see any non-stops from Bergen to NY area (searching for next May). Perhaps they discontinued this route?

We're headed on the BIE next July; I found a return from Bergen that goes from Bergen to Frankfurt, then from Frankfurt to Dallas. It was the best route I could find for us.

4 hours ago, friendlyfifer said:

I was looking forward to Dakar which has now been replaced with Cape Verde. Hope you have another cruise to look forward to.

We've flown in and out of Dakar twice on our way to South Africa from the US; both times, we were told that it wasn't very safe and that we wouldn't be allowed to leave the plane while it was being serviced for the continuation of our flight down to Johannesburg.

From what one of the flight attendants told me on one of the flights, I think you're very fortunate to be going to Cape Verde instead! West Africa--Senegal, Ivory Coast--is not a very safe part of Africa at all.

15 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

“Powered by Cruise Critic” could mean they are just using the website for content. Seems like a low quality startup operation.

Yes, but in order to access the database, they had to have been granted access, which means CC worked with them in developing the app.

For example, Amazon's site is powered by a database; they won't let just any company get access to it, but do sometimes allow developers to "hook" into it and use data from their database. Another example is UPS; they allow shipping apps to hook into their database, which is how the apps are able to let you know when your packages will arrive.

Other companies explicitly forbid programmers from accessing their databases; I've had mixed success implementing interfaces with various sites--some welcome it, some flatly deny access.

53 minutes ago, photopro2 said:

I can certainly understand that that would be annoying.

 

When I close and reopen my android version of the app it does return to wherever I was when I closed it - on a board or even in a particular post, so I am not normally seeing the ads that you saw. In my experience the general performance of the android version is better too, as you suggest might be the case, hence my preferring it to the browser site.

 

What is really puzzling me though is why, on one hand, Cruisecritic sent out emails promoting the app and, on the other hand, they are saying that it doesn't exist when asked about it????

 

Does anyone have the text of the emails that Cruisecritic sent that they could post to this thread by any chance?

I never got an email, but I did find the app in the iPhone App Store, called "My Kind of Cruise." I re-downloaded it just now so people could see the awful design flaw at the bottom, as well as the CC logo clearly displayed.

I circled the logo, and also the awful flaw at the bottom. Deleted the app... again... 🙂

3 hours ago, dd57 said:

I guess it is some sort of front-end that ties into Chrome in the back end.  More than a shortcut but less than a full blown app.  If you click on "App details in store" under APP Info in Settings, it tries to take you to a page in Play Store for the app but fails.  But if it is a bad app, why does Chrome keep telling us to install it.  And I have "only install from play store" turned on, so where did it come from?  Very strange.

Not exactly; Chrome isn't the back end. Chrome, Safari, and other smartphone browsers are simply displaying data from web servers and database servers. Message boards are actually powered by databases that contain all the data that you see here--this post, for example. Even Facebook and other social media, including the mess that used to be Twitter, are powered by databases.

The app is just a front end that gets a feed from the same database that powers this message board. It's similar to the hurricane apps that you can find on the App Store; they simply access existing hurricane maps and fashion them into rather clunky apps.

This app has access to the CC database, which is why the app recognizes our logins and shows the same threads. CC has apparently partnered with this developer, and given them access to the message board database.

When I tried it on the iPhone, I quickly saw that it was badly written; I write iPhone and web apps professionally, so I know good programming when I see it--and this is not that. When you quit the app on the iPhone, and then return, it doesn't put you back in the forum, but back on the front of the app, where it's nothing but a barrage of ads. Perhaps it works better on Android, I don't know, but from what I saw of the iPhone app, it was clearly designed to sell cruises, not to help CC users access this forum. That, combined with the shoddy work on the icons, which on didn't even line up properly on my iPhone, led me to quickly dispose of the app.

2 hours ago, DrKoob said:

...I have not heard of anyone actually docking in Fusina although that was the announced port early on. 

We were on one of the first Viking cruises going back into Italy after the lockdown; we left Rome in late February 2022, docked at Fusina on March 11. 

At that time, Italy wouldn't allow cruise passengers to go into towns without tour guides, so we could only tour in our excursions. Because we arrived on our own in Rome 5 days early though, we were able to enjoy the quietness in Rome, with private guides, and the lack of crowds was really excellent.

In Venice, we docked at Fusina the 1st night; then the ship was moved to a 2nd commercial dock nearby (whose name I've forgotten) for 1 night, then back to Fusina for the final night.

We did get to see Venice, but hardly enough; we have a trip planned for the future that would include at least 3 or 4 nights in Venice, traveling by train between Venice, Rome, and Naples.

3 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

The ships that are waiting are the majority of the cargo ships that turn up on spec, register upon arrival and anchor waiting for a transit slot. Ships turning up without a reservation have often waited up to a week or more for the transit.

That makes sense; typical click bait on the website then. Argh.

For people like me who don't know anything about how the Panama Canal operates, it looks ominous, until knowledgeable types like you guys clear out the drek. 🙂

Just now, Jim Avery said:

I bet you next week there will be a new scary story about some other part of life nearing armageddon. 200 ships waiting for the canal is not that unusual.

That's why we need reality checks from people who actually know!

So are things closer to normal than that article led people to believe? Knowing nothing about the area, and reading that article, I had visions of cruise ships lined up waiting for days...

This can't bode well for cruises going through the Canal; anyone on Viking cruises that were affected?

An article about the situation:

https://ctmirror.org/2023/08/27/the-panama-canal-is-running-out-of-water/

An app to sell cruises, with the forum slipped in. Icons at bottom don’t even line up, last letter of ‘community’ is on a separate line; clearly this was a low-budget job. 
 

I’ll stick to the web; not impressed. 

12 hours ago, Sunflower & The Scientist said:

You will not be disappointed with the Shetland Islands! It was our favorite port.

BTW In 1987 we welcomed a beautiful Hmong daughter into our home. 

That's so wonderful; I always feel an instant kinship with other adoptive parents.

My son is almost 27 now, and we talk every day. He was born in Hanoi, which we traveled to in March 1997 to get him. Best thing I've ever done in my life; my only wish is that I'd brought home two babies instead of one.