Welcome Back Cruises 2021 - Malta & Adriatic Cruises and General Discussion

[Alan2504]

7 hours ago, CLBSC said:

8/23 Cruise: We have scheduled an early morning wall walk tour in Dubrovnik. Hoping it won't be too hot.

Good thinking, our walking tour started after 10 and ended at around 12:30ish 

By the end the temperatures were up about 31 deg C, the walls are great hike !

You'll deserve a good lunch after that 😄

 

[Jchivers]

I'm on the Venus, sea day.  So far so good.  By the way: we never had to use the VeriFly app.

 

Confirm that the fitness center and spa are by reservation only.  Mask usage is "required" but it's fairly casual, both on board and on the excursions.  The trick is: you can remove your mask while eating and drinking, so make sure you're always eating and drinking. 🙂  

 

Spitting in the test tube every morning.

 

The Viking Voyager app is supposed to be the focus of all information - but it isn't working due to failure to integrate with IOS security.

 

Once we sailed away from Valletta the ship was experiencing some severe vibration, like sitting on an unbalanced washing machine.  It went on through the night until at some point in the wee hours this morning, it blessedly stopped.

 

Service and food are excellent.  The social calendar today is very thin -- just lectures, background music from the pianist/guitarist, and one trivia game.  Good day for spa treatments.

[les37b]

Gutted I had to cancel the current Venus sailing, but so pleased for those who made it.

 

Keep the updates coming..... even though it will feel like torture! lol

[Alan2504]

On the subject of shore excursions, the times you have booked online may change,we got caught out this morning, our 10:35 tour got switched to 9:40 so when you get on board check the times on the actual tickets! 🙃

[FirstTimeFreddy]

18 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

Would any of you “pioneers” be willing to post the Viking Daylies while on board? Or even photograph them and upload when you’re home? 

Here are the first two Viking Daily Newsletter for the Malta & Adriatic cruise on the Viking Venus. One is for Sunday 25th July and the other Monday 26th July. Files are in Pdf  format.

20210726_101645-converted.pdf 20210726_102451-converted.pdf

[FirstTimeFreddy]

1 hour ago, Jchivers said:

I'm on the Venus, sea day.  So far so good.  By the way: we never had to use the VeriFly app.

 

Confirm that the fitness center and spa are by reservation only.  Mask usage is "required" but it's fairly casual, both on board and on the excursions.  The trick is: you can remove your mask while eating and drinking, so make sure you're always eating and drinking. 🙂  

 

Spitting in the test tube every morning.

 

The Viking Voyager app is supposed to be the focus of all information - but it isn't working due to failure to integrate with IOS security.

 

Once we sailed away from Valletta the ship was experiencing some severe vibration, like sitting on an unbalanced washing machine.  It went on through the night until at some point in the wee hours this morning, it blessedly stopped.

 

Service and food are excellent.  The social calendar today is very thin -- just lectures, background music from the pianist/guitarist, and one trivia game.  Good day for spa treatments.

We're both using Android and IOS phones and we've not experienced any problems using the Voyager App as yet, so it's strange that some are having problems 🤷‍♂️

[Staffordshirecruiser]

Wish we were with you. We booked for that cruise but had to move to UK ones because of the FCDO insurance issue- hoping this is resolved soon?

[CLBSC]

2 hours ago, FirstTimeFreddy said:

Here are the first two Viking Daily Newsletter for the Malta & Adriatic cruise on the Viking Venus. One is for Sunday 25th July and the other Monday 26th July. Files are in Pdf  format.

20210726_101645-converted.pdf 10.93 MB · 8 downloads 20210726_102451-converted.pdf 10.28 MB · 8 downloads

You two are the best to take time out of your cruise to think of others. Bless you! Looks like you are having a great time....can't wait. 

[Tom.in.nc]

3 hours ago, FirstTimeFreddy said:

Here are the first two Viking Daily Newsletter for the Malta & Adriatic cruise on the Viking Venus. One is for Sunday 25th July and the other Monday 26th July. Files are in Pdf 

We really appreciate your posting of these.  We will wave if we see you at MLA on the 3rd.

 

Tom and Sylvia 

[Alan2504]

Today we are in Split, not sure how good the result will be but I tried to do today's daily ? 🙃🙃

[gma1]

On 7/24/2021 at 10:17 PM, viking2004 said:

Thanks for keeping us up to date re. "The much talked about 3 hr. bus excursion" and other useful up-to-date info.  We’re cruising after you (with any luck). 

Soooo helpful! Viking 2004 what cruise are you on?  Maybe same as us? We are on 21 day August 30...leaving on 29th from Dulles airport, live in DC area, on Austrian Airlines to Vienna, for 2 hr. layover & on to to Malta airlines.Both are partner airlines to United. Viking did our air this time. Coming back on Viking Charter from Newark.

[gma1]

3 minutes ago, gma1 said:

Soooo helpful! Viking 2004 what cruise are you on?  Maybe same as us? We are on 21 day August 30...leaving on 29th from Dulles airport, live in DC area, on Austrian Airlines to Vienna, for 2 hr. layover & on to to Malta airlines.Both are partner airlines to United. Viking did our air this time. Coming back on Viking Charter from Newark.

On the SEA...August 30....our roll call isn't as active or informative as this general one. Thanks everyone for posting while on the Venus! We hope our cruise will be much fewer people too...although  all past Viking cruises with capacity were awesome with plenty of room and their excellent organization!

