Tips for New Viking Ocean Cruisers

[Host Jazzbeau]

Not sure if I am off-track with this response to your comment, but aren't gratuities added to your onboard bill at the end of the cruise? And the crew was so delightful, we were happy to pay them! Other than that, I think we spent less than $20 extra for our entire cruise, and had a wonderful trip.

 

You are right, but in our case it was more than covered by our TA rebate.

[Nippy Sweetie]

Gratuities, flights and silver wine package are all included in our package as well as excursions. I think these cruises are marketed differently in UK.

[Peregrina651]

Gratuities, flights and silver wine package are all included in our package as well as excursions. I think these cruises are marketed differently in UK.

 

Yes. Things are marketed/packaged differently in UK, Australia and UK. One of the differences is that gratuities are included in the pricing where they are not in the US and Canada.

 

As for the excursions, not all excursions are included. There is one excursion marked as included for each port and if you want to go on any of the others that are offered, you have to pay for them. That is one of the perks that is included in the fare price along with free internet access, wine, beer and soda with meals, mini-bar replenishment in most cabin categories (not V), no-fee specialty restaurants, spa access (not spa services), and a few more smaller items.

[Nippy Sweetie]

Peregrina- yes I do know that! The reason I posted, I suppose, is that I wanted to highlight that not all Viking cruisers are American as sometimes seems on this forum!

[sherrar]

Yes, please remember your UK cousins!!!

[Riversanddale]

Can anyone tell us the times the main dining room is open? I thought I read somewhere that it is not open for lunch except on sea days. We don't have any sea days on our cruise this fall. I'm curious, too, so I can coordinate with excursions for breakfast and dinner. I can find info on the two specialty restaurants on My Journey but nothing about hours in the main dining room. Thanks.

[roothy123]

I think it was open just about every day from 12 to 1:30. The other venues were open longer for lunch - World Cafe, Pool Grill, Mamsen's. I only kept 3 Viking Daily papers, but for the ones I have, on the Edinburgh day The Restaurant was closed for lunch, and on the 2 other days (when we were in a port) it was open 12 to 1:30.

 

Based on the 3 days I saved: Breakfast at The Restaurant 8 to 9:30 AM and dinner 6 - 9 PM. Breakfast food is available elsewhere 6:30 - 11 AM, lunch in other venues from 11:30 - 2:30, snacks and tea 4 - 5, dinner 6 - 9 PM. Room service always available. We only ordered something once (dinner) but it came fairly promptly.

Edited July 22, 2017 by roothy123

[philw1776]

MDR Hours From Viking Daily Homelands Cruise

 

Bkfst 8:00 - 9:30

 

Lunch CLOSED

 

Dinner 6:00 - 9:00

[BarbarianPaul]

Your room key is an RFID card, so don't punch a hole in it so you can put it on a lanyard. The room key is also your ID card and your on-board account card. Keep it safe--and with you at all times. Oh, and make sure that you don't accidentally swap cards with your room-mate because you will not be allowed off the ship or back on if the face on the screen and yours don't match. (yes, this happened to us; fortunately, we were together). Part of the embarkation process is having your picture taken for just this purpose.

 

 

 

Any time you leave or re-board the ship, you will have to have present your card to be scanned. This is how Viking keeps track of us--how they know exactly who they are leaving behind when you fail to make "all aboard" time. Just hold your card up to one of the little black boxes on the podium; you will open your cabin the same way--just tap the card on the lock.

 

 

 

Everything you are carrying with you will be scanned--either through the xray machine or as you walk through the golden arches. The folks manning the scanners will tell you what to do and what you have to remove, if anything. If you are scanned on the dock, then you won't be scanned as you board the ship.

 

 

 

For us, this has varied from cruise to cruise, but adores Viking suggest we take our passports ashore?

 

 

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[deec]

Viking let us know each day in the Daily and port talk if we were required to take passports ashore.

[Vineyard View]

When we sailed MDR was open on sea days. Not sure if that still holds true.....

[vnb2003]

Can anyone tell us the times the main dining room is open? I thought I read somewhere that it is not open for lunch except on sea days. We don't have any sea days on our cruise this fall. I'm curious, too, so I can coordinate with excursions for breakfast and dinner. I can find info on the two specialty restaurants on My Journey but nothing about hours in the main dining room. Thanks.

 

We just finished the first week of Homelands and the restaurant was open for lunch only once during our sea day. It was open from noon to 1:30 pm.

 

I'm collecting Viking Daily that has a lot of information including what to care with you on shore.

[philw1776]

ALWAYS read your evening Viking Daily. It tells you lots of necessary info for the next day including tour time updates (changes, if any) and info about passport or no passport needed.

[Riversanddale]

Thanks for the comments re dining hours. I'm seeing variations regarding open or closed for lunch. The times however are very helpful. Can't wait for our first ocean cruise after many wonderful river cruises.

[CharTrav]

We just finished the first week of Homelands and the restaurant was open for lunch only once during our sea day. It was open from noon to 1:30 pm.

 

 

 

I'm collecting Viking Daily that has a lot of information including what to care with you on shore.

