doglover3

If the contactless methods one is carrying don't work, is it terribly inconvenient or time consuming to find a staffed booth to pay manually? I'm trying to figure out how much time to allow for a trip from Greenwich to Heathrow and I assume it will take longer (and cost more) if we can't use the contactless machines. Thanks.

We loved the World Cafe and yes there was table service for beverages and we just had the included beer and wine. The Restaurant was good but it took a very very long time because we did like to share a table...but sometimes over 2 hours was too much. Loved Manfredi's and ate there I think 6 or 7 times?? We were onboard for 3 weeks. The World Cafe was so so good...I have never eaten at a buffet so often (or ever for dinner) on a cruise. And we could join others if we wanted, there were large tables as well. Loved the made to order salads too, as well as the big variety. The menu on your TV shows what is available in the venues each night so you can choose where you want to go.

That's a great tip about checking the menu on your TV before you chose where to go for dinner. Or maybe it's just fun to see what they're serving! Thanks for all the information.

The senior rate (half the regular fare) is the best deal, if you qualify. I believe the age is 60-65. Since it is half off the normal rate, no need to book far in advance.

 

For 90 NOK additional you can book a higher class, which means free coffee and perhaps slightly better seats. I have heard it is worth it.

I got excited about the senior rate, if all you have to be is 60, as I will have just turned 60 before our cruise. Unfortunately, according to the NSB website, you must be over 67.

For the OP, you might find the thread Norway in a Nutshell helpful. We are also considering this train ride pre-cruise next summer. I have also found this thread to be useful, especially if you will be spending a little time in Oslo: Can Help with Q for Oslo if someone needs it.

Thanks for the great review. Sounds like we have lots to look forward to on our Viking Ocean cruise next summer. As much as we enjoy the entertainment on most cruiselines, it would almost be a relief to have an excuse to turn in early, as there seems to be frequent reasons to get up early! We often find ourselves burning the wick at both ends and wind up needing a vacation from our vacation.;)

If you're going to be cruising among the fjords (sailing out of Bergen sounds like you'll be doing a Hurtigruten trip?), you'll be seeing the fjords from the ship, so that part of the Nutshell trip is less crucial. I very much enjoy the rail trip on its own, so my vote would be that yes, it is still worth it (assuming you're traveling during daylight hours, which traveling in the summer you likely are). I like to watch out the window as the scenery transitions from city to suburb to farmland to forest, and then eventually you're up above the treeline with views of the surrounding mountains and maybe a glimpse of glacier around Finse.

Thank you for offering your opinion. We will do our best to fit the train into our itinerary. It sounds like the kind of trip we'd really enjoy. We leave from Bergen on a Viking Ocean trip.

I am trying to figure out whether to fly into Bergen or Oslo for our cruise next summer. The main reason I was going to Oslo was to take the train from Oslo to Bergen. We do not have time to do the full Nutshell. Is it worth going out of our way to simply take the train from Oslo to Bergen?

Guess I'll be bringing our own, but it will be nice to have the binoculars from the room for a backup. I don't want to have to bring two pairs, so DH and I can trade back and forth.

Sadness. Just checked. Last year there was a direct flight from Newark to Oslo. Doesn't look like that's still true. But I have found in the past that sometimes United changes their flights for reasons unknown. Adds them, deletes them. Who knows why. I booked a flight to Berlin in 2013 via Newark each way. And thought for sure when I wanted to do it again in 2015 it would still be possible. But I couldn't in late March when I booked it. 2 days later in April, the flight I wanted to Berlin via Newark reappeared. Same flight number. But it was too late, I'd already booked. So who knows? The advantage to going thru Newark rather than London, Munich or Frankfurt is that you don't go code shared on Lufthansa. But maybe you already know that. Good luck!

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Thanks again for your time and input. We have flown with codeshares before, on Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa, and I don't think that we noticed any problems. Maybe we just are not very savvy fliers (probably true). We don't usually try for any upgrades, so maybe that's why we don't really notice a difference. Both of those airlines have flights using United Miles to Oslo, as does Scandinavian Airlines, so I had hoped for one of those. I have since discovered that flights back from London to Dulles require more than twice as many miles, so we may not be able to do it anyway, since we don't have that many miles.:( Viking Air looks better all the time!

There is no direct flight from Dulles to Oslo. What you do is fly to Newark and from there to Oslo. We did that last year when we did Viking Homelands. We chose the noon flight to Newark and then doodled around Newark until our flight at 8. There's a later flight to Newark but knowing how bad things can be in Newark especially late in the day during the Summer, decided to play it safe. Hope this helps.

