Clay Clayton

Delicious Indian breakfast this morning-understand some of the culinary geniuses bought authentic Indian ingredients while we were in Cochin-Kochi. Then it was laundry time followed by our third crossing of the equator-one to go!

@Penspack this made me think of you!

According to the new Edgar (Amon?) at Verity’s KoffeeKlatch, 141 are off on the overland so there are 447 onboard for the next five days…with 463 crew so private yacht ratio!

Cochin/Kochi today-hotterenhell but interesting. Lots of guests doing the overland trip-six buses we were told. Numbers of participants has varied from 90-150. Guess we will see tomorrow just how empty the ship feels. While I hate we are missing our planned independent excursion to the Taj Mahal, I’m not sure I could deal with six days of this heat without the Sky’s air conditioning to come back to😂. Hope our Neptune friends get their yellow bindi like we did and that unlike mine which sweated off quickly, it lasts awhile!

Loved seeing all the senior crew create a canopy for guests up the gangway yesterday when the monsoon season started early just as the last excursions were coming back.

We didn’t see any elephants on the beach. #NeptuneGetsEverything 😂

Mesh, damn wifi-couldn’t go back and correct. Meant to say as Hotel General Managsr, Mukesh is the big boss not Sam

Just FYI-as Hotel General Manager is just about everybody but the Captain’s boss.

Just FYI-as Hotel General Manager is everybody but the Captain’s boss.

I presume you have spoken to Makesh?

We did the optional tea excursion yesterday afternoon and evening after we arrived in Columbo about 2. It was interesting but the four hours sitting sideways in an uncomfortable van going and coming was a bit tiring. videos available on Instagram

Ours posted as a single entry of $540 (per person) rolled together with the $40 of unused nonrefundable excursion credit that Viking provide upon booking. We have been going back and forth since Jan 8th about this and finally this morning our TA informed us that Viking switched our September booked excursions which we “paid” for with the non refundable Viking credits, to being paid for with the refundable credits the TA directed Viking to apply to our account in December. Never had this issue before. I’ve asked the TA to try to get Viking to “switch”’it back🤞

Thanks- so I have not gone crazy and should continue to push for the refundable credits that we haven’t used to be available to us rather than the non-refundable ones they say we have after they “switched”’(their words per our TA) the excursions we booked last September using the WC excursion credits to have them paid for from the refundable credits our TA provided in December. Thanks for confirming I wasn’t loosing my mind.

From what friends who did it the other day, it’s not the ride that is tough, it’s the floating pier and having enough strength in your core that is really interesting! Good luck

Questions for fellow cruisers who used a Travel Agent who provided REFUNDABLE credits as a perk: 1. Did those refundable credits show up as refundable on your onboard account upon boarding? 2. Did Viking “switch” any excursions purchased with Viking provided non-refundable credits prior to embarkation and use the refundable credits instead? 3. If like us, this happened to you, have you had any luck in getting them to “switch” them back? TIA!

Questions for fellow cruisers who used a Travel Agent who provided REFUNDABLE credits as a perk: 1. Did those refundable credits show up as refundable on your onboard account upon boarding? 2. Did Viking “switch” any excursions purchased with Viking provided non-refundable credits prior to embarkation and use the refundable credits instead? 3. If like us, this happened to you, have you had any luck in getting them to “switch” them back? TIA!

He was MIA for about a week before Singapore and we were told a bad cold. He was taken ashore there for consultation and it was our understanding he expected to return to the ship. That didn’t happen and we were told he was he was in the hospital for treatment. Today at Verity’s first coffee chat, she said he was hoping for clearance to fly home to Florida on Friday.

None that I’ve been offered…but not sure I expect any since I’m staying aboard and getting world cruise just to different parts than I expected. Biggest difference is that rather than being about 50/50 old and new ports for us, it’s now about 80/20 new ports to old!😀

So it’s official, Bruce isn’t coming back🥲. Verity Brown was just introduced as our new Cruise Director. She said she had a message from Bruce earlier today and he is hopeful to get out of the hospital in Singapore on Friday. Wonder why they didn’t just make Roseanna the new CD?

Crazy! I for one hate to see most segmenters leave but there are a couple I’d gladly help pack😳. I’m sure there are also many on board who wouldn’t mind if I was leaving😂

Reminder time-if you’re able to have a FaceTime/Speaker phone call in a public area, it is also possible to have it in the privacy of your stateroom.

No but Frisky, sounds like a great idea, let us know when you have the spreadsheet ready for us to fill in! 😂

I have added a suggestion to my usual list of recommendations (I include this in the final survey) that port talks be taped and made available in MVJ for exactly the reasons CDNPolar mentioned. We happened to go to the Living Room after the port talk on Ho Chi Minh City and there was a line for Guest Services almost to the Chef’s Table podium. When I asked what was up, found out it was everyone who had heard about the difficulty in getting in and out of the tiny boats on the Mekong Delta as well as finding out how claustrophobic the tunnels were all trying to change their excursions. It sure would be easier for those who aren’t like us and go down a YouTube rabbit hole most nights (we watched 2 minutes of some 20 yo influencer’s video about the tunnel and KNEW it wasn’t for us😂), to be able to hear the port talk in advance.

There weren’t on Sky. No reason for Viking to encourage guests to leave. We didn’t need to discuss any details, but from what I could gather, it appeared that all financial arrangements for those who decided to leave would be handled by the “office after you return home”. Presumably a prorated return of the monies paid on a voucher, perhaps the WC credits also?🤔 I know that our friends who left were relatively pleased with the air arrangements and such so Viking appeared to be doing everything they could to make the guests happy

Wow-we had figured not as many would be leaving Neptune as have left us.