Live from Viking Saturn June 7-21 NYC-Canada-Greenland-Iceland

[stretchcruz]

Hi Kent...haven't been able to be on CC for awhile so I missed your Live. I'm up at 2 AM and read the while thing. Wonderful. Glad you are enjoying!

[TayanaLorna]

14 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

We had 3 very large streams (almost rivers) to cross. We couldn’t believe our driver would make it across, but in the 5x4 bus he did, to the resounding applause by all!.

That's exactly what i remember.  Was a real adventure getting there.  That year there was a lot of rain.  That huge landslide across from the cruise dock occurred a few months before our trip.

[TayanaLorna]

8 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

I could have happily stood on that platform shooting pictures until both cameras and phone ran out of battery. Unfortunately, at that point the return bus would have been long gone.

We were the last ones returning from that walk doing the same.

[SJD117]

This thread deserves one more puffin picture. Star Wars fans may recognize the location — in real life, the Skellig Michaels off the Irish coast.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by SJD117

[CCWineLover]

35 minutes ago, SJD117 said:

This thread deserves one more puffin picture. Star Wars fans may recognize the location — in real life, the Skellig Michaels off the Irish coast.

 

 

Great shot!  The Skelligs in Ireland!  Done that!

[LindaS272]

@CCWineLover

Hi Kent,

We are trying to set up a meet and greet on our Saturn cruise beginning July 5. We don’t have final docs yet—can you give us the ship’s email address? @purpleally(Joanne) is trying to get this going ahead of time.

 

Many thanks,

 

 

[Twitchly]

7 hours ago, SJD117 said:

This thread deserves one more puffin picture. Star Wars fans may recognize the location — in real life, the Skellig Michaels off the Irish coast.

 

 

That’s lovely, nicely framed. Well done.

[lazydayz]

Glad you had a good cruise, and thank you for the trip report.

 

What did you use in the way of weather wear?  Jacket, gloves, cap, thermals, rain gear?  Thanks. 

[Hobson1754]

Thanks for the great report Kent.  We are on Saturn in September - Reykjavik to Barcelona, so we were interested in how this new ship fared compared to others in the fleet i.e. food, service etc.  You’ll be back on Saturn again in February, as will we so look forward to seeing you then.

[CCWineLover]

18 hours ago, lazydayz said:

Glad you had a good cruise, and thank you for the trip report.

 

What did you use in the way of weather wear?  Jacket, gloves, cap, thermals, rain gear?  Thanks. 

We had very fortunate weather on Saturn!  Never wore gloves, never wore rain clothes.  Lucked out!  Never even opened an umbrella during the 14 day cruise.  Jackets, yes!   Very windy and often quite cold out.  I would still break the things you mentioned.  Like insurance, you might need it and are happy if you don't.

[CCWineLover]

17 hours ago, Hobson1754 said:

Thanks for the great report Kent.  We are on Saturn in September - Reykjavik to Barcelona, so we were interested in how this new ship fared compared to others in the fleet i.e. food, service etc.  You’ll be back on Saturn again in February, as will we so look forward to seeing you then.

Thanks!  Yes, see you in February!

We enjoyed Saturn a lot - the crew were the best we've had.  The food and wine were typical of past cruises.  We tend to avoid MDR, as it is still often very slow.  It seemed to be completely full each of the two dinners we ate there - don't remember that happening before.   Each cruise has its own vibe though!  We had a lot of veteran Viking cruisers onboard - about 350 they said, so people were very familiar with the Viking ships.

We enjoyed the new now full time Asian bar behind WC near Aquavit bar.  (used to have Omelettes and more for breakfast, pasta for lunch).  Also enjoyed the windows being open on the pool deck to keep it from getting too hot and muggy with the roof closed.

[TayanaLorna]

2 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

We had very fortunate weather on Saturn!  Never wore gloves, never wore rain clothes.  Lucked out!  Never even opened an umbrella during the 14 day cruise.  Jackets, yes!   Very windy and often quite cold out.  I would still break the things you mentioned.  Like insurance, you might need it and are happy if you don't.

Agreed, bring it all.  Our Iceland cruise had very nice weather until the last day when we had our 5 hour tour of the Reykanes Peninsula with misty rain the whole time.  We were so happy to have our rain pants and jackets as we were able to participate in the walks at all stops.  We even used our head nets over a brimmed hat at the Djandji waterfall hike.  Everyone else without nets were swatting the flies and cut their hike short because of them.