 

 

 

As I've shared elsewhere, here are all the daily pages from Viking Homelands in July 2016 - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/i9q99w1v62dxirp/AACz5hossbTM03bELvQPCfX9a?dl=0

 

 

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[roothy123]

Well, believe me, I'm not doubting that others experienced something else on their cruises. I think Viking opens The Restaurant for lunch when they think lots of people will be on the ship and closes it when they think they won't. We had a good number of sea days and part sea days on our Midnight Sun cruise, so maybe The Restaurant was open more than usual when compared to a cruise with few sea days. In any case, as Philw says, it's best to check the Viking Daily! I think the restaurant times may also be on the electronic boards, along with menus..

[AdventureGal79]

Thank you, CharTrav!!!

 

For those wanting to download all of them, I saw the "Download" button in the upper left, and chose "Direct Download". It then dowloaded one ZIP file with all of the pages. You are a gem!!

[BarbarianPaul]

We just finished the first week of Homelands and the restaurant was open for lunch only once during our sea day. It was open from noon to 1:30 pm.

 

 

 

I'm collecting Viking Daily that has a lot of information including what to care with you on shore.

 

 

 

We're on the exact itinerary departing 8/12. Any advice on the best chefs table menus, or ports or what not? Have you had any issues getting additional specialty dining? We were only allotted one reservation in each prior to embarkation. Have seas been rough? How's the weather? Any overall impressions of the cruise so far?

 

 

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[CharTrav]

Thank you, CharTrav!!!

 

For those wanting to download all of them, I saw the "Download" button in the upper left, and chose "Direct Download". It then dowloaded one ZIP file with all of the pages. You are a gem!!

 

My pleasure. You're welcome!

 

 

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[CharTrav]

Btw. I just finished combing thru all the Viking Ocean cruises scheduled thru 2019 and collected them in an easy to read/filter Excel spreadsheet. In addition to what I was able to gather from the big Viking Ocean catalog we received last January and from the Viking web site, I also took advantage of CruiseMapper.com. The last was to make sure I hadn't missed anything, being mindful that the final authority was always the VO site.

 

What I was trying to do btw was to capture a picture of each ship's movements. Thus, except for the very first sailing of a particular cruise for a given year, I did not record the sail date for every single cruise. Instead, I recorded a count for each month.

 

If you folks are interested and think you'd find this useful, I'll post it to my DropBox. If you know how to work with Excel filters and its Group functionality (a better way to hide columns), you should be able to make it sing. But it should be pretty self explanatory.

 

 

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[Peregrina651]

Btw. I just finished combing thru all the Viking Ocean cruises scheduled thru 2019 and collected them in an easy to read/filter Excel spreadsheet. In addition to what I was able to gather from the big Viking Ocean catalog we received last January and from the Viking web site, I also took advantage of CruiseMapper.com. The last was to make sure I hadn't missed anything, being mindful that the final authority was always the VO site.

 

What I was trying to do btw was to capture a picture of each ship's movements. Thus, except for the very first sailing of a particular cruise for a given year, I did not record the sail date for every single cruise. Instead, I recorded a count for each month.

 

If you folks are interested and think you'd find this useful, I'll post it to my DropBox. If you know how to work with Excel filters and its Group functionality (a better way to hide columns), you should be able to make it sing. But it should be pretty self explanatory.

 

 

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Other cruise lines have calendars that show where each of their ships will be each month of the year, why doesn't Viking do something similar. I have tried going to the Viking website and using the "find a cruise " tool but it doesn't work; I click on nth I want to travel in and nothing happens!! Very frustrating. Does any one else have this problem?

[CharTrav]

Other cruise lines have calendars that show where each of their ships will be each month of the year, why doesn't Viking do something similar. I have tried going to the Viking website and using the "find a cruise " tool but it doesn't work; I click on nth I want to travel in and nothing happens!! Very frustrating. Does any one else have this problem?

 

 

Agree that Viking should present ship's cruise itineraries in a calendar format. In the meantime, should I post the spreadsheet?

 

The find a cruise functionality works ok for me. I hit a month and it filtered fine. Also the rest of the filters (region, city, etc). Just checked in safari on my iPadMini. Are you using a browser in windows 10?

 

 

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Edited July 24, 2017 by CharTrav

[Azulann]

CharTrav,

I would love to see it in your drop box.

I have my eye on a new sailing 2018, 2019 from Amsterdam to Stockholm or Bergen. It has three stops in Denmark. I am Danish and have never been there. My sister and I would love to do this trip probably in 2019. Cannot remember which ship is doing the sailing, so your drop box would be very helpfulfollowiing the various ships.

I did look at one of the Viking Dailies you provided in your drop box.

It was so imformative , I like how Viking does their daily paper. I loved that they had on front page, in Danish" take me back to the ship".:)

Also, it was good to know that the included tour has three or four departure times in the day from early morning to early afternoon. Good to know if one is flexible which we will be on our cruise.

[Peregrina651]

Agree that Viking should present ship's cruise itineraries in a calendar format. In the meantime, should I post the spreadsheet?

 

The find a cruise functionality works ok for me. I hit a month and it filtered fine. Also the rest of the filters (region, city, etc). Just checked in safari on my iPadMini. Are you using a browser in windows 10?

 

 

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Yes, if you are willing to share, please post!

 

I'm using Opera and Firefox on Win10.

[CharTrav]

Yes, if you are willing to share, please post!

 

 

 

I'm using Opera and Firefox on Win10.

 

 

Will post. If needed, will add some help info. Don't know why FF or Opera aren't working. If you have an iPad, I can assure you that "find a cruise" filter works.

 

 

 

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