Comments from those who chose to stay on the 8/8 "Homelands" sailing

[shipnc]

I thought it might be interesting to get feedback from those who elected to stay on the Aug 8 "Homelands" sailing. How's it going? How has Viking managed the crisis? Was staying on the cruise a god decision? I suspect those who cancelled are curious about how things are going, and future VO cruisers would be interested in how Viking copes with irregular situations. So give us your two cents'-worth. I'll lead off. We came to Norway early so didn't find out about the itinerary change until we were there. We could still have cancelled , but would then have had to pay for our way home on a new routing, so we decided to stay the course. Saturday the 8th, the original embarkation day, was somewhat chaotic as Viking scrambled to see off the remnants of the last cruise and then accommodate the new arrivals in a scarce hotel environment. In all, 12 different hotels were used, with some as far away from downtown as the airport. There was some disgruntlement among travelers who were already here who had to move from their original hotel into another, even though Viking had booked rooms in that very hotel. We were fortunate in that I ran into a Viking agent by accident in our hotel and was able to arrange to stay there since it was one of the selected hotels. There was some also some confusion and limited communication about dining arrangements, but we ate at our hotel after finding out about the arranged meal by running into fellow travelers. The following day we had a full day excursion by bus to the fjord area, with staggered departures from all the different hotels. The tour was fine but there was some congestion at our lunch location. The next day, Monday, we did a short city tour, had lunch at a very congested hotel location and then shuttled on buses out to the airport for our charter flight. This was a very large logistical challenge that I thought Viking handled well. Flying under any circumstances is not much fun and standing in lines to check bags and get screened for security is not my idea of what you want to do on cruise, but Viking made it as easy as they could and we finally reached Star around 7pm. So, we are now onboard enjoying the beautiful ship and looking forward to the rest of the cruise. Yes there were some problems getting to this point, but overall, in this one man's opinion, Viking did one heck of a job in a most difficult situation. And here's a final irony: British Airways lost our bags at Heathrow and we did not recover them until 6 days later. Had Viking Star sailed on it's original schedule, we would have sailed with no clothes. So, it's an ill wind.....

[huntersyaya]

We sailed on the Viking Homelands July 11 Bergen to Stockholm cruise. We had a wonderful time and hated to hear that less than a wk after we got off, the bottom fell out. This must have been a logistical nightmare for everyone involved. Truly hope that the rest of your cruise is fabulous and that it makes up for what you have gone through.