rjp50

Curious about your stop in Bodo. Our itinerary does not include Bodo. We go from Tromso to Leknes in the Lofoten Islands.

We will soon depart on the Midnight Sun trip on the Saturn. I'm assuming that for the most part long sleeves and multiple layers will be appropriate for all outdoor activities but am wondering about indoors on the ship. Do they tend to keep the temperatures warm or should we pack with sweaters and long sleeves for dinner.

That could be. This will be our first time on Viking. Most ships that we have cruised on have only a half hour from on-board to sail-away.

Thanks. I wish ships would publish their back on board times rather than their sail away times in their official itineraries. It makes it very difficult to plan shore activities - especially with that large of a gap between the two times. BTW, I checked the port of Lerwick web site which lists actual arrival and departure times and according to it, your ship departed even before 3:00. I'm sure that everyone was on board.

Not sure when the last time that you were in the US or if there is something unique about your cards, but use of credit cards in the US is ubiquitous. About the only time I use cash is when I get a haircut and even that is my choice since my barber does accept credit cards. Perhaps not every terminal is contactless (most are), but everyone accepts the chips. My pet peeve with credit cards is at restaurants where for the most part the server has to take possession of your card to run it through a machine.

Do you have to have advanced reservations for the Flybussen? If so, that would sway me toward a taxi since if it is raining I would not want to schlep all of our luggage almost a half mile in the rain because I have already invested in bus tickets. If you can just show up at the bus stop and get on the next bus it may be an option if it is a nice day.

Do you recall what time your ship was scheduled to sail out of Lerwick? We have to make the same trip to Honningsvag but our posted departure is 4:00. We have a semi-private tour scheduled and having the ship leave earlier than scheduled could be a problem.

Unfortunately, I was there in the late 70s and stones had all been defaced with spray paint by vandals. So much for allowing people to walk right up to them.

It's great to have someone "scout the terrain" prior to our trip. For your included tour, if I do the math correctly, the tour was advertised, I believe, as a 3 hour tour. So, if they allowed an hour at the end for on your own activities, I assume the actual tour was about two hours? I assume they left you off on or near to the Royal Mile. Was it near the upper end? How far from the Tollbooth Tavern? Did you require reservations for lunch there? Another question - did you pursue the suggestion of using a VPN to improve speeds? Are you getting better speeds?

So, it sounds like each ship may have a different policy. I guess we will be taking the card with us.

That's why I would prefer not to take yet another card. We always travel with multiple credit cards as well as debit cards linked to separate accounts so that we have lots of redundancy. However, all of our regular travel cards do not have foreign transaction fees. The one that we want to use for onboard charges (which will be primarily the gratuity fee) does incur foreign transaction fees so we would not use it for any other land-based purchases. We are using this card for the gratuities since we need to meet a minimum spend requirement to get the bonus points for "free" airline travel.

When I list a credit card for my onboard charges to be charged to, do I need to present the card at any point on the cruise. I would prefer to leave the card home since on any other foreign purchases it incurs foreign transaction fees.

A lot of the ports on the Midnight Sun cruise have private operators who do not require you to find others to help defray the costs. You just sign up as a couple or whatever and the tour operator takes responsibility for filling the remaining seats. Of course there is usually a minimum number of passengers required to have the tour operate that day. If the minimum is not reached your money/deposit is refunded so it's good to have a back-up plan. The tour mentioned above operated by Lofoton Lights is one such tour. We opted for this instead of the included tour by Viking since we will spend two or three times the amount of time in an area that hopefully will be the highlight of the trip.

To answer part of my own question after a bit of Googling - The taxi fare with Bergen Taxi appears to be a fixed rate to the airport of 580 NOK during "normal" hours - a bit more for weekends and before 6 AM. The Flybussen is 169 NOK per person during "normal" hours. The Flybussen stop would be a fairly long walk from the ship when pulling luggage although there looks like there may be a tram line that takes you near the Radisson Blu in Bryggen. Uber also appears to work, but their quoted rate on their App was more than the flat taxi fare. I'll check on board what the Viking transfer would cost.

When flying on your own, I see 4 alternatives: taxi, Flybussen, tram and Viking transfer. What are the estimated costs for each of these? For the Flybussen and tram, how far from the ship is the walk to get to the stop for each?

I'll be following this. We leave a week from now on the same itinerary on the Saturn. Would love to hear your opinions/recommendations on the excursions (both Viking as well as third party) as well as any on your own touring that you do. Glad to hear that the beds are good on the Venus. Hope the same holds true for the Saturn.

What deck and what category are these on

Carnival??? Did you mean Norwegian?

Too bad about the lack of any noticeable changes to the concierge cabins. Would be interested if you can find a PH cabin to see how it's been modified. How about the public areas? Any noticeable changes there?

If anyone will be on the Marina after this retrofit I'd appreciate any observations or photos about what has been changed - especially in the PH staterooms. I've seen YouTubes from the Riviera after its updates and they look very nice. Hoping that Marina is comparable.

I found a separate thread that mentioned in passing that the PH2 cabins on deck 7 of Marina and Riviera were equipped with lounge chairs rather than the normal straight chairs. This is an important consideration to us. Can anyone confirm that this is the case? (I realize that the PH1 cabins with the wrap around balcony on deck 7 have both straight chairs and lounge chairs)

We plan to book a PH2 and are wondering what functions the butler on O performs. Our only previous experiences with butlers were three times on the Yacht Club with MSC. Here are examples of what the butler did for us in the Yacht Club and I wonder whether the O butler performs similar functions or possibly more: 1) We were met at the embarkation point and escorted by a butler to a special area with drinks and snacks for the final embarkation process; then were escorted directly to our cabins. 2) Our butler would deliver a paper copy of the daily newspaper of our preference every morning. 3) Our butler or the concierge would handle any reservations that we needed 4) He facilitated bringing a special chair to our room that was easier for my wife to get out of 5) When we wanted to take a desert back to the room to eat later, they insisted that we should not have to carry this through the ship to our room and had the butler come and deliver it. 6) When my wife raved about the wine that she had at dinner, when we got back to the room a little later we found a full bottle of it on ice, delivered by the butler (all drinks in the yacht club were included). 7) For shore excursions we were escorted by the butler off the ship to either the head of the line to get on tenders or directly to the bus. 8 Upon returning from a a day on shore they would meet us for priority reboarding 9) On my wife's birthday, without even being told about it, he decorated our cabin with balloons and banners wishing her a happy birthday 10) Upon disembarkation, he escorted us off the ship with our bags to the taxi stand and told the driver where we were heading I'm sure I am forgetting some of the other services that were provided and frankly some of what was done was a bit over the top. So, is this comparable to what we should expect from a butler on O?

No, August of 2025. Unfortunately both PH1 cabins on deck 7 are already booked.

Thanks for this. Are the two reservation regardless of cruise length? We will be on a 22 day cruise that is composed of a 10 and 12 day segment merged together.

We will be sailing on the Marina and are considering the two PH2 suites on deck 7 because of the larger balcony. I know that the two corner, PH1 suites are slightly smaller than normal penthouse suites (but have the wrap around veranda), but are the two adjacent, non-corner cabins normal size or are they smaller? Another question that I have for them is, do they suffer from slower/inadequate butler service than the normal upper deck penthouse suites due to the fact that there are only 4 suites all together in a far-removed section of the ship from the other suites in this category? One other generic question concerning the PH category - I know you get "priority" reservations in the specialty restaurants, but does that mean that you will be able to eat in them more than just the one each that is guaranteed to everyone?