longterm

My wife has had issues with that in the past, but absolutely none on the Viking cruises we've done--both ocean and river.

Some photos from Delphi; you can see the snow in one of them.

Delphi was my favorite excursion in Greece, by far; we were there in late March, and it snowed on us the whole time we were there--but it didn't diminish the wonderful excursion.

We did that cruise and would love to do it again; Croatia and Montenegro were fantastic in particular. In Dubrovnik we walked the wall; if you're physically able, it's a great walk to take, although for someone afraid of heights like I am, it was a real accomplishment to get up there. 🙂 Best meal we had was in the walled city in Dubrovnik, at Proto; it's in a little alley to the right as you come out of the entrance gateway. I do wish we'd gone to see the Krka waterfalls; we did a walk through Corfu and had a great time in the shops. In Bari, Italy, we didn't do much because Italy was just coming out of the lockdown, and cruise passengers weren't allowed to meander on their own without a guide. We had an excellent tour guide there though, probably the best we've ever had (and many people said the same thing); nice town, wish we could have seen more. If you're a fan of the Godfather movies, I highly recommend the tour in Sicily into the villages where some of the films were made--not only is it fascinating to see the sites I know so well from the movies, but the villages are beautiful as well.

It was fine. We were in Tuscany, so a lot of our trip was spent out where there were very few cell towers, but in towns, it worked just fine. T-Mobile and AT&T use the same technology, so (at least here in the US) I see the same signal strength with T-Mobile that I had with AT&T, and the exact same cell coverage. Paying only a dime per minute for cell calls was nice, plus I was able to use my phone as a hotspot without worrying about it.

The odd thing was that Viking had a St. Mark's excursion for that day, even though I'm sure that tours haven't been allowed in St. Mark's on Sundays for many years. Then, to make it worse, nobody told us; I just happened to be going through my excursion slips, noticed that they didn't give us anything for that Sunday, and that's how I found out the excursion had been canceled. But, they did a great thing and arranged a wonderful excursion for our little group, picked us up in a private water taxi, dropped us and picked us up right in front of St. Marks Square. Plus, our group was small going through the Doge's Palace, which was nice. This was at the tail end of the Covid lockdown, and Italy at the time wouldn't let cruise passengers roam freely in any Italian towns without a guide--so we had to stay with our handler, with a Viking person tailing behind to make sure we all stayed in the group. We were given about a half-hour to walk about on our own, near the Rialto bridge.

We were on the Italy, Adriatic & Greece cruise in March 2022; we were in Venice for a few days, docked 2 of the 3 nights in Fusina, the 3rd at another spot whose name I now forget (started at Fusina, moved to the other for a night to accommodate another ship at Fusina, then back to Fusina for 3rd night). From what I remember, we were able to do excursions into Venice all 3 days; on arrival day we took the excursion to Murano and Murano; on the 2nd day, which I think must have been embarcation/debarcation day for many, we took the included walking tour, and then on the 3rd there was a bit of a snafu. Originally we were supposed to tour St. Mark's, only to be told that tours on Sundays aren't available, so we were quietly and unceremoniously bumped from our scheduled excursion. About 10 of us were in the same situation and some of us complained, so the Viking tour director arranged a private water taxi and tour for us to the Doge's Palace (didn't get to go into St. Mark's though), as well as a brief walking tour in the city. Because we arrived at about 8:30am, St. Mark's Square had about 20 people in it; it was a wonderful time for photos--the light was really nice--and we were lucky to stand in the square without a crush of people.

... or our BIE cruise on July 4th! I was on the ETIAS site just this morning; nothing live yet so who knows, this could be kicked down the road another year or more. I can't imagine that passport control is going to start fingerprinting every foreign visitor when they get to the counters; that would easily double the length of time it takes to get through there, and I just don't see it happening. I'm not going to worry about it until I have to.

That's good to know; for our next 3 trips I used the first company on their list (starts with an A).

That's good to know; I've used AIG in the past, will have to look at some others.

I know that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that virtually ALL trip insurers follow the rule that you can't transfer trip insurance from one trip to another if you cancel a trip and then rebook another. On the other hand, we booked a Viking British Isles cruise for next summer, then tacked on a Rick Steves Scotland tour that we'll take in the 2 weeks before the cruise. We were able to extend our trip insurance and alter the trip costs to cover the 2-week land trip. So, you can extend your insurance to include more days or higher cost, but you can't transfer it from one trip to another if you cancel the first. Again, someone will kindly and graciously let me know if I'm wrong. </sarcasm>

We did the post-extension on our Italy>Adriatic>Greece trip in March 2022; we were put in the Intercontinental Hotel. While it's a beautiful hotel, room was nice, breakfast was excellent, the restaurant was sub-par. Not only was the menu sparse, but it was overpriced for the meals provided. We had dinner there once and decided not to eat there anymore, instead going a block away to a small homeowned Greek restaurant that was delicious, the staff was extremely friendly, and overall a great experience--someone else mentioned it, and Vasilissis sounds like the correct name. Although the location of the hotel was less than optimum, we were actually only a 5-minute ride from the Plaka district and probably that far as well from the Natl. Archaeological Museum. Our local Viking handler was great; she helped me find and get to a little shop to buy a cheap suitcase (for treasures we'd accumulated on our voyage), was extremely helpful. Thinking about this trip makes me want to do it all over again!

