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I have not used a topper on a Viking bed; I didn’t think to ask for one, unfortunately. I am one of the people who find their beds too hard; my husband and I both woke up stiff and achy most mornings from the bed in our cabin on Viking Mars. Checking into our hotel in Norway afterward was a relief on that score. I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone who got a true topper from Viking, just an extra duvet or two. Bringing your own topper might give you peace of mind.

I would walk on hot coals for that Dole pineapple whip. 🍍 Fabulous!

Over on the Other Site that rhymes with LaceHook, a guy currently on Viking Orion, headed to Australia, Singapore, and Thailand, just posted a letter that came with the Viking Daily telling pax they’re reinstating the daily Covid spit tests. From the letter: “As we have learned in the past months, countries that are only beginning to allow foreign visitors again adjust their COVID protocols often and they tend to err on the side of caution. We have found local authorities view our frequent onboard testing very favorably - it has helped us with an effective and successful restart well ahead of the industry as a whole. To ensure smooth sailing in the weeks ahead, we are again providing free frequent non-invasive COVID-testing starting October 18. The protocol for such testing is below. Please note that testing is mandatory for all guests and crew.” The letter doesn’t say which country or countries they’re referring to. But the next stop is Australia. There are only 84 pax on this cruise. (Honolulu to Bangkok.) Can’t imagine why so few. Social distancing definitely won’t be a problem.

PV1 was the last available room when we booked our British Isles cruise on Mars. We wanted a PV room anyway so it wasn’t a big deal, but we would have preferred a level 2 or 3 simply to save money. Level 1 rooms are the most expensive.

Thanks for sharing your cruise. Fjellskal is a great fish restaurant, isn’t it? Pricey but worth the splurge.

You can also book your own tours via Viator, etc. We have done a mix of included, optional, and third-party tours.

From what I could tell from the opening night show (the only one I attended), our cruise had two vocal groups, the 2-person Torshavn pair (man and woman) and the 4-person Star theater group (2 men, 2 women). They had small backup bands. This was in addition to the guitarist in the Explorer Lounge and the classical duo and pianist in the Living Room.

On our cruise on Mars last month, they had two great, bluesy singers in Torshavn. I much preferred them to the four Abba/Beatles/showtunes singers in the Star theater.

I think this photo doesn’t qualify, but I just saw it for the first time today. I am just now pulling photos off my camera from our recent cruise. It was impossible to do that during the cruise for a number of reasons. So here we are. These are standing stones on the Orkney islands. They’re about 5000 years old. (I couldn’t get my photo to load, so I took a screenshot of it and loaded that. Anyone know what the size limit for photos here is?)

The Wi-Fi on Mars was abysmal. I was never able to send more than one or two photos to anyone; each took about an hour. I marvel at the posts here on CC full of photos people post during their cruises. That just wasn’t possible from Mars unless I wanted to spend all my time sitting in my room and swearing at my phone. No thanks. I did not check to see if my photos were backing up to the cloud or not. I assume they were because I never saw any messages to the contrary. Fortunately, they were all still on my phone when I got home.

I would’ve asked for my money back!

That’s a serious wedgie. Ouch.

Yup. DH can’t eat licorice (it can give him a heart attack). It was initially a little tough to communicate this, licorice not being a commonly known problem. But once they figured out what we were talking about, they were very careful and thorough, especially at the Chef’s Table; they often gave him alternative courses or altered a recipe for him. It’s surprising how many things contain licorice. Most people can eat a fair amount of it before having heart problems, but DH has to avoid even small amounts. So we were grateful for the care Viking took.

Strongly recommend waterproof or water -resistant boots! They get serious rain in Iceland. I have flat feet and wear orthotics. I love the Hoka Anacapa hiking shoes. They also come as boots. Good treads, good stability. They come in men’s and women’s sizes. You can try them on at REI. https://www.hoka.com/en/us/men-hiking/anacapa-mid-gtx/1122018.html

The camera makes the northern lights look more vivid than they do to the naked eye. Next time you see “something atmospheric,” point your camera at it and look at it through the viewfinder. You might be surprised.

