Hawkmoth

I have a different take on Tortola. Found it to be one of the more interesting islands. We hired a local cab driver to give us a tour. No time whatsoever at Pusser's Landing which is basically a tourist trap. And exactly the sort of thing a big bus tour would hit. Yuk. I don't do big bus tours. Our cab driver gave us an excellent feel for the history of the island.

Thanks for that perspective. I wish we had done the same. On this cruise, we went with the flow, not wanting to invest a lot of time planning for ourselves. Your experience shows why it makes sense to do that.

I have not been on the Viking Homelands cruise, but we have been on two other Viking Ocean cruises, both of which we enjoyed a lot. But I would say your impression of the included excursions is reasonably accurate. They are pretty superficial. I would say this is a weak point for Viking overall. We have more limited experience with the paid excursions, but ones we have taken have been more satisfying.

You will surely receive other replies that are more specific to the Homelands cruise.

cruiserlove - You will surely be among the very youngest passengers. We've done two Viking cruises now, and I'd say the average ages range well into the 60s. If you are traveling with others, that may be no issue. And we fit the age profile ourselves. But I thought this is something you should be aware of. I don't see why age has to be an issue for anyone, but I am aware that it is for some. Most fellow travelers will be well seasoned and interesting.

I cannot recall any port that did not have shopping right off the ship. But mostly that is the ubiquitous Diamonds International and the like, organized in a "mall" obviously built to engage disembarking cruisers.. We did visit a local fruit, vegetable, and fish market withing a block or two of the ship in Guadeloupe, but otherwise, I don't have much help to offer you. You will likely have to get off the regular path to get away from the usual stuff.

Deleted. Just realized I was reading a thread for NCL, so my previous comments aren't relevant. Just started using the mobile CC app, which didn't make that clear.

No photos are allowed in the Sistine Chapel. Silence is also required, but the requirement is blatantly ignored. Minders spend most of their time loudly calling, "Silence -- No Photos," further breaking the mood. Worth seeing, of course, but not a pleasant visit.

Is there any of the islands that you felt like you wouldn't have minded missing the included tour?

We recently returned from this trip too. Looking back, I thought Tortola in the British Virgin Islands was least interesting. There, the included tour "featured" an hour-long stop at Pusser's Landing, for shopping and buying a drink, which I thought was mostly wasted time. But that was the first port of call, so not much use in creating your own sea day in the middle of the cruise, at least if you experience the same order of ports. I think Barbados was an island I would have been most disappointed to miss. Our experience with Guadeloupe was unusual in that we did the Kitchen Table that day and did not see any of the island other than the local fish, fruits, and vegetable market. The rest of the day for us was like a sea day. But remember, as others have said, there are few organized activities on ship while in port.

The map showing the itinerary in the catalog showed a different order for the ports than we actually experienced. So you may need to consider what to skip after your receive your cruise documents.

Kath -- The paid tour that involved more effort than we thought was described was on St. Lucia, where we took Historical Creole Traditions. Only one of us made the climb to the fort, and I didn't think the effort was worth it. On rereading the detailed description, I see that is does say the tour requires walking over mixed terrain. I didn't think that accurately described the climb. I will say that we really enjoyed the rest of this tour, though. The main attraction was a stop at an agriculturall community, where we were shown the crops, given a cassava bread making demonstration, and had a brief opportunity for Creole dancing.

One of the highlights of this cruise for us was the entertainment in Torshavn each night by Speedy and Cristina, accompanied by Oaseas.

Good addition. We didn't visit Torshavn this trip. We did on our earlier Norwegian cruise for the Rat Pack Revue. That wasn't so great on that cruise, but it would depend a lot on who the performers were.

The Cruise Critic Editor's review of the Viking Star is pretty complete and accurate in our experience recently. It applies equally to the Sea, which we used last summer. Click here to go directly to it.

Here is the text of my review, in case this is easier to use:

This marks our second Viking Ocean cruise. We took Into the Midnight Sun on Viking Sea in June, 2016. I wrote a review of that trip for Cruise Critic in late June, 2016. We were very happy with that cruise overall, but there were some irritations reflected in my previous review. I am happy to report than none of those irritations afflicted our latest trip. Viking is evidently working on its processes, and I have little critical to say about our second experience.

We chose this itinerary for three reasons. It took us to parts of the Caribbean that we had not seen before, it was a good time to leave the cold in the US Midwest, and and we prefer small to medium sized ships.

