Tips For New Viking Ocean Cruisers - Vol.2

[CDNPolar]

Just now, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, if we are booked in a DV without a beverage package, what type of access do we have to the carafe of still water you mentioned? Will there be a carafe of still (or sparkling on request) water provided daily in the cabin? 

Every day!   You can ask for one of each or two of each.  The Cabin Stewards aim to please.  

[Ken the cruiser]

Just now, CDNPolar said:

Every day!   You can ask for one of each or two of each.  The Cabin Stewards aim to please.  

Cool! Just what we wanted to hear, as we just booked our first VO cruise and my DW only drinks water and hot chocolate. 

[CDNPolar]

Just now, Ken the cruiser said:

Cool! Just what we wanted to hear, as we just booked our first VO cruise and my DW only drinks water and hot chocolate. 

 

Hope you love Viking as much as we do!

 

Generally speaking when we first arrive at our cabin we unpack.  During this process the Cabin Steward(s) normally knock and introduce...

This is when we ask for robes and slippers (if not there) the water we want, extra hangers if not enough, etc.

 

The sparkling is in-house made so delivered to the cabin I still find it ok... 

 

Also ask for ice to be brought daily if you want the water cold.

[Ken the cruiser]

19 minutes ago, CDNPolar said:

 

Hope you love Viking as much as we do!

 

Generally speaking when we first arrive at our cabin we unpack.  During this process the Cabin Steward(s) normally knock and introduce...

This is when we ask for robes and slippers (if not there) the water we want, extra hangers if not enough, etc.

 

The sparkling is in-house made so delivered to the cabin I still find it ok... 

 

Also ask for ice to be brought daily if you want the water cold.

Thanks! We're checking out Viking as it appears they have some unique itineraries to offer. For our initial test, we've booked a 2-week Aug 2026 cruise from Reykjavik to Bergen with 2 days in Longyearbyen in a Neptune aft-facing DV1 cabin. I'm sure we're going to have an awesome time, especially if we get an added bonus of seeing the Northern Lights from our balcony once or twice as we cruise above the Arctic Circle headed south towards Bergen! 

 

  

Edited August 9 by Ken the cruiser

[Steerpike58]

25 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Cool! Just what we wanted to hear, as we just booked our first VO cruise and my DW only drinks water and hot chocolate. 

I happened to notice hot chocolate packages by the 'tea station' in World Cafe on our last cruise.  There may be better options, but at least I saw that! 

[Clay Clayton]

2 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks! We're checking out Viking as it appears they have some unique cruises to offer. For our initial test, we've booked a 2-week Aug 2026 cruise from Reykjavik to Bergen with 2 days in Longyearbyen in a Neptune aft-facing DV1 cabin. I'm sure we're going to have an awesome time, especially if we get an added bonus of seeing the Northern Lights once or twice as we cruise above the Arctic Circle headed south towards Bergen! 

 

  

Welcome to Viking and you’ve picked a great cruise to start with. We did it last summer and had a great time. If you haven’t been to Iceland before and can make it work with your time and budget, I highly recommend flying in early as you will only get a tiny taste of Iceland from your one port stop. I’ve included a picture of Gullfoss (Golden Falls) which is one stop on the Golden Circle tour-easily doable at various price points as a day trip from Reykjavik. 
 

And I wouldn’t get your hopes too high regarding Northern Lights-we were gone from the third week in July until the first week in August and never saw the sunset …which means it’s usually too light to see the northern ones. The other phot below was taken on night at midnight. This was as low as we ever saw the sun. 

[Clay Clayton]

7 minutes ago, Steerpike58 said:

I happened to notice hot chocolate packages by the 'tea station' in World Cafe on our last cruise.  There may be better options, but at least I saw that! 

They also will make it at The Living Room bar.

[Steerpike58]

6 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks! We're checking out Viking as it appears they have some unique itineraries to offer. For our initial test, we've booked a 2-week Aug 2026 cruise from Reykjavik to Bergen with 2 days in Longyearbyen in a Neptune aft-facing DV1 cabin. I'm sure we're going to have an awesome time, especially if we get an added bonus of seeing the Northern Lights from our balcony once or twice as we cruise above the Arctic Circle headed south towards Bergen! 

 

  

We just got back from Reykjavik after doing a similar cruise, minus the Swalbard and northern Norway sections. We absolutely adored Bergen and Geiranger. Plan to watch the ship sail as much as possible in and out of Geiranger (it's hundreds of miles of fjords) and into Bergen (ie, get up early / stay up late to watch if you can). 

 

I would love to see those northern Norway ports!  If you have extra time (and money!) consider the Oslo extension, with a fantastic train trip from Bergen to Oslo through the mountains. Or go to visit Flam somehow - perhaps even prettier than Geiranger. 

 

Plan your time carefully in Isafjordur in Iceland; the included 'local' excursion was a bit bleak in our opinion, and the town wasn't much to see, so maybe you can find a better excursion than we did. Geiranger and Bergen are beautiful on their own and even the basic included excursions were fine. 

