SoBaycruiser

Barbara, It’s the people who were suppose to get on the ship after you that are upset that they haven’t been kept informed. Until a few hours ago they had received nothing from Viking. They only knew what you all were reporting from the ship. That wasn’t fair to them.

In the “Before You Go” link there is another “Comfort check in” link that only works about 30 days beforehand. In the check in they give specifics about the picture. Here’s what it says. Please upload a photo to be used as your picture ID onboard. The photo must be a head shot only, facing forward and looking directly at the camera. Do not upload a scan or picture of your passport or any other photo ID. If the photo provided does not meet the requirements your boarding process could be delayed and a new photo taken. The maximum dimensions are 45mm high x 35mm wide (passport size). Maximum file size allowed is 15MB in gif, heic, jpeg, jpg, png, and webp format only.

Perfect! Thanks!

The instructions are so specific for taking the photo ID picture about size. How does one know the dimensions when taking a picture with your phone and cropping to a head shot? It must be easy but they’ve made it sound difficult.

When we went to Greenland on an expedition cruise they recommended merino wool or smart wool socks. We had a combination of both… a thin Marino wool liner sock and then a heavier sock of either smart wool or merino over it. (DH had one and I had the other). Worked great for us.

Hi from another Californian! We have been discussing clothing on our Mar 8 Roll Call and I think it does make a difference that you aren’t going on any of the Chasing NL tours. The most important thing is to bring layers rather than one big heavy item. Looking at the projected temperature in Feb for Alta the HIGHs range from in the high 30s to 16F and that’s the daytime. And if the lights appear at night you will be going out on deck in the cold …albeit for a shorter time than the tours. I think you can’t go wrong with a base layer… Marino wool top and bottom (basically long underware). Follow that with a mid layer… heavier pants and maybe a fleece top or sweater. As an outer layer I’m bringing windproof /waterproof pants. The wind proof is important if you are out on the deck of a moving ship. The jacket should be warm … I’m actually bringing a down long sleeve puffy that I can wear inside my waterproof jacket… but I’m doing the NL tours. BRING hand warmers if you are bringing lightweight gloves. If you aren’t bring boots, try waterproofing your shoes as the streets could be slushy. it sounds like I know what I’m doing. I’m just going from an experiences above the Arctic Circle during June when it was warmer. Plus, coming from So Cal I’m not use to the cold so I want to be prepared.

Since TV announcements are currently being used on the Venus for northern lights sightings, it is obviously something that can be done in general if enough people ask.

Thank you! I plan to have a terrific time.

I am a Viking newbie about to take my first Viking Ocean cruise. I expect the experience once on board to be outstanding from all the comments everyone has written about. I am looking forward to our cruise. But the pre-cruise experience is not very good for first timers because of lack of early information. After 18 cruises with 5 different companies, we are used to seeing the excursions posted many months ahead with much more information. For example, I have a cruise booked 8 months from now with another company and I can look at all the excursions, their price, and specifics of the excursion, not just a generic overall description. I can book them now regardless of room class. For those who have cruised with Viking before, you know that you will probably get into the specialty restaurant once on board… despite no more reservations being taken through MVJ. To the newbie, who gets that message at the first opportunity to make a reservation… it’s stressful. Same with the excursions being full prior to one getting an opportunity to book them. Everyone here has assured me it will all work out. But I don’t think a company should have to rely on its previous passengers to inform/calm new passengers. As I said, I am looking forward to this cruise. I WANT to fall in love with Viking. We like small ships and it’s one of the reasons we have cruised on different companies ( following the sale of the R-ships). Please don’t blast me for pointing out where I think Viking can improve.

I did ask a couple private ones and they said depending where they went to find the lights, there may or may not be facilities.

May I ask a delicate question? I understand the private chasing tours usually have no toilet facilities. Do people just find a tree to step behind.. and what do women do? Finally, do the people have to stand around when not traveling around in a vehicle? Is there any place to sit? We have very small foldable camp seats that fit in a backpack. We’d rather not bring them, but our back starts talking to us after we’ve been standing for a while.

Thank you! This was very helpful. As a first time Viking cruiser, I’d like to know more about the wine tastings. Where would I find that on the app… On board experiences?

Dining reservations are suppose to open today at 8pm Pacific Time for our Mar 8 cruise for DV rooms. I had heard sometimes they open early so I checked at 7am (13 hours early) and Manfredi’s says “reservations available aboard ship”. There was one Chef’s table available but during our favorite excursion. So having read this thread, I didn’t panic. I know everyone says no problem just get a reservation when you board. But on our cruise reservation we were given a boarding time of 2pm. Again I assume based on cabin class. It would seem there would be little left by that time. Can we arrive earlier to board the ship then our assigned time?