Summary: The ships are beautiful, comfortable, and well laid out. The staff is first rate and happy, so the service is great. Food is about as good as we’ve had on shipboard. Excursions were well run. We will be happy to use Viking Ocean in the future.

The Ship: The Viking Star is virtually indistinguishable from the Viking Sea. Boarding was like returning home. We knew where everything was as soon as we arrived. Only the art is different. On the Sea in Norway last June we had a Deluxe Veranda stateroom, and we found it very comfortable. This time we booked a Penthouse Veranda, a bit larger. The extra space was welcome. The closet is more conveniently located, and there was more room to move around without stumbling into each other or the furniture. In the PV the desk is longer and there is more drawer space; we did not fill up the drawers this time. The builtin mirror in the PV works better than in the DV. In the DV on the Sea, the mirror didn’t tilt back far enough for applying makeup, unless the user slouched. That was not the case with the PV room; perhaps the desk is wider too. Otherwise, the accommodations are almost the same in both categories, including the best cruise ship bathrooms we've experienced. We enjoyed this room very much. We would have booked a Deluxe Veranda, but there were none available by the time we signed up. Having experienced the upgrade, I’m sure the next time we sail on one of these ships, we will strongly consider the Penthouse Veranda. A bit of a splurge, but we felt it was still a good value.

Itinerary: There are no sea days on this itinerary. We had never been to any of the West Indies ports before, other than San Juan, where the cruise began and ended. To some extent, though, the islands we visited began to blur in our minds. Most are similar in geology, and all are heavily dependent on tourism. No real regrets on this score, but it seems worth noting the relative similarity of many of the port calls.

Excursions: We were unhappy with the organization of the excursions on our Norwegian trip last summer. We were very happy to find that those kinks did not apply on this trip. The excursions staff was very efficient, as were the local tour operators. In Norway, schedule changes were made without notice or communication, and the excursions desk was mobbed the first few days with passengers trying to straighten things out with their excursions. On this trip, there was one time change from our advance reservation on an optional (paid) tour, but this time there was plenty of advance notice in a letter explaining why the change was necessary and offering the option to cancel if the new time wasn’t satisfactory. Communication is everything when such things happen, and Viking now is communicating effectively.

With four exceptions, we used the included tours. As others have noted, these usually were narrated rides through the countryside, with the occasional photo stop and some shopping once in awhile. The guides were variable. These tours came to blend together, which probably explains why we thought many of the islands were so similar to each other. We abandoned our included tour on the last day of the trip in favor of going to town on our own on St. Thomas and getting local fare for lunch.

The optional tours were more focused and more informative. We learned more about local culture during those outings. I won’t list them individually, but I will note that one of the optional tours, described as requiring moderate activity, included a stop to see a fort that required a very steep climb that we regarded as strenuous. One of the guides obviously wasn’t happy about making the trek herself. Otherwise the excursions were accurately described.

Our real excursion highlight was The Kitchen Table. This is an expensive optional excursion, limited to 12 guests (10 this time). On Guadeloupe we walked to the local market with the ship’s executive chef, Martin, where he selected some supplies for the evening’s dinner. This took a little more than an hour, and it provided welcome local color. At 6:00 we met again in the Kitchen Table space, behind the specialty restaurants. After a galley tour, Chef Martin prepared a six course meal for the group as we watched and had pleasant conversation about the food and how it was being prepared. The ship’s head sommelier was there the entire time as well, pouring and explaining a different high-end wine with each course. As much wine as we wanted was provided. We really enjoyed ourselves, but this wouldn’t be for anyone who prefers dinner in the World Café (cafeteria) every night.

Shipboard Programming: There were two enrichment lecturers who gave three talks each during the cruise, providing perspective on the history, culture, and geology of the region. Six singers and a pair of dancers formed the main entertainment troupe, accompanied by a resident band, the Oaseas — either a clever name or a groaner, depending your taste in puns. The evening shows included some repeats from Norway. There were also a solo pianist, a solo guitarist, and a classical trio, all of whom provided pleasant performances in the smaller spaces on the ship each day. The cruise director did a variety show of his own one evening in the main theater. The performers were fine, but you won’t find the big productions that large ships afford — okay with us.

