CMAatSea

I was on the second voyage of the Aranui 5 in January 2016. The number of passengers is larger now, the crew is bigger (apparently lots of changes in jobs), and the operations are very confused and frankly low quality. At first food service was very slow and erratic (some places served, others not), but that got fixed pretty quickly.

The Guide Department was the most confused and unfair. Exiting the ships was poorly organized, dividing people into tour groups was poorly organized, no tour guide seemed to have the same story as another, and often they would sit around and speak to each other and give you a "What could possibly be the problem look?" when asked questions. English speakers were the largest group, but it was always given the smallest and most uncomfortable location for daily briefings and usually the worst English speaking guides.

Food portions are quite small by US standards, but it was good (actually nice not to gain weight on a cruise) and there is only one choice for lunch and dinner on the ship. They were very bad about dietary restrictions.

There were some organized groups on the ship and they seemed to get "very special handling" like assigned seats, tour preferences, more information, etc. There was no information in the rooms and phones didn't work. Seating in the dining room was always an issue since they seemed to think it was adequate to have exactly the number of seats needed....sometimes you had to fight to open another table so a group could sit together.

The cruise goes to an exotic and rarely visited location and the Aranui is really the only way to get there. The Marqueses are well worth the trip! I think the ship will improve its operations with time....I don't think they mean to offend but they just haven't prepared and planned well, but I'd give it a few years, yes years!

I recently booked a 2016 Viking River Cruise in Russia. The Viking Brochure claims a "Risk Free" Policy for Russian Cruises. BUT the contract and itinerary Viking Emailed had the normal cancellation policy - Bait and switch?

I called Viking and they promised the moon, but would not amend my travel documents to reflect a risk free policy. They said they had an "internal" document, but they could not send it too me. The supervisor of the first rep refused to put in an Email that she had the legal authority to commit to the policy she was going to paraphrase in an Email to me.

I've cruised with Viking several times and been very happy. I can't believe a normally quality company like Viking is not being explicit in their formal documents about the promises they are making. This is highly unprofessional and clearly bordering on unethical.