There were just two things we disliked about our recent Viking Ocean cruise: the hard beds and the medical clinic. To counteract that, others loved the hard beds, and I had a chat with another passenger who got excellent care from the clinic on our cruise. (She had a dislocated shoulder; I just had a sprained knee.) We thought the food on Mars was an improvement over our previous cruise a few years ago on Sky, and the service was great. No long waits for food or wine that DrKoob encountered; no bad meals; very attentive staff throughout. So much is subjective. So why not go and draw your own conclusions? My guess: if you don’t crave a party atmosphere, big shows, or the company of children, you’ll like Viking. If you like a calm, beautiful ship with generous staterooms; interesting talks; friendly fellow passengers of a certain age; and learning about new places, you’ll like Viking. But you’ll never know for sure unless you try it.

And if you’re headed to the UK, don’t miss Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. I re-read it on our recent BIE cruise, and it was just perfect. For what it’s worth, I would skip Bryson’s followup sequel, The Road to Little Dribbling, written a couple of decades later. Mean-spirited, charmless, and dull.

If anyone is going to Scandinavia, I highly recommend reading The Almost Nearly Perfect People by Michael Booth. Booth, an Englishman, is married to a Dane and lives in Denmark. He travels around the five countries of Scandinavia and shares some pithy insights along with a big helping of wit. From the book description: “Why are the Danes so happy, despite having the highest taxes? Do the Finns really have the best education system? Are the Icelanders as feral as they sometimes appear? How are the Norwegians spending their fantastic oil wealth? And why do all of them hate the Swedes?”

Same problem on Mars last month. The nurse was extremely difficult to understand, and she got quite impatient with passengers who couldn’t respond because they had no idea what she was saying. When I fell and sprained my knee, I hobbled to the clinic to get checked out. The nurse looked me over, then mumbled something to the doctor as he passed by, then came back and said I didn’t need to see the doctor. “When you fall, it hurt.” OK then. She gave me some Tylenol. I asked for an ice pack and a compression bandage. That was it. Thankfully DH was able to wrap the knee for me, and I made my own ice packs each day after that with room ice and a ziplock bag I’d brought. Lesson for next time: Bring my own first aid kit and avoid the ship’s clinic unless I’m bleeding copiously. (Sorry for the late response; we just got back from our own cruise and I just discovered this thread.)

When we cruised on Sky four years ago, our impressions of the restaurants closely mirrored DrKoob’s. We ended up eating most meals at the World Cafe. So we were very pleasantly surprised at how good the restaurants were last month on Mars. The service was great, too. As for the beds, we’ve been underwhelmed both times. On Sky, the bed was hard and barreled in the middle so we fell into each other. On Mars, the mattress was so firm we woke up stiff and sore every day. We were relieved when we checked into our post-cruise hotel in Bergen and the bed felt like sleeping on a cloud. And this is from two people who prefer firm beds! Interesting to see how passenger groups differ from one cruise to the next. Our recent cruise (British Isles) definitely skewed older, and many people were traveling with groups. Very friendly.

You can pre-pay the standard staff gratuities.

Here’s what happened in our case. We had to spend a bunch of voucher money before boarding our cruise last month, which we managed to do. But during the cruise, several excursions got canceled due to the Queen’s death and to weather (2 missed ports). The money for our canceled excursions went to shipboard credit, not a refund, and we had to spend it by the end of the cruise. (DH got several massages and we both made multiple trips to the ship’s shops.) I don’t know what happens if you cancel excursions yourself, but I assume they too would turn into shipboard credit if they were initially paid for via voucher. Maybe ask a Viking rep?

Whoa. Looks like somebody messed up somewhere. Yikes.

Is that what they’re called? I’ve been calling them “roller boards,” which frankly makes far less sense. I think I’m having a blonde moment. 🤪

Yesterday we flew from Bergen to Amsterdam to the US. Due to weather conditions in Amsterdam (fog?), our flight out of Bergen was delayed initially by an hour, then once we boarded it was delayed another 45 minutes. Our comfortable 3-hour layover in Amsterdam shrank to just over an hour. We made our connection just as it was boarding. Not bad with a sprained knee, but not fun either. (We only had carryons so no luggage issues, thankfully.) But if there’s a next time, we will try hard for a direct flight home. I’d rather take a train from Bergen to Oslo and fly from there if it meant we could avoid taking a connecting flight.