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Thanks for your suggestion. I will keep this in mind as I start to try to book next week using United Miles. It will be interesting to see what works out. I'm glad to have Viking Air on our reservation for a backup.

Roothy and Peregrina,

Thank you both for your input. I don't think we have the time to visit in Iceland on this trip. I think we'd rather spend an extra day in Bergen or maybe taking the train from Oslo, while we get over our jet lag. It's good to know that Icelandair would not be a terrible option, even if we didn't stay, though I'm hoping for a flight itinerary more like Peregrina's. If I can find the right flights on United, we hope to fly to Oslo with just one stop and back from London non-stop. Otherwise, maybe we'll take our chances with Viking. I'll have to compare that to the prices on Icelandair, since I think they would be considerably less than the promotion we got from Viking. I will be glad to have the flight plans settled, as I do not enjoy that part of the planning.

Thanks to those who responded to me. I've done my "homework" and Viking's price isn't a lot less than what I could get using Icelandair, which looks to be the worst option I could get for London, but decent for Bergen. (Yes, I know I could get just about any pair of flights.) However, with Icelandair, we'd be changing planes in Reykjavik (middle of trip), so I don't think I'd get much sleep. It's bad enough trying to sleep on a non-stop flight to Europe; I really don't want to make things even worse.

 

I'm planning to call Viking Air today to discuss what's available with Air Plus, but in the mean time, these are my questions:

 

1. I can choose to "not use" Viking arranged air up until final payment or some other time, right?

2. It's probably unlikely, but if I then ask for Air Plus and don't find the options right for my situation, I can just say no and they won't charge me for Air Plus, right?

3. About how long is that scenic train ride to Oslo, Jazzbeau? It's tempting me, as is staying in Reykjavik for a day on the way back from Bergen.....

4. Has anyone ever gotten a daytime flight overseas using Viking's regular air? There are a few, and I don't think I want those.

Roothy,

I don't know if you're still following this thread, but I wondered what you ended up doing about your air arrangements? We will be flying out of the same home area (Dulles is our preferred airport, but we can do the other two) and cruising Bergen to Greenwich Into the Midnight Sun. Did you wind up using Viking Air or book your own flights? Which airlines did you get and how were the flights? I will be starting to look at trying to use United Miles to book our flights, but Im' not sure that will work out and may winnd up with whatever Viking arranges for us. We've included the Viking Air, so I know we can still make our own arrangements until they ticket us. Thanks for all your input and advice on this and many other threads.

Lauri

For future Midnight Sun cruisers, if you'd like to look at the photos I took while on the cruise, here they are:

 

http://www.pbase.com/roothy123/london__greenwich_

http://www.pbase.com/roothy123/scotland_edinburgh_kirkwall_lerwick

http://www.pbase.com/roothy123/lofoten_islands_and_honningsvag

http://www.pbase.com/roothy123/tromso_

http://www.pbase.com/roothy123/midnight_sun__molde_geiranger_bergen

http://www.pbase.com/roothy123/iceland__into_the_midnight_sun (note we did NOT do Viking's extension, but rather did Iceland on our own, using an Icelandair stopover)

 

You don't have to sign in or anything to view them, just go. You can double click to enlarge one, or run a slideshow, or just look at the "thumbnails" if your vision is great and your time ample. (I take a lot of pictures.)

Roothy--

Thanks for sharing your photos and commentary. They were wonderful! It gives me so much to look forward to next summer.

;);)

To add to Peregrina's answer, Explorer Suites and Penthouse Junior Suites have full sized binoculars (described by Viking as "Premium in-suite binoculars") instead of the compact ones shown in the picture above.

I can't imagine that we'll be lucky enough to go from our V1 GTY to a Penthouse Junior Suite, but that sure would be nice, for many reasons!:D

Yes, you can book when reservations open up for the class of cabin you have the guarantee for.

Thanks PatriciaF. I was beginning to think we might have made a mistake with the guarantee. It would be a little late to try to arrange private excursions if we had to wait until we are on the ship. We're fine with whatever cabin we get, just want to do the excursions from home.

Thanks everyone for your input. We may end up having to bring our own since we are in a V1 GTY, so we may not know if we've been upgraded until we get to the pier. I was just hoping to lighten our packing load, as we prefer to travel with carry-on only. I'm sure we will still be able to manage. Now we just have to hope that electronics are still allowed in carry-on! But that's another conversation!

CharTrav, if you get any additional input from Viking, I'd love to hear what they have to say. Thanks.