[TayanaLorna]

2 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

Thanks!  Yes, see you in February!

We enjoyed Saturn a lot - the crew were the best we've had.  The food and wine were typical of past cruises.  We tend to avoid MDR, as it is still often very slow.  It seemed to be completely full each of the two dinners we ate there - don't remember that happening before.   Each cruise has its own vibe though!  We had a lot of veteran Viking cruisers onboard - about 350 they said, so people were very familiar with the Viking ships.

We enjoyed the new now full time Asian bar behind WC near Aquavit bar.  (used to have Omelettes and more for breakfast, pasta for lunch).  Also enjoyed the windows being open on the pool deck to keep it from getting too hot and muggy with the roof closed.

So Saturn has that additional food station at end of WC like the Jupiter did.  Asian for breakfast, lunch and dinner?  What is Asian for breakfast?

[CCWineLover]

2 hours ago, TayanaLorna said:

So Saturn has that additional food station at end of WC like the Jupiter did.  Asian for breakfast, lunch and dinner?  What is Asian for breakfast?

Yes, all Asian, all the time.  Breakfast can be shu mai, or won tons, or hum bau, or dumplings, or noodle soup.  Interesting that Viking chose to go this route.  I asked the cruise consultant and he said they do this on Neptune and mars too.  Funny no one talked about it! 

 

[CCWineLover]

On 6/16/2023 at 7:16 PM, CCWineLover said:

Clay -

this picture of you and Mike truly inspired us!  We hop to try several other hot dogs on the rest of our circumnavigation and back in Reykjavik!

We had another great hot dog at the Black Sands Beach yesterday on our South Coast tour.  Spectacular!

Edited June 23, 2023 by CCWineLover

[deec]

Thanks so much for doing this "live report"  Safe and healthy rest of your travels!

 

[TayanaLorna]

1 hour ago, CCWineLover said:

Yes, all Asian, all the time.  Breakfast can be shu mai, or won tons, or hum bau, or dumplings, or noodle soup.  Interesting that Viking chose to go this route.  I asked the cruise consultant and he said they do this on Neptune and mars too.  Funny no one talked about it! 

 

Well that will be fun to try.  Lots of Asians in crew.

[Clay Clayton]

35 minutes ago, TayanaLorna said:

Well that will be fun to try.  Lots of Asians in crew.

They’ve had shumai and congee for breakfast in the WC on all our cruises. For those without the noodle station, they’ve been placed at the far right as you face the hot buffet station. Where there is soup at lunch and dinner. 

[lazydayz]

8 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

We had very fortunate weather on Saturn!  Never wore gloves, never wore rain clothes.  Lucked out!  Never even opened an umbrella during the 14 day cruise.  Jackets, yes!   Very windy and often quite cold out.  I would still break the things you mentioned.  Like insurance, you might need it and are happy if you don't.

Thank you.  We are anxiously awaiting our cruise to Iceland in late July. 

[deec]

Can you get eggs made to order elsewhere in the WC? 

[Clay Clayton]

1 hour ago, deec said:

Can you get eggs made to order elsewhere in the WC? 

Precovid they were available at the hot portion.  There were several cooks making eggs.  

[Peregrina651]

2 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

Precovid they were available at the hot portion.  There were several cooks making eggs.  

 

Postcovid as well, both sides of Cafe.

[OneSixtyToOne]

3 hours ago, deec said:

Can you get eggs made to order elsewhere in the WC? 

The main cooking stations makes eggs to order. Ordered omelettes on my last cruise in April.

[Mich3554]

9 hours ago, CCWineLover said:

Yes, all Asian, all the time.  Breakfast can be shu mai, or won tons, or hum bau, or dumplings, or noodle soup.  Interesting that Viking chose to go this route.  I asked the cruise consultant and he said they do this on Neptune and mars too.  Funny no one talked about it! 

 

I ate about 1/3 my meals from that back station on the WC.  They had the best chicken noodle soup back there, and stir fries.  Dim sum for breakfast…..miss it already!

[KTRaveller]

Thanks for the opportunity to come along.  On our TA from San Juan to Barcelona in April we had no sense that service in the MDR was slow at all and never heard anyone mention it.  We had mostly sea days so perhaps the dining times spread out more and around 780 pax so not a full ship.  It will be interesting to see if there's a problem from Rome to Istanbul this fall when there will be so many stops and busy schedules.