pinotlover

Spendthrift;

We are booked on a cruise in Sept, probably when the new 2016 schedule comes out. So hopefully in Oct. we can still book the cruise. Might be able to book on ship, but since it's later summer, the cruise may not yet be open in Sept.

To see the better ruins, you must go to the main land(Playa del Carman). The ferry across runs on a regular schedule, you can check it out. There are two options, Citchen Itza and Tulum.

Tulum is straight down the beach and very scenic, whereas Citchen Itza is inland, in the jungles, far larger and far more dramatic. Several tour companies do the tour out of PdC, however, timewise I'm not sure you can make Citchen Itza. It's quite a bus ride, round trip, plus one has to add in the two ferry crossings. Tulum is the safer bet, and is very doable.

If you google Tulum visits from Playa del Carman I'm sure you can find several tour companies to accommodate you.

We'd be flying out of Nashville, and our best schedule and fare is definitely through Newark. Both cities are non stop flights from Newark. The bad news of course it is Newark which I hate, but honestly not any worse than LAX, imo.

Total travel travel time is far less going through Newark than flying to the west coast.

We have two cruises lined up for 2015 already. Excited to see what these new cruises might be. We are either wanting a Far East ( with Bangkok in it) cruise or one of the cruises around the Norway coast and up to the Artic Circle.

O seems to only run one cruise up to the Artic Circle, which fills quickly, but multiple ones throughout the Baltic. :mad: Maybe it's a matter of the ice flows!

I will be interested in seeing how well United deals with your attempts to move seats and upgrade to Premium Economy! On our last trip using O air, United would not allow us to move around our seats on the system. We were instructed to go back to O, which sent us back through our TA, to make the requested.

The issue came up that the bulk fare price of the ticket (and thus ticket class) was so low, that to upgrade to PE was almost as much as the original ticket price. Seems to me that the normal price (for that flight) with an economy ticket to upgrade to a PE seat was around $129, however with the bulk K? class ticket it was $900.

It will be interesting to learn how your adventure goes with the seating and flights utilizing Viking tickets. Thanks!

We chose Uniworld, over Viking that we normally take, for this cruise next September. If you pay Uniworld upon booking, which you must do with Viking, a very significant savings is had and the price differential shrinks significantly.

Remember, all the boats on the Douro are small, and may not represent what is typically seen with the Viking Longboats in other waters.

This may appear as very snobbish or elitist,( but not meant to be so) but we are giving Uniworld a try because our last couple of Viking tours have become very pedestrian. For example, People coming in hot and sweaty, from their tours, going to the bar and drinking until dinner. They then come to dinner dressed as they arrived from the tours. Since Viking has no dress codes, some dressing very casual for dinner, particularly in the summer and early fall months, was always the norm. Seems to me the definition of casual is being lowered yearly. So we are giving Uniworld a test to see life on the other side. We are still planning on doing the Viking China tour in 2016, but looking at options for Europe.

Our 2015 schedule is slammed, but we have the Viking tour that also visits Tibet down as a must in 2016. Seems so far out. Our biggest disappointment is that we always go in early and wish Viking did a pre cruise package in Bejing. Guess we'll figure out tours to the Wall and many of the sights ourselves, before the Viking portion kicks in. Maybe by May 2016 Viking will step us with a pre tour, or maybe it's all politics! :eek:

We will do this business air. Coming from east of the Mississippi just adds to the length of the flight (and jet lag) for us.

I always buy the premium drink package. I believe it is outrageous that O charges me any corkage fee. So I really got the 5 cents post. The regular wine selection on O is C- at best. The bottle price of the premium wine bottles are nonsense.

If I've paid for the premium package, I believe I should have no corkage fee. Viking River Cruises give all their guests this perk. If O wants to serve mostly phlonk, that's accepted, but allow us to drink the good stuff, free of charge, that we bring aboard. :mad:

I have often wondered with the current cost of fuel, personnel costs, overhead, etc., how long will the R ships, as presented by O, be doable. Perhaps we're seeing the start of the decline. Which brings us around to O adding another larger vessel to the fleet.

I believe in the next 5 years a huge shakeout of the cruise industry will occur. In fact, it's already under way. What we see today in ships and cruises will probably not exist in 5 years. A friend just started a NCL cruise and his only email back says the ship is maybe 3/8ths sold out. Almost as many crew as passengers. Not sustainable. Even O is throwing everything except the kitchen sink at potential customers to get them to sign up for cruises this summer.

Things, they are a changing!

It was my belief that Viking doesn't do refunds for the cruise portion, they tell you to buy trip insurance. For the air portion, I believe you can get a refund, IF the ticket has not been booked. If you buy a deviation early on, and the seat is booked, you're SOL, I believe.

Yes, typically in September the cruises, at least through the summer of 2016 should be out.

Check some of the postings here. Isn't the Easter Islands on the list of places where the portages often gets cancelled, for various reasons, and the ships by pass the place? I'd hate to spend the money and time for a cruise with one of those destinations as my main reason for going! :(

Cruising wise, the most spectacular part of the cruise. We were in cabin on deck 10 facing east on the sail into Stockholm. I arose at 3:00 a.m. and watched our entire sail in. Our cruise started on 7/5, so at that time the sun was already rising. It was chilly so I wrapped in the blankets provided.

Just absolutely incredible. The passage is so narrow in a couple of places, one fells they could reach over the side and touch the island. A very tight fit for the Marina! :eek:

For me, this is what Baltic cruising should be about, not having a sea day puttering around in the middle of the sea with land barely in sight! One of the best four hours of sailing I've ever experienced, and that covers a lot of beautiful areas. Magnificent!

The Uniworld portion of the trip has us in Madrid for three days. One of those days is an included trip to Toledo. We plan on going in early and taking the train down to Seville, and then over to Alhambra.

