Viking Ocean Viking Star Cruise Reviews

[Admin]

Since my two reviews are causing concern about the total "loved it" score, I just wanted to say that I did not review twice on purpose. The reviews are not identical and were not "entered twice". I submitted a review and when it did not appear for a week, I supposed it did not meet the guidelines since it was copied from my journal and had photos attached. Therefore I made a brief recap and submitted a new one, which was quick and easy to read. A few days later my first review was published without photos, and later my second one. I felt that information contained in both reviews was useful, and elected to keep them, knowing that as more reviews are submitted the votes I got would become less of a factor in the score.

Your first review was published 3 1/2 days after submission and the second was 2 1/2 days after submission. We've removed the second review. As noted in the e mail we sent to you after submitting the first review, member reviews are published in the order in which they are received by a real person during normal business hours. You will receive a second e mail when the review is processed. You do not need to submit the review again.

 

Thanks for the review.

[WilliaFr]

Cruise Critic's Viking Star rating by passengers improving ... now 47% loved!

 

Very encouraging!

 

Thanks to captainmcd for having duplicated entry removed.

[WilliaFr]

I'm now really looking forward to my cruise next year!

[id4elizabeth]

Interesting. With a few exceptions did you notice that the vast majority of the recent reviews were done on June 11 by brand new Cruise Critic members who have never posted not even one message before? I know I'm cynical, but this seems a tad bit strange to me.

[TERRIER1]

Interesting. With a few exceptions did you notice that the vast majority of the recent reviews were done on June 11 by brand new Cruise Critic members who have never posted not even one message before? I know I'm cynical, but this seems a tad bit strange to me.

 

I hate to be a doubting Thomas but that is exactly what I noticed as well. The reviews went from 17 to 42 in one day! Almost of all the reviewers are new members to CC in 2015 with no previous posts. Sorry - but I don't buy it.

[OneBag]

I hate to be a doubting Thomas but that is exactly what I noticed as well. The reviews went from 17 to 42 in one day! Almost of all the reviewers are new members to CC in 2015 with no previous posts. Sorry - but I don't buy it.

 

And they all read like they were written by the same PR person.

[Admin]

Hi Cruisers! There has been an increase in reviews for Viking Star and I have looked at every one of them before publication. I've read critical comments and positive comments. We also have reviews for Viking Star that are awaiting some edits by the reviewer that will also add to the overall picture of these first few cruises.

 

It's not uncommon for a cruise line to ask their cruisers to submit reviews. That doesn't mean they're planted. It just means that a smaller line trying to get the word out about their product is asking their passengers to spread the word especially if they had a good time. A lot of the time their passengers are new to our site and they register in order to submit the review. These are all things we run into in the review process. But please know that Cruise Critic does not automate the member review process and every review you see on the site has been viewed by a real person that is trained to look for certain things that indicate a review may be fake. Do we get it wrong sometimes? Sure we do because we're human. But in this case, we believe these new reviews are genuine.

[Vineyard View]

Appreciate that clarification CC Admn. It really is good to know that.

 

Funny.....I might point out, kinda wondered the same thing about some posters who claim to be long time cruisers, with vast years and nights of cruise experience.....however when they first started posting on the Viking forums they had very few posts.

I don't know, maybe some people change their 'handles' frequently when they start a new cruise or cruise line? I don't know. Maybe some people have patterns that one can't see if that is the case? Who knows......

Edited June 12, 2015 by Vineyard View

[PopsA]

It's not uncommon for a cruise line to ask their cruisers to submit reviews... A lot of the time their passengers are new to our site and they register in order to submit the review.

 

 

It was Viking River who sent me a request to complete a review for a river cruise that put me in touch with the growing Viking Oceans community before our cruise this year. It was a rocky road leading up to departure. But far more good was accomplished than sanity lost.

 

I would never say Viking doesn't care about people's opinions but their marketing people have far more to do than write bogus reviews. It's not like they need them to fill the ships in the next year and a half. With the delay of one of the ships they have a shortage of cabins and and a high demand, plus all the industry reviews are excellent. And why shouldn't they be, Viking is creating market space where one has wanted to be for a long time.

