Dukefan

The voucher is used when you book the trip not when you travel.   You can travel later than the two years but you need to book your trip and therefore use the voucher before the two years.  I disagree with Duquephart on this - if you ask eight different Viking Reps on this issue, they will all give you the same answer.   There are other questions that you can ask where you might get different answers but not this one.

CCWineLover,

I like your CruiseCritic handle as well as your home city.  We are also wine lovers and go on tasting trips regularly from our home in North Carolina.  We have been to Paso Robles for tastings twice in the past five years.  Love the area and winemakers there.  It reminds us of Sonoma thirty years ago and Napa forty five years ago before they got over run with tourist.  I liked your addition to my post.  The "from-to" information in the title would also be useful.   Cheers!

Many folks only put the name of their ship and the date of the cruise in the title when starting a Roll Call for a Cruise.   Please also include the name of the cruise (i.e Alaska and the Inside Passage or Mediterranean Odyssey or Vikings Homelands, etc.).   There are many of us that like to review the posts from a past or upcoming Roll Call on a cruise we have scheduled to get ideas for our cruise.   By including the cruise name along with the ship and cruise dates, it makes it significantly easier for folks to do this. Thanks to those of you that already follow this practice.

It currently appears five of the six of Viking Ocean Ships are docked in Norway.

·       Viking Star - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sun - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Jupiter - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Sky - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sea - docked at Kristiansund, Norway

·       Viking Orion – is currently in the Malacca Straight headed for Mumbai with a scheduled June 6 arrival there.   I, of course, have no clue where it is ultimately headed but if I was to guess, I would think that it was headed to join the rest of the fleet in Norway.

I am using CruiseMapper (https://www.cruisemapper.com/) .  It is free but the data can lag sometimes up to 24 hours. 

On 5/18/2020 at 11:09 AM, Dukefan said:

It currently appears five of the six of Viking Ocean Ships are docked in Norway.

 

·       Viking Star - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sun - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Jupiter - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Sky - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sea - docked at Kristiansund, Norway

·       Viking Orion – is currently setting in the harbor near Singapore

No change in this status.   This map of the Viking Orion's location over the last week or so while it is awaiting orders gives new Covid-19 Cruise Ship meaning to going in circles 🙂 !

It currently appears five of the six of Viking Ocean Ships are docked in Norway.

·       Viking Star - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sun - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Jupiter - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Sky - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sea - docked at Kristiansund, Norway

·       Viking Orion – is currently setting in the harbor near Singapore

It currently appears four of six of Vikings Ships are docked in Norway.

·       Viking Star - has left Tilbury, UK after being docked there for several weeks and appears to be headed to Alesund, Norway to join the Viking Sky.

·       Viking Sun - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Jupiter - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Sky - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sea - docked at Kristiansund, Norway

·       Viking Orion – Has turned around in Bali and appears to be headed back to Singapore.

It currently appears five of six of Vikings Ships are currently docked in the UK (1 Ship) or Norway (4 Ships).   

·       Viking Star - docked at Tilbury, UK

·       Viking Sun - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Jupiter - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Sky - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sea - docked at Kristiansund, Norway

·       Viking Orion – Has turned around in Bali and appears to be headed back to Singapore.

The Viking Orion crew over the past month has been doing its own tour of the Indian Ocean and Java Sea with stops in Melbourne, Singapore, Jakarta, Bali? (Couldn’t tell if it actually stopped their) and now back toward Singapore.   It has been interesting to watch. It kind of reminds me of the old Boll Weevil folk song lyrics “Looking for a home”!

As I said earlier, I wish someone on board was posting daily highlights like Andy and Judi (Heidi13) did on the World Cruise!

Betting on Viking with a 14% plus annual return on your loan is hard to turn down, especially since it is loan with the river ships as collateral and then you add the fact that I believe in their product.   The five year payout also helps.  Looking forward to seeing what the actual bond rate ends up being.

6 hours ago, duquephart said:

Desperation?

I don't think so.   It is a five year bond to bridge the period between now and when they can sail again.  It is for $600 million which is significantly less than either Carnival's or NCL's bonds.   The interesting thing was that their cost during this down time is $70 million a month, much less than I would have guessed especially since they are paying many of their folks that are home partial wages.  It appears to me from reading the details included in the Bloomberg and WSJ articles, that they will probably weather this event.

It currently appears five of six of Vikings Ships are currently docked in the UK (1 Ship) or Norway (4 Ships).   

·       Viking Star - docked at Tilbury, UK

·       Viking Sun - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Jupiter - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Sky - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sea - docked at Kristiansund, Norway

·       Viking Orion – Has departed Jakarta and is head for Bali  

The Viking Orion crew over the past month has been doing its own tour of the Indian Ocean and Java Sea with stops in Melbourne,  Singapore, Jakarta and soon Bali.   It has been interesting to watch. Wish someone on board was posting daily highlights like Andy and Judi (Heidi13) did on the World Cruise!

