Viking Sky June 9 Homelands. -a few observations

Hi, currently on the Sky so comments will be brief. I had a lot of angst preparing for this cruise as I am in a V2 cabin.

1. They are not allowing multiple dinner reservations in the specialty dining rooms until everyone has a chance to get one reservation. It was nice to see that.

2 They offered to replace items in the mini bar with our preference.

3. Shuttle service in Stockholm available on Sunday of departure. Was perfect for us, we took the shuttle and walked to City Hall for a tour

4 Helsinki- there is a shuttle from the top of Esplanade. We took included bus tour which really lasted about 2 hours before they dropped you for shopping. We left at that point and walked to The Rock Church and Chapel of silence and took the shuttle back to the boat.

5. Ship is beautiful. Open spaces amazing and uncrowded. Room is functional. A bit narrow. It's the most peaceful cruise ship that I have been on.

6. Took the Silver Spirit package. Wines better than expected.

7. World Cafe - okay. Have only done breakfast and lunch. Does not seem that special yet. Will try dinner.

8.. Main dining - excellent on first night.

9.. Manfredis- waiter did not know menu. He was also in a rush. Wine steward no help with wines. Maybe they were both new. The manager was upset and not happy - I think someone else complained. Atmosphere not conducive to a relaxing evening. Pasta good, steak good, Veal Saltimbocca - not good in our opinion.

10.. Explorer Lounge- perfect for us.

11. Torshavn-Wonderful band.

12. For the most part I got the included excursions at the times that I wanted them. It took a lot of my time to try 2 get 4 people, 2 cabins moved around into better time slots. So far they have changed one of the times since boarding- luckily it is not a problem.

We've had perfect weather but that is forecast to change. Will answer questions probably slowly.

This is an amazing itinerary on a wonderful ship.

That's great information. Thank you so much for sharing! We'll be in a V2 cabin on the Orion in November. Glad to hear I shouldn't panic quite yet about whether I'll be able to get shore excursions or alt restaurant dinner reservations. Ok, I could deal with no dinner reservations but excursions are important! I travel to see things!

I hope the rest of your trip goes well and that the good weather holds out.

Happy cruising!

Karen

Thanks for reporting. We will be on the Sky on June 23 for the Midnight Sun itinerary, so it's wonderful to hear that you're enjoying the ship. Have a great trip and I'll follow along until we leave next week! If you have time, I'd love to hear what you think about dinner in the World Cafe, once you have a chance to eat there. A lot of people seem to like the food and the more casual atmosphere, maybe better then the main dining room for dinner.

Thought my wife who liked formal would want The Restaurant for dinner most every night. She surprised me by loving the World Cafe for dinner. Choice of what's in The Restaurant plus so much more. Great vistas. Informal.

We enjoyed the World Cafe while on both the Sun and the Star. There was a variety of choices for each meal, food was good and it was a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. After a busy day, it was an easy way to have a wonderful meal.

That's great information. Thank you so much for sharing! We'll be in a V2 cabin on the Orion in November. Glad to hear I shouldn't panic quite yet about whether I'll be able to get shore excursions or alt restaurant dinner reservations. Ok, I could deal with no dinner reservations but excursions are important! I travel to see things!

 

I hope the rest of your trip goes well and that the good weather holds out.

 

Happy cruising!

 

Karen

For best results, included excursions should be reserved in advance when booking for V cabins opens 60 days in advance of sailing. If you are closed out of any included excursion at this point, you should contact Viking at tellus@vikingcruises.com and tell them that you have been closed out (and are very upset, etc. etc.). If you wait until you board to book and they are out of places on the tour, it will be much harder to fix. We are told that the included tours are part of the package so it is more than reasonable to expect that you will not be denied a spot on any one of them.

St. Petersburg disembarkation- we were on a private tour. We received no instructions from Viking as to times for us to disembark. We docked and we're clear at 7:30. Our private tour and others were expecting our tours to start at about 8:30 or 9. Ships tours started meeting at about 7:15. Our group decided to meet at 7:45 for departure since it was unclear as to how long it would take. There were 5-6 large ships in port. We cleared customs in 15 minutes and waited for the private tour bus to be let in. Most of the representatives of the tour companies we there-Alla, TJ., sPG. We were told by our tour guide that show pay for the number of customs booths that are open. I have no idea if that is true but there were at least 8-10 open on both days. Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the detailed info. We're doing the Homelands cruise in April on Viking Sea so all this info is so helpful.