Service: The staff were cheerful and extraordinarily helpful. We were happy to find that some staff we came to know last summer on the Sea were now on the Star, including our favorite waiter in the Restaurant. Eric took very good care of us, and he always had great recommendations about what we should order. On the last night he simply told us he was going to order for us, fun. There was a problem with breakfast in our stateroom one morning — it arrived late and there was only one meal, instead of the two we ordered. We sent it back and hurried up to the World Café to get fed before our excursion departed. That night the restaurant manager sought us out at dinner and apologized in person. Human nature sometimes causes errors, but in this case they did not just ignore it, and we appreciated the acknowledgement. I wrote a comment on the mid-cruise questionnaire about having trouble hearing narration over engine noise on one of the excursions; that prompted a phone message to our stateroom thanking me tor the input. We came away feeling extremely positive about how we were treated. We genuinely felt listened to, and we enjoyed all the cheerful service.

Viking Ocean Cruises has a first class product and real value. We certainly will look forward to using them again, when the time and itinerary are next right for us.

We took Viking Star on the West Indies Explorer itinerary January 26-Feb 5. My review of our experience was recently posted. Click here to go directly to it.

The short summary is that we had a great experience, and some of the things that weren't working quite right during Into the Midnight Sun on the Sea last June were working well on this cruise. We like Viking Ocean a lot.

I'm happy to answer questions.

Huh? Did we sleep through a day? We were on the June 19th sailing and the only tender was in Edinburgh. What other port are you referring to?

We tendered in Geiranger too. But our cruise began on June 5 and ended June 19, when yours began. A French ship had the sea bridge described elsewhere in this thread when were were there. But there were enough tenders there, and the ride was brief. No complaints about that. Edinburgh was a problem mainly becuase there weren't enough tenders available to meet the demand created by the ship's own excursion schedule.

I agree that one shouldn't choose an itinerary solely based on whether tendering might be required.

The wifi coverage on the Viking Sea is very good, but the ship isn't always in a place where the wifi system can connect to the Internet. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's slow, and once in awhile there is no connection at all, even though the local wifi signal is strong.

What were your favorite ports, and which were your least favorite?

We didn't pick this cruise for the ports. We went mainly for the scenery. We enjoyed the novel trip to the North Cape quite a lot, even though the port itself has little to offer. I can't say any of the ports stood out one way or another. We aren't ardent shoppers, but I'd say if that's your goal, you might find things a little sparse. But don't rely only on my impressions. I'm sure others will feel differently.

You wouldn't happen to have anything that describes the excursions offered this year, would you?

Sorry, no. But since the itinerary isn't the same next year, I doubt what we experienced would be a very good guide.

Viking told me the docked in all ports. You said you tendered in Edinburgh. How was the tender?

My review described our reaction to tending in Edinburgh. We didn't care for it. But tenders were used in another port too, and they worked better there.

Sometimes the port assigns ships in such a way that tenders become necessary, even if the line plans not to use them. Personally, I wouldn't pick a trip based on what might happen with tenders, even though I would also prefer not to use them if they could be avoided. I doubt that avoiding them altogether could be guaranteed anyway.

I wrote a review of our experience on this Viking Sea cruise: Great Ship, Excursions Not So Much

It is very hard to figure out what is going on with excursion time changes, but they happened to a group of eight of us traveling together for Into the Midnight Sun on Sea June 5-19. We all booked identical excursions and times on the web on the first day we were given access. One time change made an included tour overlap a optional one; that got fixed on board when we discovered the issue.

Our group didn't discover the roving excursions until one of us checked the schedule on the TV in the stateroom. Turns out, several changes had been made, including some during the cruise itself. On one day, we all just went at the originally scheduled time, even though two couples had been changed to a different time. The person checking tickets made a comment that some of us were early, but didn't stop any of us from going.

We also talked to a couple in a more premium cabin than ours who had access to booking 30 days before we did. When they booked, they said that no times were shown on the web, and when they got on board, they had no excursions scheduled at all.

The line at Guest Services on the first full day of cruising was very long!

We liked our cruise, but we will want to know that the excursion mess is cleared up before we would book another one.

In two weeks on the Viking Sea (into the Midnight Sun), the only sport coat I saw was the one I packed and seldom used. I did not see a cocktail dress. Very few men wearing ties either. Including at the Captain's welcome recoption in the theater.

Returned from Into the Midnight Sun last week. I agree with others that internet coverage was pretty uniform where ever we were on the ship, but there were periods when there was no internet connection anywhere on the ship. The wifi itself was always there, just not always connected externally.

Our stateroom was midship on deck 5, but on the opposite side from the laundry. Although this surely isn't definitive, I didn't overhear any complaints about noise from the laundry during the cruise.