Viking Ocean - Combined Cruise Schedule

[CharTrav]

8 minutes ago, harbourside said:

So, shortly they should be advertising some 1 off cruises via Africa.

 

Agree -- time will tell.   There's no way they're going to dead-head Venus from Athens to Bangkok.   I'll check it out next Saturday.  I find they do their updates over weekends. Sometimes I've found myself in the middle of update drops. 

Edited July 1 by CharTrav

[harbourside]

27 minutes ago, CharTrav said:

Agree -- time will tell.   There's no way they're going to dead-head Venus from Athens to Bangkok.   I'll check it out next Saturday.  I find they do their updates over weekends. Sometimes I've found myself in the middle of update drops. 

They also could go Southern Atlantic route, around South America, or via Panama Canal to get to the South Pacific Ocean.  As long as they get to Australia .

[CharTrav]

1 hour ago, harbourside said:

They also could go Southern Atlantic route, around South America, or via Panama Canal to get to the South Pacific Ocean.  As long as they get to Australia .

Truly 

[island lady]

10 hours ago, millybess said:

Barcelona is one of my favourites. Enjoy!!

 

Thanks!  We were there last year, loved it.  Great walking town and pretty waterfront.  🙂 

[new2cruise]

15 hours ago, CharTrav said:

You inspired me to go back to my pictures to remind me of what happened. Did a mixture of optional and included excursions.  Am basing this on notes I took at the time (keep a log using EverNote because I don't have to be connected to the Internet to record my notes).

Thank you for this recap!  It’s very helpful.

[midwife]

Update on Australian summer schedule. Email yesterday cancelling our cruise on Venice for March next year. They are no longer bringing Venice down to the southern hemisphere. The email said it will be redeployed. 

[harbourside]

11 minutes ago, midwife said:

Update on Australian summer schedule. Email yesterday cancelling our cruise on Venice for March next year. They are no longer bringing Venice down to the southern hemisphere. The email said it will be redeployed. 

What cruise where you on.  I am on Viking Venus 20th Jan to 20th Feb. which would precede your cruise.  Seems the cruises before and after are all being cancelled. 

[CharTrav]

14 minutes ago, midwife said:

Update on Australian summer schedule. Email yesterday cancelling our cruise on Venice for March next year. They are no longer bringing Venice down to the southern hemisphere. The email said it will be redeployed. 

Thanks! Total speculation on my part but I think they're trying to stay away from the Suez, Persian gulf etc. 

[kctwinmommy]

9 minutes ago, harbourside said:

What cruise where you on.  I am on Viking Venus 20th Jan to 20th Feb. which would precede your cruise.  Seems the cruises before and after are all being cancelled. 

There's a whole thread about Sea cruises that were cancelled too. But those are in the Caribbean (not hurricane affected, plus they cancelled 2026 ones) and Pacific NW cruises. Lots of shuffling going on. Left us without a cruise... No idea when we'll get on Viking again.

[midwife]

1 hour ago, harbourside said:

What cruise where you on.  I am on Viking Venus 20th Jan to 20th Feb. which would precede your cruise.  Seems the cruises before and after are all being cancelled. 

We were on the Voyage of Marco Polo leaving Bangkok 20March. The email said they are redeploying Venus. It did mention the security issues. 

[millybess]

1 hour ago, harbourside said:

What cruise where you on.  I am on Viking Venus 20th Jan to 20th Feb. which would precede your cruise.  Seems the cruises before and after are all being cancelled. 

We’re on Venus January 6 - 20. No cancellation……yet. 😎😎

[CharTrav]

I swear there's an evil imp that makes me think I've made a posting to CCF from my iPhone but somehow gobbles it up even after I press "submit".  Let me try again -- this time from a workstation browser (Firefox) -- and cross my fingers it will actually be posted! 

 

Bottom line -- to prevent you folks suffering from unwanted and needless anxiety I'm going to continue monitoring the VO schedule but hold off making any postings until the churn in the Venus schedule dies down. I definitely do not want to find myself posting about a cancellation one day and discover it was resolved the next. Still, if  I have some good news to report (e.g., news about Venus' redeployment), that I WILL share as soon as.