For those with guaranteed bookings, did you have any trouble getting the excursions you were interested in? Can the excursions only be booked with a cabin number, not a booking number? As we have a V1 GTY, I assumed we would be able to reserve excursions with the other veranda passengers, even if our cabin was assigned at the pier.

I understand that most of the cabins have binoculars. Are these for use on the ship only or can they be taken on excursions? Are there no binoculars in the V! and V2 cabins?

I am really enjoying these live reports, especially the information about the shore excursions. Many thanks!!! Glad to know that you can fit in the kayaking as well as the included tour in Geiranger, which is what we were considering. I hope all continue to have a great time.

Now that I've read this thread, I'm getting excited about our V1 GTY on the Sky next summer. We'll be happy with whatever we get. Being that we've only enjoyed a balcony cabin a couple of times, just having a balcony is a perk. But now I'll dream about the possibility of getting that upgrade! It is a special anniversary cruise for us, so that would be extra special.

It seems like everyone who has reported back got some sort of upgrade. Are there people who have gotten just what they were guaranteed?

Thanks for posting along your trip. It is exciting and helpful for those of us planning ahead. We will be heading the same direction in about a year, so I will follow closely.

As I've started to do my research, an item that seems to come up somewhat frequently is about how to get into town from the docking position - is a shuttle provided, can you walk, available taxis, etc? I have been reading some critical posts about Viking's docking location at Rosyth for Edinburgh and would be particularly interested in hearing about your experience there?

Have a wonderful trip. We'll hope for lovely weather.

I'd love to hear about any highlights, recommendations or other suggestions from folks who are experiencing this year's Midnight Sun itinerary and ports of call (in either direction) and/or shipboard experience on the new Viking Sky. We'll be sailing on the June 17 from Bergen and can't wait!

You should be sure to read and subscribe to all the roll calls for this itinerary, including reading some of the 2016 roll calls. There are a number of roll calls for 2017, some who are currently on their cruise and posting as their trip occurs. I count at least six 2017 roll calls for this itinerary, including the one you're on. You can find them fairly easily by doing a search in the Viking Ocean Roll Calls. I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time. Safe travels!

We will be doing a Viking Rhine River Cruise from Amsterdam to Basel with 2 pre-cruise days in Basel. Would like some feedback on Viking's optional excursions and any recommended 3rd party excursions. Some of Viking's optional excursions (the ones we are most interested in) are sold out. Haven't had great luck getting good feedback from Viking. For example when I asked will spots open up the response is: "It's difficult to say, keep checking back". Some questions for the board:

 

- Are the Viking optional tours worthwhile?

- Do the optional excursions cut into the included excursion times?

- Is it likely spots open up for these tours?

- Any recommendation for 3rd party tours and specific excursions? (Some claim higher quality tours than the river cruise providers)

You might try joining the roll call for "All Viking Rhine Getaway Cruises for 2016." It's a pretty active roll call, with people who have already returned from their trips and reported back, as well as folks still in the planning stages. We are getting ready to leave on our trip and have chosen to stick with the included excursions, and do some exploring on our own during the free time. I know others have done a variety of optional excursions and could better address your specific questions. Good luck with your planning and have a great time!

Kath- Good for you! Hope it works out. That would be a few less things to pack!:)

I'm looking for the new Freya products, not L'Occitane.

 

I was hoping to be able to buy some to try before our cruise in August. I have to make sure I don't have allergy issues before I leave my own at home. The L'Occitane was fine - no issues, so I thought I could do with that instead of bringing my own. Now I'm back to the drawing board!

My SIL, who has lots of allergies, was able to talk to a Viking rep and determine that she would be allergic, so she's taking her own. She has been tested, so she knows exactly what chemical components she's allergic to. You could try giving them a call, though I like the idea of asking if they'll send you a sample. Just so you don't wind up looking at the wrong product online, note that the Viking product is Freyja, with a "j" near the end.:) Maybe someone on our roll call could send you a photo of the ingredients? I can try to remember when we leave in a week and half, if that would help, though I tend to be very forgetful these days!:o

I'll second the CapitolOne Quciksilver card. No foreign transaction fees, 1.5% cash back, and it has always worked in all of our travels.

 

I can't speak to the CapitolOne debit card - probably best to contact CapitolOne directly about it. We use a cash management account at Fidelity and their debit/ATM card because there are no foreign transaction fees AND Fidelity reimburses us for the ATM fees charged by US and foreign banks.

We have the CapitalOne credit and debit card. We'll be taking the credit, but leaving the debit at home. Our branch quoted us a $2 fee for the ATM plus a 3% conversion fee. I think there are better debit cards to use.