Live Viking Star - Trade Routes Jun 16-Jun 30

Its our 4th day into cruise and we are in Malaga.

We had 2 nights in Barcelona before the cruise. This was our first time so we walked the city for many hours. Sagrada is must to see. We bought our tickets in advance and passed security in no time. We had 4 pm guided tour. Someone from this forum advised to see Sagrada in afternoon to see how Beautiful it is when the sun hits the stained windows. It WAS something magical! I would also suggest to see Palau de la Musica. It’s very unusual and beautiful and airy. We also visited Mercat de Santa Caterina. There were so many goodies :) we bought 4 kinds of ham plus a few kinds of different cold cuts, fantastic mini baguettes. veggie, etc :eek: but boy all of them were very delicious! There were many cafes and restaurants there - inside and outside.

Boarding took 10 min and while we had lunch our room was ready.

We were so tired from all walking that we overslept next morning and missed our excursion. We talked with very nice couple from Australia and they told us that we didn’t miss anything. They were disappointed.

Our excursion in Cartagena was mostly bus but had some walking as well. We passed very depressing area of former mines but the story behind it was very interesting. Our guide Estella was very good and had great sense of humor.

We’ve been in Granada so we took included excursion in Malaga which was pretty good to. All these days were sunny and it is hot now.

The food is very good and SS package wine list extensive with very good wines so we are happy :)

Anything you want to know? Ask away

Thanks for your live report.

Your experince of Barcelona hit all the higlights. I loved the Palau de la Musica. We got to go to a guitar concert when we were there in April.

Looking forward to your experience in other ports on this cruise.

Who is the resident historian and what are some of the topics of the various lectures?

I loved those on my Viking cruise.

Thanks for your live report.

Your experince of Barcelona hit all the higlights. I loved the Palau de la Musica. We got to go to a guitar concert when we were there in April.

Looking forward to your experience in other ports on this cruise.

Who is the resident historian and what are some of the topics of the various lectures?

I loved those on my Viking cruise.

Hey Azulann, good to hear from you :)

Resident Historian is Lori Verderame, PhD.

I didn’t hear her lectures yet but had an excursion with her today in Malaga.

She has a fantastic personality :). I look forward to hear her,

We’be met quite a few crew members from last year. Amazing that they remembered us and restaurant guys remembered the number of our favorite table. How?!!!! :)

Remember I complained about water last year? A lot of people were against of me? You took my side and very few others. Now I know why...lol. We had pink bottles with mineral water last year. This year we have blue naturale water that tastes very good :)

I can’t believe that 4 days already passed. There is so much to do! The crowd is very pleasant that makes this cruise so much better :)

Hey Azulann, good to hear from you :)

Resident Historian is Lori Verderame, PhD.

I didn’t hear her lectures yet but had an excursion with her today in Malaga.

She has a fantastic personality :). I look forward to hear her,

We’be met quite a few crew members from last year. Amazing that they remembered us and restaurant guys remembered the number of our favorite table. How?!!!! :)

Remember I complained about water last year? A lot of people were against of me? You took my side and very few others. Now I know why...lol. We had pink bottles with mineral water last year. This year we have blue naturale water that tastes very good :)

 

I can’t believe that 4 days already passed. There is so much to do! The crowd is very pleasant that makes this cruise so much better :)[/quote

Glad you got the water bottles you wanted.

Your excusion with the historian sounds wonderful!

I too passed up Malaga to go to Granada on a previous cruise a number of years ago.

Next time, I will stay in Malaga port. It is such a pretty town with parks and palm trees.

I would love to do the Trade Routes sailing some day.

So many options to chose from for my next sailing. :cool:

vnb2003,

We are on the Oct. 6, 2018 sailing of this cruise, so I am very appreciative of anything you share about the experience. This will be our second Viking ocean cruise, so we are happily familiar with the ship, but look forward to any port specific information you choose to share. At 109 days out, I am checking daily for our shore excursions to be posted, so I will fill my time following your thread.

I hope you have an absolutely marvelous trip!

vnb2003,

 

We are on the Oct. 6, 2018 sailing of this cruise, so I am very appreciative of anything you share about the experience. This will be our second Viking ocean cruise, so we are happily familiar with the ship, but look forward to any port specific information you choose to share. At 109 days out, I am checking daily for our shore excursions to be posted, so I will fill my time following your thread.

 

I hope you have an absolutely marvelous trip!

There are so many excursions. We mainly on included except of Honfleur in France and we booked Bruges with canals - almost 5 hours :)

Hey Azulann, good to hear from you :)

Resident Historian is Lori Verderame, PhD.

