Peregrina651

🎵"Heaven... I'm in heaven, And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek,.🎵 in an Explorer's Lounge seat

I put Viking Air on my initial booking -- especially if it is a really good deal -- knowing that I can drop it later (as long as it hasn't been ticketed). You can always add Viking Air at a later date but it will be at the brochure rate, not the the current deal or the deal that was in place when you booked.

Great advice so far. Here's my take on it. We went over 20 years ago (on the now defunct Renaissance cruise line) and Ephesus was amazing; it was the first time my husband had ever seen Roman ruins. I wish I had known more then about working with private guides. Ephesus is one of those places, like the Acropolis or the Great Wall of China, that you might never get back to, so don't hold back. Therefore, my advice as follows: If it is in your comfort zone, try for a private tour of the places you are most interested in seeing. You'll see more with less waiting around for others If you go with a Viking tour, go with one of the optional tours, whichever one suits your interests best. As for me, the more I read about this itinerary, the more I realize that it is time for a "do over."

That's 3 am here on the east coast. I thought we had finally talked them out of that bit of insanity before the pandemic hit because they had finally switched to a Noon Pacific Time start. You can bet I am really disappointed that they have gone back to the 3am nonsense.

Yes, it is unfair but it is only temporary. Still, it is the current reality and a fact that we have to accept if we wish to travel right now: things are not back to the old normal even if they are letting us back on the ships. As for changing the booking system, my feeling is that it is a software problem and that if the software could be changed to allow different cruises to be on different booking schedules that it would have been done already. Viking has been dealing with this for over a year now.

My experience has been that sometimes you have to ask them to do these things, especially when it comes to Viking changes. They don't really keep up on what is happening in the world of Viking.

Noon Pacific time BUT only if shore excursions for your sailing open on schedule. Unfortunately, thus far in the post-Covid era, Viking has not always been able to finalize the contracts with the vendors in time. In these cases, all bets are off as to what day and a what time booking will open. It is a complete mess and very frustrating for all involved. Hopefully, as the vendors who survived the hiatus continue to ramp up their business this will become less of a problem.

I bring clip hangers and suction cup hooks for hand laundry and things I don't want to put in the dryer.

Rouen: Dock is not on street level. If I remember correctly, there are elevators to the street level. I can't remember where the buses picked up (my mind is such a sieve). Les Andelys: The town is hilly as well as the typically uneven streets and sidewalks. This is taken from the ship.

River cruising has its own discussion forum: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/115-river-cruising/ It is not divided by cruise lines. Viking River Roll Calls are here: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/851-viking-river-roll-calls/ River roll calls tend to be by itinerary and year, not by individual sailing dates. Because Viking has so many river ships, they have their own River Roll Call forum. All other river cruise rolls are together in a separate forum.

What drives me nuts is having to deal with VeriFLY every time I sail. Once you have registered with V-FLY, why isn't it just marked on your account along with other information that Viking stores for each of us?

When it comes to insurance, it isn't just about price; it's about what you get for that price. Read the contracts carefully so that you understand what you are buying -- and what you aren't buying. One thing to understand about getting the Viking insurance is that your refund is in the form of a voucher towards another cruise on Viking. If you buy your own insurance, you get cash. Personally, I don't want a voucher, I want cash if i have to cancel.

Why didn't the TA call their go-to person at Viking to ask?

Mistakes happen and this looks like a mistake pure and simple. When this happens, I usually send an e-mail off to tellus@vikingcruises.com pointing out the error and ask them to fix it because it is confusing. Usually, it gets taken care of in a couple of days.

You don't have to wait for Cruise Critic to decide, but I would wait for others on the Expedition thread to weigh in. You may even want to ask this very same question on the Viking Expeditions thread. There may be some of the 68 people already following that thread who only follow that one thread and might not see this one. Once there is a consensus, write to help@cruisecritic.com to ask them to start a new forum. It may take a few days or even longer to get it done. Once the new forum is open, don't forget to post a link to it in the old thread. Maybe you can even ask CC to post a sticky here directing folks to the new forum. Don't ask CC to move or close the thread just yet; you want to give everyone time to see that the conversation has moved to a new location.

I don't care what they think. Deck three and 4 are where I want to be, so I will forever be a DV denizen -- low and amidships. Unless, of course, I get a visit from the Upgrade Fairy telling me the Owner's Suite is mine. 😁

A kind thought, but you shouldn't worry about it too much -- or consider declining. Anyone who is already booked and who needs an ADA cabin already has one.

There is just so much that went wrong here and none of it appears to be of your making. Please report this incident directly to Viking at tellus@vikingcruises.com. They really need to know about it and to make things right. Include your booking number and your phone number and a detailed description of the encounter. Viking will probably call you to find out more and at that time, you can ask the person you are speaking with to make sure that 1) the arrival information gets changed; 2) they have not booked a flight for you; 3) they have not charged you the Air Plus fee.

Even though we are still not back on the high seas, it is time to start talking ship! In particular, let's hear from people who have done this itinerary with Viking and from people who are planning on it over the next couple of years. The goal is to gather as much information as we can about the itinerary. This won't be easy, since unlike "Homelands", that has a few ships doing the itinerary all summer long, this itinerary runs only a couple of times a year. That means our pool or "resident experts" is small. I know we have the ports of call section where we can ask general questions about the ports visited but I am interested in Viking specific information. I also know some of the information may be out of date by the time we start sailing again but we have to start somewhere. Currently, Viking is planning to visit these ports: HONG KONG, TAIPEI, NAGASAKI, KAGOSHIMA, BEPPU, HIROSHIMA, OSAKA, SHIMIZU and TOKYO. Here are my questions, just to get the ball rolling: Does anyone have the Dailies from their cruise that they are willing to share? Does anyone have the tour prices. We know that prices will change by the time get there, but knowing the old prices helps with sticker shock. Where did they park the ship in each port. This will change from sailing to sailing but it is nice to know what the possibilities are? Was it convenient? Was there a shuttle available? Where did it take you? Which Viking tours did you take? What was the highlight of the tour? Where you happy with your choice or in hindsight should you have made a different choice? Is there anything in the port that you regret not having done or would have done instead of what you did do? What is the best piece of advice you have to share with us? To those who are booked for the coming months, please join the conversation. The more the merrier. Ask questions. Voice your concerns. Share a link to your roll call.