Pay attention to your luggage

[ruimin]

We recently enjoyed a wonderful Viking river cruise - the Elegant Elbe.  The luggage problem occurred when we checked into our hotel in Berlin - one of our bags didn't arrive with us. It turned out 4 bags were missing altogether. After a couple of weeks the bus company found the bags in a "never used" compartment. After nearly 2 more weeks we received our missing suitcase, all intact, but we were charged nearly $100 by UPS for the shipping. We have appealed to our Viking Customer service rep and let the bus company know about our unhappiness with having to pay. The costly lesson for us is that no one admitted any mistake or role in the mishap and, therefore, it is, by default, our fault.  One of the wonderful things about these cruises is having the cruise line handle transfers for you. We will still enjoy that, I guess, but we will make every attempt to watch our luggage get loaded and unloaded on/off any bus or van - since we appear to be responsible, if not culpable.

 

Matt and Jimmy, I apologize for not getting your contact info.  I you're reading this please contact Dave at lyrytsar@gmail.com

[CILCIANRQTS]

Amen to that!!
Our bag was lost after we hand delivered our carryon bag to the person loading the bus in Bergen, who suggested it would be easier on us to have it stowed below the bus cabin. When it did not come off the bus at our hotel, we notified the on-site Viking rep that the bag contained my essential heart medication. After many hours of back and forth with Viking and the bus company, the bag mysteriously appeared. When we asked what had happened, we were told “You don’t want to know!” We were so overjoyed to get the bag back that we didn’t pursue the process.

Lesson learned - never again!!

[mom0f3]

Two words:  Air Tags.  On our trip to Egypt, a carryon did not arrive in our cabin for our Nile River Cruise.  We were sure it had been put in the luggage hold of the bus that had taken us from the airport.   Our AirTag showed it was about a mile away from the dock, and personnel determined that was where the transfer bus had parked.  The bus driver looked, and insisted our bag wasn’t there.  We told him to look again, because our AirTag said it was.  Sure enough, when he climbed inside he found our bag lodged into a corner.   It made us true believers, and we’d never travel without them in our checked and carryon luggage.   

Edited December 2, 2022 by mom0f3

[sugarside]

This must be quite a common event as this has happened to me as well on a coach transfer to a hotel.Mine too was found hidden ?? in a corner at the back of the coach’s luggage compartment with the coach parked in an overnight car park.

[NYU73]

21 hours ago, CILCIANRQTS said:

Amen to that!!
Our bag was lost after we hand delivered our carryon bag to the person loading the bus in Bergen, who suggested it would be easier on us to have it stowed below the bus cabin. When it did not come off the bus at our hotel, we notified the on-site Viking rep that the bag contained my essential heart medication. After many hours of back and forth with Viking and the bus company, the bag mysteriously appeared. When we asked what had happened, we were told “You don’t want to know!” We were so overjoyed to get the bag back that we didn’t pursue the process.

Lesson learned - never again!!

I would suggest you purchase apple air tags and put one in your luggage or in your Med Bag, They are easy to set up and as long as you have wifi you can   ask SIRI to check your lugage location. Saves alot of time and frustration

Safe Travels

[LindaS272]

5 hours ago, NYU73 said:

I would suggest you purchase apple air tags and put one in your luggage or in your Med Bag, They are easy to set up and as long as you have wifi you can   ask SIRI to check your lugage location. Saves alot of time and frustration

Safe Travels

It works in FindMy under devices, too, We bought some last year after hearing a CC poster who had them in his luggage that got stuck in Barcelona. The airline refused to check on it but he eventually got it well after his cruise.

[ruimin]

We have a happy ending to the missing suitcase drama. We thank Viking Customer Service for resolving our issue with having to pay UPS to get our bag.  It turns out that the nearly $100 we paid is just a brokerage fee and about 1/4 of what it cost to get our bag from Berlin (the bus company paid the rest). We hadn't heard of air tags or luggage RFID tags until this incident and we very much agree with the people who recommended them. Ours are on order. I have to reflect on how much wasted time and grief we could have saved had we used these tags. We will still maintain higher vigilance with the loading and unloading of our bags. Hopefully the air tags will make this a simpler task.    Dave

[NavyCruiser]

On our Viking Grand European river cruise last year, One elderly couple used the "Luggage Forward" service & never received their luggage.  So they wore Viking logo clothing the entire 2 weeks.

We've always were leery of those type of services.

Luckily, we're still middle aged, so don't mind lugging our bags ourselves, & using Tile tags...