21 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

We have until May 20 to cancel our September 21 cruise from Venice and get a full cash refund. We are canceling today as we are not willing to wait for VO to cancel the cruise and try to give us a FCV that may be worthless if VO doesn't stay in business. It has been all over the new today that NCL is about to either file bankruptcy or cease operations and I believe they also own Oceania as well. All of those people holding FCV for canceled cruises from NCL may be screwed if this happens.  

 

How long has it been taking to get cash refunds back from VO?

 

Thanks,

NCLHC operates Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas in addition to Norwegian Cruise Lines.  Since NCLHC is a holding company, I am uncertain of the NCL bankruptcy concern's on Oceania and Regent Seven Seas if all three cruise lines are independent subsidiaries of NCLHC. 

Viking is showing all cruises to Alaska ans the Inside Passage for 2020 "Sold Out".      The last time this happened they canceled to cruises.   Does anyone know what's happening?

32 minutes ago, Captain_Morgan said:

Dukefan - I don’t disagree that cost associated with repatriation is no doubt a major factor in the decision making process and even with parked planes I don’t see the charter angle being ‘cheap’ even for massive numbers of crew, hence the reason ships are sailing now from North America to SE Asia full of crew.  
 

Was this sailing repatriation ‘late’ in comparison..yes..but as I’ve said at the end of the day every line including Viking is going to be subject to red tape and with the majority of ships returning to US ports to disembark passengers it only stands to reason that they remained there in the hopes they could shift the crew as well.  Could they have sailed to Europe in the hopes of finding an ‘open’ country and port to disembark their 20k crew?  Possibly, but when all companies are cautiously optimistic that their future itineraries will resume they’re not going to be thousands of miles away from where their ‘next’ itinerary is going to be.

Unfortunately for them the CDC dropped the hammer and all of those other ships that weren’t infected got tarred with the same brush as those that had positive cases.  Now what might the tone be if/when Viking reports their first case...

Viking and every cruise ship can get a case.    When Viking does and it more than likely eventually will, the test will be how they deal with it and what steps they take to control it and protect the passengers and crew.   

My point in mentioning that Viking did not have a case was only to point out that I believe that probably made it easier to negotiate the maze they had to go through with various government authorities to repatriate their crew and fly them home.   I saw where Carnival is gathering their ships near Bahamas  to transport their crew to their homes.  They will use tenders to move crew to the ship headed to their home location and then using several of their ships with North America based crew transport crew to Asia, Africa, Europe, India and Latin America.    The summary I read said that 10,000 of their crew members had already been flown home and that this operation would transport another 10,000 of their crew.   Another 6,000 of their crew were being repatriated from Australia and Long Beach on Charter flights and by ship.  The remaining 3,000 of their 29,000  crew members will remain on board there ships to maintain them until cruise operations restart.

Captain_Morgan - I agree with most of what you say in the most recent post.   

I do think, however, with so many planes parked and airlines really hungry for sales that chartering planes to take 20,000 crew home would allow a major cruise line with the desire to do so to move more crew home at a lower cost per crew member than Viking.   Also, Viking never had a reported case of Covid-19 on any of its Ocean Cruise Ships (which was not the case with many of the larger cruise lines you reference) and most of the ships had traveled more than 14 days before they reach a crew disembarkation port without any new folks getting on the ship except for pilots. Furthermore, Viking had a quarantine process for crew that came in contact with pilots when they came on board.   This I believe could help with the repatriation of crew when dealing with the various government authorities.   

Captain_Morgan - You have an interesting perspective.   That said,  even though the the University of Washington Covid-19 projection model has British Columbia 7 days past its peak of hospitalizations and has Alaska 27 days past its peak of hospitalizations, I agree that the Alaska cruise season is very 'iffy".   We will find out more over the next couple of months.  In any case Vikings ships have to be some where and Alaska is as good a place as any other, maybe even better.  Their Covid-19 numbers are significantly lower than most other places.  

It has been posted by folks on several of the Cruise Critic sites about Viking being able to disembark their non-essential crew to return home by sources that I consider creditable.  You may not regard them as such, that is of course your choice.  I'm not sure I fully understand your logic that getting crew home from 6 ships (disregarding their 75+ river ships) is significantly easier than 18 ships, since it is managed on a ship by ship basis.  The larger companies that you believe under the circumstances are doing as good a job as Viking, all have more ocean cruise line experience and a significantly larger staff with resources in many more ports.   With this, I have not seen anything that says that they are handling this situation well as Viking.