I didn’t hear her lectures yet but had an excursion with her today in Malaga.

She has a fantastic personality :). I look forward to hear her,

We’be met quite a few crew members from last year. Amazing that they remembered us and restaurant guys remembered the number of our favorite table. How?!!!! :)

Remember I complained about water last year? A lot of people were against of me? You took my side and very few others. Now I know why...lol. We had pink bottles with mineral water last year. This year we have blue naturale water that tastes very good :)

 

I can’t believe that 4 days already passed. There is so much to do! The crowd is very pleasant that makes this cruise so much better :)[/quote

Glad you got the water bottles you wanted.

Your excusion with the historian sounds wonderful!

I too passed up Malaga to go to Granada on a previous cruise a number of years ago.

Next time, I will stay in Malaga port. It is such a pretty town with parks and palm trees.

I would love to do the Trade Routes sailing some day.

So many options to chose from for my next sailing. :cool:

 

Malaga is very nice. If you take morning excursion, you have the whole afternoon to visit places and museums you passed. We were blessed with perfect weather. We haven’t seen one single cloud for the time we stayed in Spain.

Viking also had a shuttle that would take you to the center. It stops next to Observation Wheel.

Day 5 - sea day.

We went to Chef’s Table again yesterday. The menu was Asian Panorama. It was very good. There 7 menus on our cruise and they changing every 2 days. We spent an evening in Explore lounge and night on our veranda. We saluted to Gibraltar with Champagne. We also had some late night snack from room service.

Today is lazy day. Room Service breakfast, SPA, beer for DH in the Atrium, and now chilling out in the room. We are skipping lunch. This year we have sliding door so we opened it and enjoy fresh sea air. It’s so quiet and peaceful :) There are some waves but I can’t tell you if they usual ocean waves - never travel by sea in this area. The movement was noticeable in the SPA but our cabin is on 5th floor closer to aft

Dinner today at Manfredi’s.

According to Daily there are tons of activities, lectures, lessons, etc. Everyone can find something interesting.

There are so many excursions. We mainly on included except of Honfleur in France and we booked Bruges with canals - almost 5 hours :)

That sounds exactly like my wish list, but we are in a Veranda cabin and the last to book, so I hope we are able to book these two through Viking. I have done some research into private tours in the event we are shut out, because Bruges especially we do not want to miss. I think we would sign up for any Viking tour that goes to Bruges, but the one with the canal tour is my first choice!

Thanks for the info on the shuttle stop in Malaga. I just starred that on my Google map.

This year we have sliding door so we opened it and enjoy fresh sea air.

Has Viking designed their ships so that passengers leaving their outside doors open do not destroy the air conditioning in surrounding rooms on the same AC distribution system?

Or is it the typical problem where open doors cause the other rooms to be too warm?

Has Viking designed their ships so that passengers leaving their outside doors open do not destroy the air conditioning in surrounding rooms on the same AC distribution system?

 

 

 

Or is it the typical problem where open doors cause the other rooms to be too warm?

I would’ve loved to have known the answer to that on our April cruise. I’m a fresh-air fiend but didn’t leave the doors open because I wasn’t sure (and no one seemed to know).

Looks like Harmony of the Seas operates just fine if you leave your doors open; the captain encourages it. https://www.cntraveler.com/story/harmony-of-the-seas-captain-shares-his-cruise-tips

Don't know what technology the Viking ships have installed, but many of the newer ships have senors installed on the balcony doors that isolate the cabin A/C after a period of time. However, this system is easily defeated by placing a small magnet onto the sensor.

Even if the cabin A/C is shut off, an open balcony door still somewhat negatively impacts the functioning of the A/C system as the cabin isn't a sealed unit and air exchanges into the alleyway.

Oh boy! We didn't think about this. We are still new to cruising and last year we had a window and a hinge door configuration. This year we have sliding door so I did opened it to enjoy sea air, :(. I honestly don't know f it caused any problem. The air was cool so AC didn't work. I'll check tomorrow if there is a sensor.

Oh boy! We didn't think about this. We are still new to cruising and last year we had a window and a hinge door configuration. This year we have sliding door so I did opened it to enjoy sea air, :(. I honestly don't know f it caused any problem. The air was cool so AC didn't work. I'll check tomorrow if there is a sensor.

The room AC shuts off when the door is open on Viking ships (or so I was told). So that’s fine.

From my (minimal) understanding, the problem (at least on some ships) is more about the entire ventilation system requiring a seal in order to work effectively. When you leave your door open, you break the seal, and other cabins’ ventilation is affected. I have no idea how accurate this is, nor whether that’s true of Viking’s ships.