Edited June 12, 2015 by PopsA

[id4elizabeth]

Not suggesting they were "fake" or planted by Viking. Just making an obersvation that many of the earlier reviews were from people who were active on the Star Roll Call boards before the cruise - people like paquebot, kathy9, and PopsA - those reviews, some positive and some negative, I tend to put more stock in. Note too that there were a LOT of Viking employees from various regional offices, as well as friends of the owner, various Viking VIPs, Press Corps, etc on the 2 segments that are getting a lot of the recent reviews - Barcelona to Bergen and Bergen to Stockholm. They were indeed passengers too, but their perspective may be a bit skewed.

 

I don't expect Cruise Critic to weed out reviews when they have no way of knowing who was on board and who was not. About the only thing I would expect CC to do is stop obvious eqivalents of robo calls or spam. If you have a valid email and become a member there's no way I would expect CC to cross reference the cruise manifest to find out if they were actually aboard. If a bunch of reviews came in with exactly the same wording that might be another clue, but these reviews did not have exactly the same wording - just the same slant, and all on the same day.

[OneBag]

It is not only perfectly reasonable to be cautious about such reviews, it is prudent. By now it is old and tired advice to be very skeptical of reviews from users who have no posts and no other reviews -- whether they are good reviews or bad reviews, whether we are looking at TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon, CruiseCritic, or wherever. This doesn't mean that all such reviews are plants or fake. It means they *could* be and one should be cautious about making purchasing decisions based on such reviews.

[Admin]

It was Viking River who sent me a request to complete a review for a river cruise that put me in touch with the growing Viking Oceans community before our cruise this year.

I don't know if they asked for Viking Ocean but I have a feeling that's why we have so many new members submitting reviews.

I would never say Viking doesn't care about people's opinions but their marketing people have far more to do than write bogus reviews.

I'd agree with this. Viking isn't huge but if they put out an inferior product, it would take a lot of work to counterbalance the negative reviews they would get. I think in the long run, the reviews will balance out and it will be easy to get a full picture of how the experience was.

 

It is not only perfectly reasonable to be cautious about such reviews, it is prudent. By now it is old and tired advice to be very skeptical of reviews from users who have no posts and no other reviews -- whether they are good reviews or bad reviews, whether we are looking at TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon, CruiseCritic, or wherever. This doesn't mean that all such reviews are plants or fake. It means they *could* be and one should be cautious about making purchasing decisions based on such reviews.

Excellent advice!

[terrytallent1]

As someone who will be on the Star in November I am glad to see Viking seems to be trying to address problems as they arise. I have always read reviews on cruise critic that were one extreme or the other. When I read one that says the entire cruise was a disaster I think they must have been on the Titanic. I can't help but think to myself "you say you had the worst cruise possible? What did you do wrong?" We try to make lemonade out of lemons. No cruise will ever be perfect. If the cruise is a test you have to give it a grade based on what went right and what went wrong. Most of my grades are in the 90's but no cruise has ever been 100. Looking forward to more reports from onboard the Star as we start preparing for November. Terry

[traveltwin]

We leave in two weeks for the Homelands trip on the Star. Have to say I'm quite astonished at some of the posts here... I know it says Cruise CRITIC, but honestly, folks.... Did you really think a maiden voyage or the next few would not have had issues? Of course there would be glitches.

I'm greatly looking forward to this trip and will post reviews when I can. I don't think I have to post my previous trips, who remembers, but have been on Seabourn in Caribbean, Alaska years ago in Universe Explorer, Smithsinian Elbe River, and many Viking, Grand Circle river trips.

the difference between river trips and ocean trips on a larger ship means that they have some kinks to work out. We knew this going in and are excited about the trip.

[roothy123]

Appreciate that clarification CC Admn. It really is good to know that.

 

Funny.....I might point out, kinda wondered the same thing about some posters who claim to be long time cruisers, with vast years and nights of cruise experience.....however when they first started posting on the Viking forums they had very few posts.