For best results, included excursions should be reserved in advance when booking for V cabins opens 60 days in advance of sailing. If you are closed out of any included excursion at this point, you should contact Viking at tellus@vikingcruises.com and tell them that you have been closed out (and are very upset, etc. etc.). If you wait until you board to book and they are out of places on the tour, it will be much harder to fix. We are told that the included tours are part of the package so it is more than reasonable to expect that you will not be denied a spot on any one of them.

Great, thanks Peregrina! We plan to leap on reserving excursions as soon as we're allowed to make our selections. Knowing that at least we'll get the included excursions is a comfort although I was surprised that two of the included excursions are "spend the day on your own". Hmmm is that really an excursion or just a shuttle service? ;) There could be a guide providing commentary along the way so I guess that counts!

Thank you for your help!

Beautiful day in Tallinn yesterday. Ship included tour was excellent. So far all of the tour guides have made sure that we know where the shuttle buses are located in town so that those staying in town can easily get back to the ship. We are at a small restaurant named Pegasus that was excellent, had a great wine and beer list and we reasonably priced as it was not in the central squares. Tallinn gets crowded and I made a reservation. Easy to walk to.

Dining on board continues to be well above average. Did the Chef's table last night- Xiang- food excellent. Wine service seems to be rushed all over the ship at meals making for a less relaxed meal. I think that there are not enough Wine Stewards to keep up with the people who have Silver Spirit packages.

Beautiful day in Tallinn yesterday. Ship included tour was excellent. So far all of the tour guides have made sure that we know where the shuttle buses are located in town so that those staying in town can easily get back to the ship. We are at a small restaurant named Pegasus that was excellent, had a great wine and beer list and we reasonably priced as it was not in the central squares. Tallinn gets crowded and I made a reservation. Easy to walk to.

 

Dining on board continues to be well above average. Did the Chef's table last night- Xiang- food excellent. Wine service seems to be rushed all over the ship at meals making for a less relaxed meal. I think that there are not enough Wine Stewards to keep up with the people who have Silver Spirit packages.

Agree with you on the Silver Beverage Package. On our cruise May 16-June1, the wine service was very lacking, not so much in the alternative restaurants but both in the dining room and the world café. It was a little annoying after paying for the upgrade.

Arrived home yesterday - what an amazing cruise. The itinerary is fantastic and mentally exhausting. I am really happy that we booked it with Norway at the end. The contrasts in the cities - St Petersburg and Berlin - burdened with such terrible history: Tallin, Gdansk - victims of the terrible history, Stockholm, Copenhagen - light and airy and fun. We had wonderful guides both self selected and from Viking included tours.

1. Viking could be more supportive to independent travelers. That said, we never had problems getting off the boat in time to meet our guides. We would have liked more advance notice of shuttle times and stops. A note about what the visitor centers have to offer would have been helpful to those who do not read CC. Example - the self guided walking tours in Eidfjord were fantastic.

2. MDR - the food in the main dining room was excellent. We found that we were so tired that we preferred to just freshen up and sit and relax and be waited on. We never managed to get to the World Cafe for dinner.

3. Manfredi's - we went back. The pastas were excellent. Remained chaotic. Wine service - nil.

4. Chef's Table - we went twice for the 2 Asian cuisine nights. Both were very good and I would do it again. No wine pairing explanation on the 2nd night.

5. Wine - there was only one sommelier on the ship. We never met him. There seemed to be 1 wine steward in each dining area and this was certainly not enough in our opinion. We met Mile, wine steward on our second night and he may be the reason that we kept going back to the main dining room. We found the selection to be interesting and we enjoyed experimenting with wines that we had never heard of. All of us found red and white wines that we enjoyed on the Silver Package. There are some gaps in coverage - for example there was nothing that really tasted like a decent Chardonnay which I enjoy with lobster.

Anyone booking this cruise has a treat in store for them. We continued to have good weather - 1 day of rain in Stavanger - we went to the oil museum which is fantastic. It turned colder but we were prepared.

We stayed a day and did the RT Norway in a Nutshell on Saturday. It really added to our experience and was an amazing way to end the trip.