[LindaS272]

5 hours ago, FirstTimeFreddy said:

Here are the first two Viking Daily Newsletter for the Malta & Adriatic cruise on the Viking Venus. One is for Sunday 25th July and the other Monday 26th July. Files are in Pdf  format.

20210726_101645-converted.pdf 10.93 MB · 30 downloads 20210726_102451-converted.pdf 10.28 MB · 29 downloads

Thanks for these—very helpful!

 

I look forward to Kotor info. Our morning tour—Highlights of Montenegro—leaves about 8:45 and returns at 2 pm but only mention of food is local “samples” (ham, cheese) even though the description does not indicate “snack.” This is a tender port, I believe, so no time to pop back onboard for food before our walking tour at 2:45. Oops! I have blood sugar issues and will need more than snacks probably.

 

Freddy—do you know if we’re allowed to bring food ashore in Kotor?

[CLBSC]

23 minutes ago, gma1 said:

On the SEA...August 30....our roll call isn't as active or informative as this general one. Thanks everyone for posting while on the Venus! We hope our cruise will be much fewer people too...although  all past Viking cruises with capacity were awesome with plenty of room and their excellent organization!

Our August 23rd roll call isn't as active as this one as well but we are gaining valuable information from this general roll call. 

[Jchivers]

53 minutes ago, gma1 said:

our roll call isn't as active or informative as this general one.

It turns out that there’s a good reason why the individual roll calls have been so dead for these cruises: there are fewer than 200 passengers on each cruise. Fewer passengers = fewer potential posters.

[Alan2504]

Our next cruise on the Viking Sea will have around 450 happy cruisers on board 😎

[FirstTimeFreddy]

Viking Daily - Day 4 - Tuesday 27th July. Kotor, Montenegro.

 

 

20210726_192349(1).pdf

[rizello]

My assumption is that if we have two excursions we would need to go back to the ship to join the second excursion, rather than staying on shore to meet the next excursion.  That way they keep you in the bubble.

 

Is that correct?  It would be nice to stay on shore and eat lunch on shore without having to run back to the ship for a quick bite, but we assumed that would not be allowed.  

 

 

[FirstTimeFreddy]

6 minutes ago, rizello said:

My assumption is that if we have two excursions we would need to go back to the ship to join the second excursion, rather than staying on shore to meet the next excursion.  That way they keep you in the bubble.

 

Is that correct?  It would be nice to stay on shore and eat lunch on shore without having to run back to the ship for a quick bite, but we assumed that would not be allowed.  

 

 

EDIT: At present you won't be allowed to eat in restaurants or cafes outside of the ship. If you have two tours, you will go out on your first tour and then return to the ship for lunch. Afterwards you will then set off for the second tour.

 

The Explorers Desk has just confirmed that contrary to the itinerary, Kotor is no longer a Tender. The ship will be docked. The only tender will be Gozo.

Edited July 26, 2021 by FirstTimeFreddy

[LindaS272]

10 minutes ago, FirstTimeFreddy said:

Viking Daily - Day 4 - Tuesday 27th July. Kotor, Montenegro.

 

 

20210726_192349(1).pdf 4.65 MB · 7 downloads

So for your cruise, you are docked in Kotor. Our invoice for Sept. 15 shows tender port. You have different schedules for your walking tours too. We’ll see how the timing for ours shakes out.

[FirstTimeFreddy]

5 minutes ago, LindaS272 said:

So for your cruise, you are docked in Kotor. Our invoice for Sept. 15 shows tender port. You have different schedules for your walking tours too. We’ll see how the timing for ours shakes out.

Yes our itinerary for this cruise also showed us as a tender for Kotor. This has changed for us now and may or my not be a permanent fixture.

[LindaS272]

10 minutes ago, rizello said:

My assumption is that if we have two excursions we would need to go back to the ship to join the second excursion, rather than staying on shore to meet the next excursion.  That way they keep you in the bubble.

 

Is that correct?  It would be nice to stay on shore and eat lunch on shore without having to run back to the ship for a quick bite, but we assumed that would not be allowed.  

 

 

In our case there’s only 45 minutes between return of morning excursion (2:00) and walking excursion (2:45) and ours is designated as a tender port right now so there would be no time to return to the ship for lunch and wouldn’t make sense to go back to the ship to join the next tour. I’ll have to squirrel something away ;-).

 

One can hope conditions on the ground may change by Sept. When is your cruise rizello?

[FirstTimeFreddy]

8 minutes ago, LindaS272 said:

In our case there’s only 45 minutes between return of morning excursion (2:00) and walking excursion (2:45) and ours is designated as a tender port right now so there would be no time to return to the ship for lunch and wouldn’t make sense to go back to the ship to join the next tour. I’ll have to squirrel something away ;-).

 

One can hope conditions on the ground may change by Sept. When is your cruise rizello?

That does sound like a tight turn around between tours. 🙈 They don't have a problem with food being taken off ship, so you'll be fine 👍They'll give you a bottle of water too, but take extra as the weather will no doubt still be very hot when you get here.

[CLBSC]

Are there daily spa specials or are the prices the same as are posted online in My Journey? Is it best to book spa appointments before the cruise?

[FirstTimeFreddy]

10 hours ago, les37b said:

Gutted I had to cancel the current Venus sailing, but so pleased for those who made it.

 

Keep the updates coming..... even though it will feel like torture! lol

Don't worry Les, when you're on the Venus and I'm stuck in London, I'll be green with envy and weeping into my cup of tea 🤣