I don't know, maybe some people change their 'handles' frequently when they start a new cruise or cruise line? I don't know. Maybe some people have patterns that one can't see if that is the case? Who knows......

 

There are tons of people out there who don't know even know about Cruise Critic, but after taking a cruise, they learn about it. I've been asked a few times about it while on board, or mentioned it to someone onboard when asked, and have referred some friends to it as well. They had no idea the site existed. There are also plenty of people who read posts but never comment. You can see that by looking at the number of times a thread has been read. Maybe they've read some threads, taken a cruise, and decided to write a review but nothing else. Maybe they have read the posts encouraging people to post reviews and reacted negatively or positively to that, and wanted their voice to be included.

 

We have several people on our Roll Call who hadn't posted on Cruise Critic before until joining. I have no idea if they're long time cruisers, experienced Viking River cruiser, or have never cruised before in their life. It doesn't matter to me, so I don't ask. Besides, to ask them would be rude. Will they post a couple times on the Roll Call and then never do a post again, even a review? Who knows.

 

Ratings are somewhat useful (and interesting), but in the end, they're certainly not the only thing I consider when deciding on a cruise, vacation, hotel, restaurant, tour company, etc. That's particularly true since many people don't include enough information in their review to indicate if their taste is similar to mine, and what they focus on - price? food? comfort of beds?

[621ranger]

After reading the bashing we are getting for reviewing our recent Star cruise, I will say that I never heard of this site until approximately 2 months prior to our departure. I was told about it on another site and decided to check it out.

Yes, we have been on other Viking river cruises but never reviewed our experiences before. We also were on a Carnival Cruise of the millennium, and a Dolphin cruise line man-years ago.

If Cruise Critics is so worried about the influx of new members submitting reviews, perhaps they should ignore them and just post what they want.

[jlp879]

> snip. I was told about it on another site and decided to check it out.

 

Since I love the cruising websites, can you tell us which one it was?

[id4elizabeth]

No intent to bash anyone 621ranger. Glad you had such a wonderful cruise and hope you know you are welcome to the CC community and feel free to post. I'm just another CC member just like you. I was just interested to see so many positive reviews all in one day from so many people who were new members and had never posted before. Hope I did not put you off what is a wonderful resource here on CC. Apologies if I did!

[621ranger]

JLP,

I was told about this site by someone who was on Facebook and was interested in meeting people that would be on this cruise.

[Vineyard View]

I agree Roothy- and it was my point as well. That there are new posters all the time for any variety of reasons on CC.

I did appreciate that CC posted the information that each ship review is looked over by them.

[Admin]

If Cruise Critics is so worried about the influx of new members submitting reviews, perhaps they should ignore them and just post what they want.

We aren't worried. :)

 

I did appreciate that CC posted the information that each ship review is looked over by them.

Yes, by a real person. No automation here.

 

Don't hesitate to be in touch with us if you ever question something you see posted on the site.

[sitraveler]

For what it's worth, several of the cabin #'s on the new reviews do not exist.

[OneBag]

After reading the bashing we are getting for reviewing our recent Star cruise, I will say that I never heard of this site until approximately 2 months prior to our departure. I was told about it on another site and decided to check it out.

Yes, we have been on other Viking river cruises but never reviewed our experiences before. We also were on a Carnival Cruise of the millennium, and a Dolphin cruise line man-years ago.

If Cruise Critics is so worried about the influx of new members submitting reviews, perhaps they should ignore them and just post what they want.

 

I'm confused as to why you felt bashed. You were not one of the "0 posts" reviewers that raised some eyebrows. You, like, me, may be new to CC but you had posted before, and in the Viking forum, well before your review. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience.

[id4elizabeth]

Good catch, sitraveler! I wouldn't have thought to look. I tried looking up profiles of some of the reviewers, but since they haven't posted, I guess, you can't see any profiles.

[Admin]

For what it's worth, several of the cabin #'s on the new reviews do not exist.

Will you e mail reviews@cruisecritic.com with links to any of the reviews you see with cabin numbers that don't exist. We can look into it. Cabin category and room numbers are entered by the reviewer.