I’ve also heard that cruise companies don’t like open doors for other reasons — the room might get wet; the openings cause a drag on the ship, resulting in more fuel consumption (like leaving your car window down), etc. Those reasons frankly don’t concern me as much. But I don’t want to make my neighbors’ rooms uncomfortable, which is why I grudgingly kept our doors shut.

Our room on Sky in April was way too warm unless we turned the thermostat all the way down. I would much rather have just left the door open instead.

Since you’re on a Viking ship right now, maybe you could ask your steward and/or one of the engineers? I’d love to know the answer, especially since it’s apparently a non-issue on some cruise ships, like Harmony of the Seas.

Day 5 - second part.

We thought we would skip lunch but got hungry and decided to go to Mamsen's. The portions were small so I still got a small piece of Success cake. We had pretty good clam chowder and stake tartar. The stake tartar was a little unusual - there was a square of minced raw meat wrapped around piece of rye bread. You have an egg and spices on a side. I couldn't get why it was difficult to mix alll the stuff until I saw the bread. I pulled it aside and it was pretty good. We used to toasted baguette with it and soggy rye bread didn't work for us but it was very good without it.

We watched the lecture about Lisbon as the spy center during the war by the professor who was a spy for half of his life. We missed it live sowe watched it on TV. He will continue in two days. It was very interesting even for us who know European history pretty well. Looking forward to his next lecture.

We had a dinner at Manfredi's where we got surprise congratulations with our anniversary. Great cake and congratulations from the team. We met a lovely couple from San Antonio that was sitting at the next table and we shared cake with them. We relaxed at the Explore lounge after dinner listening to Viking trio and having our night drinks.

It was one of the happy days on Viking Star.

The room AC shuts off when the door is open on Viking ships (or so I was told). So that’s fine.

 

From my (minimal) understanding, the problem (at least on some ships) is more about the entire ventilation system requiring a seal in order to work effectively. When you leave your door open, you break the seal, and other cabins’ ventilation is affected. I have no idea how accurate this is, nor whether that’s true of Viking’s ships.

 

I’ve also heard that cruise companies don’t like open doors for other reasons — the room might get wet; the openings cause a drag on the ship, resulting in more fuel consumption (like leaving your car window down), etc. Those reasons frankly don’t concern me as much. But I don’t want to make my neighbors’ rooms uncomfortable, which is why I grudgingly kept our doors shut.

 

Our room on Sky in April was way too warm unless we turned the thermostat all the way down. I would much rather have just left the door open instead.

 

Since you’re on a Viking ship right now, maybe you could ask your steward and/or one of the engineers? I’d love to know the answer, especially since it’s apparently a non-issue on some cruise ships, like Harmony of the Seas.

Will do. We are comfortable in the room but we lower thermostat at night. We open the door not for long. We also like fresh air.

Wait. What? You already boarded and you didn't take me with you? Have fun!

Mobile cruise critic just killed my reply....arghhh

It was a long one so I’ll try tonight.

JiminiC, hop on in Falmouth :)

Day 5 - second part.

 

We had a dinner at Manfredi's where we got surprise congratulations with our anniversary. Great cake and congratulations from the team. We met a lovely couple from San Antonio that was sitting at the next table and we shared cake with them. We relaxed at the Explore lounge after dinner listening to Viking trio and having our night drinks.

It was one of the happy days on Viking Star.

I wish I had been part of that lovely couple. I'm still in San Antonio...just thinking about the great times I've had on the Star. May seems a long time ago now.

Day 6 - Porto, Portugal

Portugal met us with rain and cool weather ~ 65F

We had an included tour and were glad to be on the bus and not walking outside as optional excursions did. The old Porto is pretty town and we would probably come back for more exploration. The tour was mainly bus with the few stops to ha e a free time from 20 min to 45 min. The streets are narrow and the driving through them is another story. On the way back our bus couldn't make a turn to the meeting point street for 20 min. The problem was that almost all Viking buses were at the same place at the same time. We were the only ship in the town!

I believe this is the problem with excursions planning. Some excursions could start at the place where other excursion ends. That way you avoid blocking traffic with the arriving and departing buses. The rain stopped at the end of our excursion and it became sunny and hot.

We were one of the first to come back and had quiet and delicious lunch at the World Cafe.

We were watching our departure from the Explore lounge. The captain announced at that time that we will have rough sea 3-4 meters waves and wind of 50 knots. He also advised to take meds before 7 pm.

The waves didn't impress us and I was upset that I didn't take camera with me. The sunset, stormy clouds and the sea looked out of this world and beautiful!