Oct. 4th from Budapest? If so, you'll have my 2 brothers and me, all on one trip. Sigh. Too late for you to reschedule... 🙂

Good thing too, since I'm a piano player! Having played lots of honky-tonks back in my high school and college years, I've definitely seen my share of what might be known as "dives." Some of those clubs would be proud if they could even reach that level...

That's true, Texas being rated by CNBC as the #1 worst place to live and work. We hide out in our house when we're not going to watch the killin'-it Texas Rangers... I can proudly say that I have yet to (and will probably never) play beer pong... 🙂 But if it'll rankle some of the curmudgeons who lurk in these parts, I'm in! On the other hand, on our upcoming Grand European river cruise with 2 of my brothers and their wives, and one of those brothers being a beer brewer and contest judge for more than 20 years, I expect I'll consume more beer than normal--just to keep up, of course. I've been known to sit in on the piano after a few glasses.

I didn't want it to sound like I was a lounge lizard, but mentioned it in an apparently-misguided (in your eyes) attempt to indicate that I've spent thousands of nights in 5-star resorts, the finest casinos in the U.S., places where someone might want to whine about dress codes. As someone else on this thread mentioned, there is no lack of jackasses on this forum from time to time, but like those who are a**es on a cruise, I just step around them, just as I have to do in my backyard.

I've traveled all over the world, on cruises, with tour groups, as a professional musician with famous entertainers; as I reflect back, I can't find a single time that someone else's attire affected my enjoyment of a meal. While I choose not to wear t-shirts to dinner, it isn't going to bother me if someone else does. What I have found annoying, on the other hand, are people who talk too loud in a restaurant; loud complainers; people who are rude to wait staff; people who insist on making their political views known by speaking loudly about them at dinner, and last but certainly not least, Muzak. Thankfully, we don't have to work about smokers in restaurants in the U.S., and more and more, overseas as well.

We didn't tender in; we were docked very close to city center. In fact, we left the group during the brief walking tour and wandered the streets, bought some things, a lot of olives (which I've since devoured), found an excellent cafe on the harbor front. It was probably a 1/2-mile walk to the ship from there.

We went to both Split and Sibenik in March 2022; both arrivals were early morning, as usual; no trouble at all. I would add that both were great places to visit; we had one of our favorite meals in Split.

Absolutely; nobody's going to come down on you for wearing a t-shirt (well, some people might, but they live for that sort of thing I suppose). We're doing our 2nd river cruise in October and I plan to wear either t-shirts or, more likely, dry-fit shirts (probably golf shirts) every day of the trip. On the first river cruise I wore t-shirts during the day, button shirts at dinner, although I saw guys in shorts more than once--and this was in early November.

Went through this in May on a trip to Italy. I went directly to Lufthansa and got it resolved.

I looked at it, would love to go to Salzburg, but the drive time kept me from booking it...

I definitely look at it now before choosing excursions; having done the Grand European before, we're going to do more on our own this time. Are you by chance going Oct. 4th from Budapest? If so, you'll end up meeting 2 of my brothers and their wives as well. 🙂

I've wanted this since our first Viking cruise, when we took the Grand European river cruise (which we're repeating in October). We took an excursion from Regensburg to Munich; I was looking forward to it, until I realized that it was a 2-hour drive (or more) each way. To make matter worse, we had an awful tour guide--he actually managed to leave 2 women behind, until one of our group noticed they were missing, got the guide to pause our walk so that she (not the tour guide) could go back and find the 2 slow-walking group members. Had we known how long the drive was going to be, we would have stayed in Regensburg; we won't be taking the Munich excursion this time around, that's for sure. I have no doubt that Viking has travel time durations available; if they just chose to include this in the excursion descriptions, it would help us make better decisions with our limited time.

Wow. Too many people with not enough to complain about, so they choose this? On one of our ocean cruise dinners, we were the first to enter The Restaurant, and wait staff was lined up to greet us as we were escorted to our table. A server we'd sat with on a previous night greeted both of us by name, and we smiled and greeted him back. It was a nice feeling, and I've always remembered that tiny gesture. If I were to assume that anyone who smiles at me is either forced to do so or resentful about having to do so, then I would be an unhappy, bitter person. I choose to believe that human kindness is something that many of us enjoy, and I try to share that with people I meet--especially those who are working in support jobs that are solely for making me comfortable--like restaurant workers, housekeeping staff, grocery store employees. Smiles are contagious; so is bitterness, unfortunately. You never know when a well-timed smile just might counteract the difficulties someone is going through on any given day. It's free. Speaking of free--the greeting upon return to the ship--is free. A person can scowl if that's how they choose to live their life.