As I said, my observations are based on my pre-cruise experience. It is not meant as a criticism to any passengers. It’s just how Viking has made me feel prior to the trip. I really hope your comments are correct because I really do want to love Viking.

We have only sailed Azamara and are booked on a Viking NL trip in March, so I can only compare the pre sailing experience. I have to disagree with Uktog’s comment that Viking is one class. To me, money speaks. If you’ve paid for a more expensive room you get first choice at the excursions. Some are totally sold out before DV passengers even have a chance to book. And then there is the specialty restaurant reservations. Higher paying customers have been known to book many reservations so they have the “option to choose” and cancel later. Again leaving the “lower class” passengers without reservations until they board the ship. To me, there should be a limit on how many reservations can be prebooked. It wouldn’t bother me if higher cost rooms were given two reservations and DV And V rooms 1. Let everyone get at least one reservation and the remainder can then be up for grabs. That to me is a one class experience. We have been big fans of the R ships because of their size and our love for the lounge on deck 10 because we have opted more for scenic oriented cruises rather than port intensive. It was Viking’s two story lounge which enticed us to try them. We really want to love Viking. We’ve heard great things about it. But so far the experience has been much more stressful than with Azamara.

As the OP I want to thank everyone who was so helpful. I still stumbled some but I got the excursions I wanted except for the time on the last included excursion. Had I not prioritized and done them individually I would not have gotten the one most important to us as it showed full at the end of bookings. I made up a list for first timers that summarizes a lot from this thread the a couple details that caused me problems. This is what I learned from the process: (I used the MVJ app with an IPad) A) Register beforehand an account for direct payment if speed is important to you. B)Registering a credit card for on board payments doesn’t help with excursion payments during this early booking time. You will have to enter the info again. After the excursions become available: C) select your excursion and select each persons name who is going on the tour and select the same time for each. Put EACH name into the cart individually. D) go to the cart. If you’ve registered a bank account that method will be PRE-selected. If you choose to use that method, be sure to look below at the drop down box that says “accounts”. This allows you to select the specific account the money will be taken from. Then you can select to pay. (Since I had uploaded only one account, I didn’t pay attention to that drop down box and couldn’t make the payment because I hadn’t selected an account). Using the direct payment from an account is the fastest way to check out . E) since I had trouble with the direct payment, I went to the credit card payment. I had entered my credit card into auto fill to make it faster for checkout. It turns out that the expiration date is from drop down menus so Autofill didn’t help. Maybe it would on a desktop computer. Basically I had to enter everything by hand except the credit card account number and my name. I then went back and selected the next excursion. This time I saw the “accounts” box and so the direct payment went very quickly. caveat: I might add that this was for a northern lights trip and everyone going has one thing in mind… to see the northern lights… hence causing all this competition for the spots. Another venue may not have this demand for tours.

thanks! Great suggestions.

I really appreciate all the help and understanding. I wasn’t really panicked until I saw that two of the excursions are already sold out before the DV rooms have a chance to book. We are going on a Northern Lights trip and because of our age, we are somewhat limited to what we feel we can do. We aren’t feeble by any means but this trip has been postponed due to COVID and those couple of years had made a difference. Thanks again. I’m ready!

Another question: I have now accepted that I’ll have to do the electronic payment to be faster. I am booking the excursions for both my husband and myself. When I add the electronic payment method they asked whose name is on the account. It’s actually both of ours but they only let me choose one. So I chose mine. Do I have to add the same account again with my husbands name or is the one account good for payment for both? I have cruised other lines many times and I don’t ever remember having to prepay for excursions. This sure complicates things.

It is registered for on board payments. So you are agreeing with OneSixtytoOne that I have to enter it at check out time.

Can that be avoided if I enter the direct bank account info?

Tomorrow I can finally pre-book excursions. I prefer to pay by credit card rather than directly from my bank account (despite the discount). On My Viking app under Cart and Payments, I have added our credit card under the “on-board” payments. I am assuming I can use it as payment for the excursions now prior to boarding. Am I correct? I won’t be asked to input the information again during checkout, right? I don’t want that added delay. I find it confusing as a first timer.

For us first timers that’s a disappointment. I was looking forward to those shows. I understand for those of you who continued to cruise during the pandemic want something fresh. I just hope they can replace it with something from the same musical era.

Thanks, that is very helpful. Just to be sure I understand you , by saying “call for a taxi straightaway”, you mean calling at the moment we need it rather than arrange a pickup time ahead, correct?

Thanks! I think that would work. We could keep contact with the car service the day we arrive and arrange a taxi from our hotel to the ship the next morning… all within 24 hrs.