I, like many other Viking Passengers, am an experienced cruiser  having cruised on many on the other cruise lines.  I currently happen to believe that the Viking experience for the dollar paid is the best I have found.   I had two cruises with them booked for this year and they have worked with me fairly in delaying both these cruises.   I have had great experiences on several non-Viking cruises, which is why we enjoy our cruise vacations.   If Viking would go away, I would return to several of these other lines, but until I find a more customer focused cruise line with equal value I will be cruising Viking if they are going to the places we wish to travel.

Captain_Morgan - I do not know for sure but I would think that Viking let its non-essential crew disembark and head home during the extended period it was docked in Melbourne, Australia.    I would also believe the stop in Singapore is to refuel and restock before heading on to the US/Alaska and that no crew will be leaving or getting on the Orion while it is in Singapore.   Even though the fact that Viking is smaller than some of the other Ocean Cruise Lines, it does not take away from the very positive way they have treated their passengers and crew.  For example, Viking sailed their ships to places they could disembark their non-essential crew so they could get home before heading to a location to park their ships during this period of cruise uncertainty Their priorities, their attention to detail and the way they have managed this situation has been impressive. 

I use cruisemapper.com and it showed the Orion 20 mile NE of Pulau Bawean Island traveling NW at 12 knots at 23:06 April 27 (11:06 AM April 27 EDT) in Moderate Breeze and Calm Seas.  Temperate is 84 degrees F (28.9 degrees C). 

Update (4/25/2002):  It currently appears five of six of Vikings Ships are currently docked in the UK (1 Ship) or Norway (4 Ships).   

·       Viking Star - docked at Tilbury, UK

·       Viking Sun - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Jupiter - docked at Kristiansand, Norway

·       Viking Sky - docked at Alesund, Norway

·       Viking Sea - docked at Kristiansund, Norway

·       Viking Orion - South of Indonesia and appears to be headed Northeast

When you purchase anything, you purchase it because you either need it or because you consider it good value for your money.    A cruise is something you probably only purchase when you consider it good value for your money.   So basically once you have decided that it is a good value and you purchased it, why would you drive yourself crazy wondering if someone else got a better price? 

There is probably not a thing that I ever purchased in my life that someone, somewhere didn't probably get for a lower price either because of timing, or a sale, or whatever.  If my goal was to not buy anything until I was sure that I had the lowest price, I would waste a lot of my valuable time and never end up buying anything.  So my advice is when you find something that you consider a good value for your money, buy it and don't look back.  

Five of the six Viking Ocean ships are currently docked:

Viking Star - currently docked at Tilbury, UK

Viking Sun - currently docked at Kristiansand, Norway

Viking Jupiter - currently docked at Portmouth, UK

Viking Sky - currently docked at Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Viking Sea - currently docked at Kristiansund, Norway

Viking Orion - currently Northwest of Australia headed North toward Indonesia

22 minutes ago, jebbs said:

Could someone who knows the 8 Canadians find out, did they in fact leave London Heathrow?  As I look at British Airways flights for today, Saturday, April 11, flight to Vancouver was cancelled, as were the two daily flights to Toronto.  Were they flying by commercial flights or were they on charters? Really hope they aren’t stuck at the airport.

Here’s  hope I’m wrong!!!!!

I think Heidi13 (Judy and Andy ) said that they were flying to Vancouver on Air Canada.   If so, Air Canada Flight 855 left LHR at 2:00 PM (London Time) and as of 4:00 PM (EDT) is due to arrive at YVR at 3:26 PM (Vancouver Time) which is 14 minutes ahead of schedule.

56 minutes ago, eog said:

It heading for Kristiansund, the same town where Viking Sky was repaired after the Hustadvika accident🙂. 

eog,

Good catch!  Thanks.

22 minutes ago, Captain_Morgan said:

I have absolutely no doubt that Viking's ships are more efficient than older models being run by the likes of Carnival, etc. but that said I can also say that Carnival owns the majority if not all of their ships outright which I don't think can be said for Viking, hence their heavily leveraged position as has been mentioned multiple times.

 

 

I believe you were the one that estimated Viking's debt to equity ratio as 0.73. and in another responding post another poster quoted from Moody's the debt to equality ratio's as follows:

Carnival Corp had a ratio of 0.38 

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings had a ratio of 0.93

Royal Caribbean had a ratio of 0.74

From this limited data in appears Carnival has significantly better debt to equity than any of the other cruise lines, Viking's debt to equity appears to be competitive with every other cruise line accept Carnival.  However, the Carnival portfolio of companies has been hardiest hit of any of the companies by the negative publicity of this virus situation as they have had significantly more cases of the virus and deaths from the virus than all the other cruise companies put together.  I believe this concern is one of the reasons behind Carnival's recent borrowing of approximately $5 billion which is not included in its debt to equity ratio above,   Again, I'm still betting on Viking.