Entertainment on Viking Ocean

[cabogal]

We are booked on our first VO cruise on the Viking Sky Lisbon to Miami in October 2020. Was wondering what kind of activities and entertainment there might be on sea days? There are 4 sea days in a row and am hoping for some activities (other than eating & drinking 😀) to keep us from getting bored. Thanks

[geffric]

One is so busy on a crossing that the days fly by.

Trivia, lectures, star gazing, whale watching, cooking classes, puzzles,  tours of galley and bridge, tea at 4 , spa, exercise classes,  etc..

[Richard2]

We did Lisbon-Miami last year. The only difference from other VO cruises was an increase in the number of daily lectures. These were excellent and entertaining. Sometimes 3, sometimes 4 lectures each sea day. Otherwise, everything geffric describes are the activities available on all VO cruises. Plan for stress free relaxation. Bring books.

[CCWineLover]

On 10/4/2019 at 4:17 PM, cabogal said:

We are booked on our first VO cruise on the Viking Sky Lisbon to Miami in October 2020. Was wondering what kind of activities and entertainment there might be on sea days? There are 4 sea days in a row and am hoping for some activities (other than eating & drinking 😀) to keep us from getting bored. Thanks

 

Hi cabogal - we are on the same exact cruise on the Sky next year.

Good question - we are curious to try to TransAtlantic cruise as we've not done that before.

[Jammy Bun]

If you get the chance, do the Laundry tour.  It may not be advertised (or available) but is worth asking at the front desk.  We were in a small group (about 12 people) shown round and were amazed at what the laundry crew accomplish in such a small space.  Absolutely fascinating.

[KyOh]

We are also on the Lisbon-Miami cruise in 2020.  Our first transatlantic was from San Juan to Barcelona.  It was amazing!  You don't have time to get bored unless you WANT to be bored!  I had fun with the cooking class as well as the tours mentioned above.  We even had a sewing activity where we learned some of the stitches used in the Bayeux Tapestry.  Prepare for a relaxing trip.

[molymoo]

We took a cooking class on a sea day during our last VO cruise.  There was some work ... no one broke a sweat ... but lots of food and wine!  It was a lot of fun!

 

Edited October 8, 2019 by molymoo

[philw1776]

Lectures can be fantastic. One lecture was by a British couple who did formerly classified work at Bletchley Park.  Easy to go up and have a personal conversation post lecture.
Our favorites were by Oxford Prof Jeremy Paterson.  His lectures were a hoot.  Informative & entertaining.  After So much so that we booked the 2020 In The Wake Of The Vikings where he'll be featured.  Several evenings after dinner he's host a "bull session" up in the Explorer Lounge.  Great discussions.  
After one morning lecture about 20 of us followed him to the stairways where he gave a floor by floor explanation of the Bayeux Tapistry scenes on each landing.

[Etexvrc]

We too enjoyed Jeremy Paterson's lectures.  I believe he was on our Majestic Iceland cruise.

 

But I've a question for you philw1776, you seemed to have a source for lecturers for upcoming cruises.  Did you 'just ask' Viking?  Or is it available publicly somewhere?

 

I'd be interested in this information for upcoming cruise in South America coming up in late Dec.  Wondering who the lecturers will be. 

 

Thanks in advance.

[CCWineLover]

3 hours ago, Etexvrc said:

We too enjoyed Jeremy Paterson's lectures.  I believe he was on our Majestic Iceland cruise.

 

But I've a question for you philw1776, you seemed to have a source for lecturers for upcoming cruises.  Did you 'just ask' Viking?  Or is it available publicly somewhere?

 

I'd be interested in this information for upcoming cruise in South America coming up in late Dec.  Wondering who the lecturers will be. 

 

Thanks in advance.

Me too, philw1776!   Etexvrc are on the same South America cruise on Jupiter.

 

In our 3 Ocean Cruises, the lecturers have easily been one of the most outstanding things!  It would be great to know who's going to be coming up, but I know that sometimes things change at the last minute.

We met one of the most outstanding lecturers, Russell Lee, a fellow Californian, on our May Jupiter Cruise from Barcelona to Copenhagen.  He was absolutely mesmorizing, and with help from his wife Gail, put on the most amazing and entertaining learning sessions....  I know that he did several other cruises this summer, often called in at what seemed to be the last minute.  Do a search on Viking forum for Russell Lee and you'll see several posts.

