12/19 Malta, Morocco and Med cruise - Malta and other port canceled

[CalTrojan]

I just got the e-mail below from Viking…. It understates the impact, since Malta was an overnight, and now adds three sea days to existing four sea days, which is just too much.  Given that the North African ports can also be unreliable, this is extremely disappointing.  I’m likely going to cancel, just not worth the fare for a cruise where half of the days will be sea days 😕

 

Edited April 25 by CalTrojan

[OneSixtyToOne]

Wonder why they scheduled this cruise with Malta on Christmas and Malaga on New Year’s Day? They now have scheduled them for sea days. Malta is a very Catholic country and I envision that everything will be closed on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve everything will shut down well before sunset.

Edited April 25 by OneSixtyToOne

[SantaFe1]

I would hate this change.  We are scheduled in Nov. 2025, over Thanksgiving, which wouldn’t make a difference in Europe.  But our reason for going is to go to Malta, and hopefully to get to see the Alhambra.  I would probably cancel with this change.  It is an expensive cruise, and as you say, North African ports are iffy anyway.  We have missed Morocco twice now!

[SJD117]

We’re scheduled for the March 2025 sailing. The first thing I did when I read about the Malta change was to check the day when Easter occurs next year, on the assumption that Malta might close down then as well. Fortunately the holiday is late (April 20) and so won’t overlap with our trip.

[OneSixtyToOne]

51 minutes ago, SantaFe1 said:

 But our reason for going is to go to Malta, and hopefully to get to see the Alhambra.

 

We toured The Alhambra with Viking and here are a few things to be aware of.

• It sells out within minutes. Be sure you try and book as soon as reservations open. Book and pay for it immediately.
• The Alhambra restricts the number of busses allowed by cruise lines to one single bus per day per line.
• Admission tickets must have the passenger's name printed on it. Because of this, even if there are cancellations onboard, the seats will not be resold.
• You are subject to random ID checks during the tour at checkpoints. You must carry your passport and the name must match what is printed on the ticket. 

 

It was an awesome experience that has to be seen to be believed.

 

Celestial ceiling 

Edited April 25 by OneSixtyToOne

[SantaFe1]

52 minutes ago, SJD117 said:

We’re scheduled for the March 2025 sailing. The first thing I did when I read about the Malta change was to check the day when Easter occurs next year, on the assumption that Malta might close down then as well. Fortunately the holiday is late (April 20) and so won’t overlap with our trip.

Yes, Easter is April 20 next year.  We will spend it on our Pacific Coast Explorer cruise.  It is a sea day for us.  

Edited April 25 by SantaFe1

[OneSixtyToOne]

7 minutes ago, SantaFe1 said:

Yes, Easter is April 20 next year.  We will spend it on our Pacific Coast Explorer cruise.  It is a sea day for us.  

So you dock in San Diego on the 18th? Sounds like I have a photo op to take a picture of the ship. What excursions are you looking at? Pandas are expected to be back at the zoo later this year. Was just there last week. They are refurbishing the enclosure.

[SantaFe1]

On the website they have a behind the scenes zoo experience which I would love to do.  Being born and raised and living all my life in Southern California, until we retired, nothing on this cruise is really new to us.  We are approaching it as a wine-tasting cruise!  But yes, we will have to look for you and your camera on April 18 next year.🙂

[Little Sister]

I just got the same email for my ship, dropping my port on Christmas Day. It’s not like they didn’t realize the date. I’m guessing the rest of the ports will stay, but I wonder how many ports a cruise line could cancel before they would have to refund passengers, for example if a 12 day cruise visits one port instead of the scheduled itinerary of 10. 

[lackcreativity]

8 hours ago, CalTrojan said:

I just got the e-mail below from Viking…. It understates the impact, since Malta was an overnight, and now adds three sea days to existing four sea days, which is just too much.  Given that the North African ports can also be unreliable, this is extremely disappointing.  I’m likely going to cancel, just not worth the fare for a cruise where half of the days will be sea days 😕

 

Since Malta was supposed to be an overnight, will you at least get to spend Christmas Eve visiting there? 

 

I was originally tempted by this itinerary, but the winter scheduling, the four sea days, and the uncertainty over the North African ports made me decide this was not the one I was hoping to find. This is really an unacceptable circumstance in my opinion.

[Twitchly]

8 hours ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

We toured The Alhambra with Viking and here are a few things to be aware of.

A footnote to your excellent list: there’s a considerable amount of walking on uneven surfaces. Nothing like what we encountered on our (non-Viking) trip to the Holy Land, but we had a couple people who couldn’t do it. They spent some time in a garden area instead, as I recall.

 

Our guides were terrific (we had a separate guide for the long bus trip, and she was interesting), and I highly recommend the excursion. But oh, the crowds. 
 

Finally, I recommend Washington Irving’s “Tales of the Alhambra” for a glimpse into what it was like a couple hundred years ago. 
 

On my bucket list: to stay overnight at the hotel inside the Alhambra and see the place when the mobs are gone.

[LindaS272]

46 minutes ago, Twitchly said:

On my bucket list: to stay overnight at the hotel inside the Alhambra and see the place when the mobs are gone.

We stayed one night in the Parador in the former convent within the Alhambra on our trip to Spain in the 1980s but there wasn’t access to the Alhambra itself as I recall. Not sure if there would be access now since it is strictly controlled.