We are ok but we are moving in the bed from side to side and the cabin has a lot of sounds. It seems that Star has good stabilizers but sea will kick the ship periodically anyway.

We had delicious dinner at the Restaurant and spent evening at the Explore Lounge watching nature.

Let me know if you have any questions about the ship, menus, activities, etc.

Life is good! :champagne-toast:

Day 7 -Falmouth, England

We had to get up early because of one-on-one immigration check. The line was long but moved fast. They check your passport, compare photo with face and off you go. We got a fantastic guide and driver for our included tour. They both had great sense of humor. There was a festival in the town that day and they change the route that brought us to a picturesque town on the water much earlier. We had 1.5 hours to spent in the town, walk the beach, have local delicacies. Other than that the tour was bus only but through picturesque towns and meadows and scary turns on the very narrow roads. The trip was spiced with the jokes and left very good impression. England met us with abandon sunshine and very warm temps. We had lunch and a nap because we didn’t sleep much at night.

After that we listen to different bands while sitting on the balcony. The festival was right across us.

We also decided to have low key dinner at the buffet that was very good. We both noticed that buffet this year is much better than it was last year. We also never hit the crowd at the buffet. Maybe excursions staggered better? Who knows. I know our trip is sold out and not once I felt the ship is crowded.

Day 8 - Portsmouth, England

Kind of sad day when you realize there are only 5 full days left ( not including today’s day) and you are on tha second half of your journey.

Portsmouth met us with sunshine and warm temperatures :) Lucky us!!!!

We decided again to take an included walking tour. We wanted to see Portsmouth dock and didn’t want to spent a lot of time on the bus. According to Daily we had to take QuietVox. The guide told us that we don’t need it because the bus will bring us to the docks and this will be our free time. They gave us tickets to the attractions after we passed security and we were on our own. We had 2 hours before meeting our bus. We went to Victoria and had a pretty good audio tour. This was very interesting. You were on the ship you only read about! Wondered around,then left docks and started walking towards waterfront of old Portsmouth but soon realized we don’t have enough time to go there and back.

I wish they would give us more time in town.

The guide was available to us only on the bus and that was probably 20-25 min both ways. The walking excursion was in reality free time but Viking paid for our basic ticket to the docks. We were disappointed but still managed to have a good time.

British security is very serious. There were 4 or 5 armed police officers who looked more like special forces near the docks entrance and on the way back to the ship we had to leave the bus, go through security and board bus again.

We be been to Paris and have optional excursion to visit Honfleur tomorrow. Will try to report on that and ask people about there trips to London.

Any questions?

BTW, there are 7 Chef’s table menues on this cruise ;)

vnb2003,

Thanks so much for the continuing updates. It sounds like you are enjoying the trip. Do you know if there was a shuttle in Portsmouth? Could you have stayed longer on your own and taken the shuttle back? Did you notice any taxis perhaps?

In October, we do this cruise in reverse. I expect we will begin with chilly weather in Bergen, but warm up as we go along. Sounds like your weather has been pleasant. Glad for you .

vnb2003,

 

Thanks so much for the continuing updates. It sounds like you are enjoying the trip. Do you know if there was a shuttle in Portsmouth? Could you have stayed longer on your own and taken the shuttle back? Did you notice any taxis perhaps?

 

In October, we do this cruise in reverse. I expect we will begin with chilly weather in Bergen, but warm up as we go along. Sounds like your weather has been pleasant. Glad for you .

Yes, we had a chance to stay longer and yes, there was a free port shuttle - blue bus that had words “passenger shuttle” on the sides and it runs every 20 min. The stop is almost next to the Historical docks entrance. If you stand back to the entangle it’s on the right side from you and ahead probably 200-300 feet? You can’t miss it. There is bus parking there for the ferries terminal and blue bus is smaller and if I’m not mistaken occupies lot D or the next to it. The bus is also smaller like a regular city bus not like a tour one. Daily put a note that bus service won’t operate from 12 (noon) to 3 pm. The last run is at 4:45 pm. The time to be back on board is 5:30 pm

The taxi line is right in front of the buses parallel to the street.

We were blessed with weather (knock on wood) except of Port that was rainy but warm. The sun came out at the end of our excursion and it became really hot. It was sunny when we left the port...lol

There will be a short Sunday Service hosted by our Cruise Director Nolan at 6:30 pm today.

How was the cross from Porto to Falmouth thru the Bay of Biscay? I have read that can be a "rough" patch of water. We will be doing that next April and just wondering if there are times when it can be a smoother ride.

vnb2003,

Thanks. I have added the Portsmouth shuttle info to my notes. Have fun in Honfleur.