What I also liked about the Uniworld trip was that the Guimaraes tour is included in the tour and not an optional added expense like the Viking cruise.

It's three days in Madrid, three hour bus ride to Salamanca, then to Vega to catch the boat. Seven days on the river and then to for a couple of days Lisbon and Sintra with a stop over in Coimbra.

Ready to do it now, but will have to wait until 9/15!:( Southern France on Viking comes first! :)

We just booked our first Uniworld cruise, previously we have exclusively used Viking. Uniworld has a different payment schedule than Viking. If one takes Viking they must pay 100% at time of booking. Using that as a backdrop, Uniworld offered us a 10% discount on fares for paying in full now. The discount nearly eliminated the pricing difference with Viking for the tour, plus we get standard included tours on Uniworld, that are listed as optional on Viking, plus the included drinks package.

Comparing prices can be very apple and oranges!

I pulled the trigger on the Uniworld Madrid to Lisbon cruise. We are going over early (length tbd) and visit Seville, Cordova, and Alhambra. We will be traveling by train and enjoying the countryside. Our Uniworld tour portions begins in Madrid on 9/3/15, so we'll be doing this early in August. It'll be hot, but manageable. Anyone interested in joining in, give us a yell.

Viking can offer great (looking) deals on air, IF you fly on embark day and out on disembark day. Why would one want to do that? However, if one wants to deviate with different flight dates and class upgrades, Viking's offered are not seldom very competitive.

What I hate the most with iPads used as a camera, is when one is on a tour bus doing a drive by, and all the windows on the viewing side of the bus are plastered with iPads! One can't see out the bus windows for the monstrosities! :mad:

Doug;

Having flown in and out of Zurich, they seem to have more non stops to the States than the other cities. Something to consider.

We typically fly Premium Economy for the extra leg room. On some airlines, you get business class meals, instead of economy class meals. If you want to maybe save money, look at the option of booking economy, and then upgrade only the US-EUR overnight leg to PE while flying back regular economy.

We just booked our first Uniworld cruise. Paying in full now, for a cruise next Sept, brought the discounted price of the more inclusive Uniworld cruise down below the cost of the similar Viking tour that we originally planned on taking. Seemed like a no brainer, especially since we would have had to pay in full for the Viking cruise anyway. Had we chosen the Viking Air option, other savings were feasible with Viking, but the air discussion is a different matter, imo. We have never use Viking Air in the past, so didn't really factor it in this time either.

CPT;

Agree wholeheartedly. I prefaced my comments with Viking food is good, just Americanized. I always find it bizarre when we're travelling to foreign cities of great culinary legend and watch tour buses of Americans unload in front of McDonalds. Comfortable and familiar, but each to his own.

Seems the info we get from the credit card companies vary depending upon whom you speak to:

1. Chase told me that they have one card that is c & p. It is a Ritz Carlton card. They plan on introducing others sometime within a year ( but not by year end). They will provide chip and sign cards, but not c & p.

2. Citi currently has no definite plans on introducing the cards.

The issue is not the credit card companies, it is the retailers. Many are far to cheap to buy the new pin readers which would be required to replace the magnetic strip readers. The retailers (read Pennys) would rather expose their customer's information by easy hacking than spend the money to upgrade to pin readers. The US government has remained neutral on this.

It will probably take another Penny's episode along with a major class action lawsuit to force the retailers, and the credit card companies, into the 21st Century.

You won't get it on Viking, and you definitely won't get it for lunch!

I always wondered why they want to feed their guests the same whether in France, Moscow, or Amsterdam. Do the majority of travelers really want American food regardless of where they travel?

Viking cruises only carry so many passengers. In some cases, the numbers can be small, such as in Portugal. The ships sell out quickly and Viking is smart to demand payment early on. This way they get truly interested customers.

Cruise ships, that allow for full payment much closer to sailing, all suffer from constantly having to resale cabins. For many people, making a $150/person deposit, and locking up a stateroom on a cruise ship 15-18 months out, is CHUMP change. The cruse lines allow cruisers a generous cancellation policy and many take advantage of the situation. I know of people that regularly book 4-6 cruises(including river boat) per year, locking up staterooms and cruises, while only planning on deciding which (perhaps) two they will do later. Cruises will show completely sold out, and then a bevy of rooms will suddenly appear, as the cruise lines scramble to refill the cancellations. Viking's policy mostly eliminates this practice, by requiring full payment full early on. Smart business, imo.

The food on Viking is good, however very Americanized. When the boat is in port, for the day, I tend to not return to the boat for lunch but enjoy a local restaurant with local food. The time other passengers spend being shuttled back and forth and standing around in a lunch line, is spent by my wife and I enjoying the places, and food, that I paid to visit. When you look at the lunch menu, one could say they're in LA, NYC, but probably not Vienna. Some people like that comfort of familiarity, while others find it boring. Most cruises have schedules that included cruising during the lunch hour, thus require lunch aboard, so why not break the monotony and have lunch ashore when the opportunity exists?

For the internet, not the phone, it is my understanding that all service on O ships is provided by direct ship uplink to satellite. Ground towers have nothing to do with internet service while on board. This can be different than when in port.

I have posted this in other threads, but internet service varies depending upon time of day and location on ship. Learn to avoid peak times: 7-9 a.m.; 4-6 p.m.; and most of all sea days. Sea days can be especially painful, in that people seem intent on uploading and sending hundreds of photos back home, or to the cloud, on sea days. Why this is important to them, to do at that time befuddles me, but it can bring the service speed to a crawl.

Remember, all customers are sharing that service and trunk with the ship and it's need to relay a lot of data to multiple destinations. My guess is that when the ship transmits a lot of data, it gets first priority with its servers!