[philw1776]

14 hours ago, Etexvrc said:

We too enjoyed Jeremy Paterson's lectures.  I believe he was on our Majestic Iceland cruise.

 

But I've a question for you philw1776, you seemed to have a source for lecturers for upcoming cruises.  Did you 'just ask' Viking?  Or is it available publicly somewhere?

 

I'd be interested in this information for upcoming cruise in South America coming up in late Dec.  Wondering who the lecturers will be. 

 

Thanks in advance.

No secret source. He & his wife told me they were going to be on that cruise.
I too would like advance notice, where possible, of cruise directors, historians, etc.  Maybe Viking feels tha=ere would be lots of cruise critic & MyFace social media complaints when inevitably plans change.

[Cienfuegos]

On our recent Trade Routes of the Middle Ages cruise, Viking Ocean offered Dr Sherry Hutt, Wing Commander Bill Simpson, and art historian Brian Healy.  Each was excellent. Exuberant, informative, etc.

 

One port visit (Falmouth UK) was cancelled, which required an extra day at sea.  Each lecturer had a packaged presentation ready to fill the suddenly opened gap.

 

The cruise ship enrichment site has a fine background / bio on cruise lecturers:  http://www.cruiseshipenrichment.net/

[CCWineLover]

4 minutes ago, Cienfuegos said:

On our recent Trade Routes of the Middle Ages cruise, Viking Ocean offered Dr Sherry Hutt, Wing Commander Bill Simpson, and art historian Brian Healy.  Each was excellent. Exuberant, informative, etc.

 

One port visit (Falmouth UK) was cancelled, which required an extra day at sea.  Each lecturer had a packaged presentation ready to fill the suddenly opened gap.

 

The cruise ship enrichment site has a fine background / bio on cruise lecturers:  http://www.cruiseshipenrichment.net/

Wow, Cienfuegos!  This is a wonderful site!  Thank you so much for sharing.

[haydn12]

Russell Lee was on our British Isles cruise in late July.  We really enjoyed his talks and especially the Beatles talk while we were docked in Liverpool.  He found out that I'm a musician so we gabbed quite a bit about music.

 

Jim 

[Cyber Kat]

If you find Bill Miller as a lecturer on any of your cruises, do not miss any of his talks. He covers passenger ships from the Floating Palaces of the Titanic age to the present day in a series of lectures. The first one we went to had a decent amount of people present for the talk, but by the last one, the house was packed.  He’s very entertaining, very knowledgeable about his subject and has all sorts of fun inside stories.  

 

I have to look up the names of our other lecturers. They were also very interesting.  We also had a Q&A with our Captain and the Hotel Manager that was hilarious.  The Hotel Manager, Charles Verwaal, missed his calling.  He should have been a comedian. 
 

We had 3 sea days on our very recent Montréal to NYC cruise, and there were things we had to skip, because there was so much to do.

[tinaincc]

My DH and I are taking this trip in 2 months - I am a little worried about things to do but I promise to come back to this post and let you know how we filled our time.  Tina

[Gnoelj]

On 10/5/2019 at 7:17 AM, cabogal said:

We are booked on our first VO cruise on the Viking Sky Lisbon to Miami in October 2020. Was wondering what kind of activities and entertainment there might be on sea days? There are 4 sea days in a row and am hoping for some activities (other than eating & drinking 😀) to keep us from getting bored. Thanks

 We were on the Viking Star on the Meds cruise and then the Viking Sky (we think) this year to the Caribbean and both the entertainment on board especially the theatre shows were quite poor and on some evenings there were no theatre programs at all. The similarity between the two cruises was the cruise director was someone called  Gemma ( or someone who sounded something similar). We will still cruise with Viking because of its other great qualities but  the next time we would try to avoid one when she is the cruise director. Hope on your cruise you will have a better cruise director than we had and who will organise a great program.

 

Edited October 12, 2019 by Gnoelj

[Gnoelj]

3 hours ago, Gnoelj said:

 

 

....think her name is Jenna 

 

Hope someone will tell her to pull up her socks as Viking Ocean customers deserve better entertainment than just lectures.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Gnoelj

[Gnoelj]

25 minutes ago, Gnoelj said:

 

....think her name is Jenna 

 

Hope someone will tell her to pull up her socks as Viking Ocean customers deserve better entertainment than just lectures.

Just checked and realised our last Caribbean cruise was on the Viking Sea not Viking Sky.