[Peregrina651]

2 hours ago, CharTrav said:

I swear there's an evil imp that makes me think I've made a posting to CCF from my iPhone but somehow gobbles it up even after I press "submit".  Let me try again -- this time from a workstation browser (Firefox) -- and cross my fingers it will actually be posted! 

 

Bottom line -- to prevent you folks suffering from unwanted and needless anxiety I'm going to continue monitoring the VO schedule but hold off making any postings until the churn in the Venus schedule dies down. I definitely do not want to find myself posting about a cancellation one day and discover it was resolved the next. Still, if  I have some good news to report (e.g., news about Venus' redeployment), that I WILL share as soon as.

 

Follow the Viking Sea as well.

[island lady]

6 hours ago, millybess said:

We’re on Venus January 6 - 20. No cancellation……yet. 😎😎

 

Me neither.  We are on January 20th.   And we are connecting to Orion after our circumnavigation cruise from Sydney round trip.  Flights are booked.  Pre and post cruise extensions paid for.  

[surmy555]

I'm interested in an Athens to Athens cruise for the Fall of 2026. The 2025 cruises are available in the fall but the 2026 schedule only shows cruises through March. Does that mean there are no fall 2026 cruises or that the schedule simply has not been released yet? Thanks

[OneSixtyToOne]

10 minutes ago, surmy555 said:

I'm interested in an Athens to Athens cruise for the Fall of 2026. The 2025 cruises are available in the fall but the 2026 schedule only shows cruises through March. Does that mean there are no fall 2026 cruises or that the schedule simply has not been released yet? Thanks

 

If last year is any indication, the Fall schedule for 2 years out wasn't released until November. Last October we tried to book a Japan cruise while on the Octantis and the May 2025 date was sold out. October opened after we returned and we booked immediately. We missed out on the onboard booking discount by about 2 weeks.

 

Given all the uncertainty with the Suez situation, anything is possible.

Edited July 14 by OneSixtyToOne

[CharTrav]

26 minutes ago, surmy555 said:

I'm interested in an Athens to Athens cruise for the Fall of 2026. The 2025 cruises are available in the fall but the 2026 schedule only shows cruises through March. Does that mean there are no fall 2026 cruises or that the schedule simply has not been released yet? Thanks

That’s what normally happens. The schedule for the upcoming year is fully scheduled  but the year following that doesn’t get fully scheduled until much later. If you look at the log in my schedule spreadsheet (filter it to show all years back to when I first started it) you’ll get a better feeling for the pattern with which the schedules come out. 

[CharTrav]

Ok -- thanks to @Peregrina651, who assured me that I shouldn't worry about making folks panic because everybody who's been affected by the cancellations I saw on the Viking Ocean site (the only source I use) for Venus and now also Sea has already been informed. Viking would not update its publicly available schedule otherwise.  With that said, I updated the spreadsheet and posted it a few minutes ago.  If you already have a copy of it --  just use the link on the ReadMe tab to get a fresh copy.  If not, use this link (no DropBox account required) - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/062f9aow9gvpfr9oruzji/Viking-Ocean-Expedition-Cruises-2024-to-2026.xlsm?rlkey=x2hrknzryauv1xd4b1ksji4op&dl=0.

 

1. No changes to the VE schedule.

2. Venus:

    - extended cancellations affecting 2024 into 2025 (Australia, Asia, & the Mediterranean) and through 2026 (Voyage of Marco Polo, Passage to India, and Across the Bay of Bengal)

   - Bangkok, Bali & Beyond, which was cancelled for 2024, is still scheduled for 2025 and 2026.

   - It appears that the intent here (along with the cancellations for Saturn) is to keep out of the whole area. Waiting to see what will replace these canceled sailings.

3. Sea

   - Was surprised by this -- doesn't seem to have anything to do with international events. 

   - Canceled West Indies & Panama Canal Passage (Mar, Oct 2025); Pacific Coast Explorer (Apr, May, & Sept 2025; Apr 2026); Caribbean & Panama Canal (Mar 2026), and West Indies Explorer (Oct and Nov 2025)

   - Reduced the number of sailings of West Indies Explorer in Dec 2025 from 4 to 2 and Alaska & the Inside Passage in May 2026 from 3 to 1.

  - Again -- no replacements so far for these canceled sailings.

4. Yi Dun

Adding Tokyo (Yokohama) to the ports it visits in 2025 with three new cruises: Gems of China, Japan & Tibet;  Jewels of Japan & China; and Pearls of Japan, China & Tibet.

5. No changes to the rest of the VO fleet.

 

As I wrote before -- I will keep an eagle out for changes to the VO schedule that replace these cancellations.

Edited July 16 by CharTrav

[kctwinmommy]

@CharTrav - thank you! I'm also still trying to figure out some logical reason for them cancelling the Sea cruises in the W. Indies and Alaska. My only thought it money. They want to be in the Mediterranean instead. Oh well, our cruise is cancelled and there's nothing I can replace it with anymore. It will probably be a few years before we get onto a Viking ship again. 😔 The W. Indies dates worked for us, with my husband's new job, and other events we have planned. And the price was good.

[Peregrina651]

2 hours ago, kctwinmommy said:

@CharTrav - thank you! I'm also still trying to figure out some logical reason for them cancelling the Sea cruises in the W. Indies and Alaska. My only thought it money. They want to be in the Mediterranean instead. Oh well, our cruise is cancelled and there's nothing I can replace it with anymore. It will probably be a few years before we get onto a Viking ship again. 😔 The W. Indies dates worked for us, with my husband's new job, and other events we have planned. And the price was good.

 

We can speculate but we will never know for sure, because Viking rarely makes public announcements about schedule changes.  The changes are rarely about money. They are usually about logistics and safety. 

 

There is a lot of talk about drought effecting the Panama Canal.  If you look carefully, the Sea's schedule was heavily dependent on the Canal, either for Canal cruises or to get to the Pacific via the Canal.

 

Cancellations on Venus are all about not using the Suez Canal, which is unsafe for transit at this time for multiple reasons. Unfortunately, it has made a mess of Viking's plan to send Venus to S.E. Asia and Australia.

 

[CharTrav]

No changes so far with regards to the Sea and Venus.  I would posit though that nothing will be posted on the public facing Viking Ocean site until the folks affected by the changes to the Sea and Venus schedules are given first dibs to book. 

 

That said -- there have been a few updates that I'll share here but without posting an updated copy of the spreadsheet.

Saturn:  added a sailing of Empires of the Mediterranean in late Dec '25.

Sky: added four shorter segments to the Dec '25 sailing of the Viking World Cruise I

     - Jewels of the South Pacific (LA to Sydney)

     - Treasures of Australia & Indonesia (Sydney to Singapore)

     - Asia Isles & Coasts of Africa (Singapore to Cape Town)

    -  Cape Town to London Passage

[CharTrav]

Am in the process of updating the spreadsheet and discovered Viking is getting ready to launch a new ship in 2026.  It's called the Mira.  It's so new the web page for the Viking fleet hasn't been updated yet. Anyway -- am trying to decide what color code to assign to it and seek you input. If possible I'd like to associate the color with the meaning of Mira but it has to be a color that is easily distinguished from the other ship colors AND doesn't hide the text in it.  Thanks much!

[millybess]

9 minutes ago, CharTrav said:

Am in the process of updating the spreadsheet and discovered Viking is getting ready to launch a new ship in 2026.  It's called the Mira.  It's so new the web page for the Viking fleet hasn't been updated yet. Anyway -- am trying to decide what color code to assign to it and seek you input. If possible I'd like to associate the color with the meaning of Mira but it has to be a color that is easily distinguished from the other ship colors AND doesn't hide the text in it.  Thanks much!

If memory serves, Mira is very hot and is deep red -- think Chili Pepper!!

[millybess]

....and thanks for all you do.  It is very much appreciated.  🙂

[CharTrav]

On 8/21/2024 at 4:52 PM, millybess said:

If memory serves, Mira is very hot and is deep red -- think Chili Pepper!!

How about a pale hot pink?