[Mich3554]

20 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks! We're checking out Viking as it appears they have some unique itineraries to offer. For our initial test, we've booked a 2-week Aug 2026 cruise from Reykjavik to Bergen with 2 days in Longyearbyen in a Neptune aft-facing DV1 cabin. I'm sure we're going to have an awesome time, especially if we get an added bonus of seeing the Northern Lights from our balcony once or twice as we cruise above the Arctic Circle headed south towards Bergen! 

 

  

You probably won’t see any northern lights.  It will be light out a good part of the night.  I think one night, there was only 8 minutes between sunset and sunrise.  It really does weird things to your brain when your watch says 10pm, but the sky says 3pm.  

[Steerpike58]

15 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

Welcome to Viking and you’ve picked a great cruise to start with. We did it last summer and had a great time. If you haven’t been to Iceland before and can make it work with your time and budget, I highly recommend flying in early as you will only get a tiny taste of Iceland from your one port stop. I’ve included a picture of Gullfoss (Golden Falls) which is one stop on the Golden Circle tour-easily doable at various price points as a day trip from Reykjavik. 

I second the recommendation for Gullfoss - unbelievable waterfall!  It was part of our 'Golden Circle' excursion with Viking and was by far the best part (the 'geyser' was a bit of a dud, as it's no longer active other than a 2-second spurt every 5 minutes).  Our full-day (8.5 hour) Viking excursion included Gullfoss (amazing), the geyser (not so great), a hydrothermal power plant ('educational' but not for everyone) and the Thingvellir national park (pretty good). Finding a private alternative may not be a bad idea, and focus on the Gullfoss and Thingvellir locations only.  Did you go to Gullfoss with Viking or private? 

 

What did you do in Isafjordur - did you find something decent? 

15 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

 

And I wouldn’t get your hopes too high regarding Northern Lights-we were gone from the third week in July until the first week in August and never saw the sunset …which means it’s usually too light to see the northern ones. The other phot below was taken on night at midnight. This was as low as we ever saw the sun. 

Yeah, we heard that Northern Lights are only really visible in winter months. 

 

 

Edited August 9 by Steerpike58

[Clay Clayton]

7 minutes ago, Steerpike58 said:

I second the recommendation for Gullfoss - unbelievable waterfall!  It was part of our 'Golden Circle' excursion with Viking and was by far the best part (the 'geyser' was a bit of a dud, as it's no longer active other than a 2-second spurt every 5 minutes).  Our full-day (8.5 hour) Viking excursion included Gullfoss (amazing), the geyser (not so great), a hydrothermal power plant ('educational' but not for everyone) and the Thingvellir national park (pretty good). Finding a private alternative may not be a bad idea, and focus on the Gullfoss and Thingvellir locations only.  Did you go to Gullfoss with Viking or private? 

 

What did you do in Isafjordur - did you find something decent? 

Yeah, we heard that Northern Lights are only really visible in winter months. 

 

 

In Ísafjördur, we were able to get on Viking’s excursion to Vigur Island-it was great- puffins, Arctic terns, and eiderdown ducks!

 

 

We also were able to take the included excursion here which was enjoyable. It visited an example of ancient fishing houses and had an interpreter who told us about it. 

 

 

 

[millybess]

Those are really good photos!  I don’t think I’ve seen them before now. Thanks for posting them. 😊

[Steerpike58]

1 hour ago, Clay Clayton said:

In Ísafjördur, we were able to get on Viking’s excursion to Vigur Island-it was great- puffins, Arctic terns, and eiderdown ducks!

 

That's great - the excursions can make or break a port visit, obviously. 

 

1 hour ago, Clay Clayton said:

We also were able to take the included excursion here which was enjoyable. It visited an example of ancient fishing houses and had an interpreter who told us about it. 

 

Can you elaborate on 'here' - where was this excursion?  We did the included excursion in Isafjordur and it wasn't anything like that!  Was there more than one included excursion, or is 'here' somewhere other than Isafjordur? 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Thanks @Steerpike58, @Clay Clayton, and @Mich3554!
 

We’ve been to Iceland back in 2018 with Oceania, where we took the 8-hour Golden Circle tour, and then again in 2022 with Celebrity, and had an awesome time on both cruises. But Longyearbyen has always eluded us, up until now.

But I have to say when we’re cruising up around the Arctic Circle, I’ve got quite a few websites I monitor, just in case the NL potential peaks while we’re cruising around up there.

 

My first experience with seeing the NLs was when I was stationed in Anchorage back in the early 70s during the October timeframe and have never forgot that moment. Then about 50 years later on Aug 21, 2022 just after 11 pm as we were crossing from Isafjordur towards Greenland just below the Arctic Circle, we saw these NLs for about 10-15 minutes from our balcony on the Celebrity Summit.

 

 

Then on May 10th this year as we were cruising on the Grand Princess from Juneau to Skagway around 10:30 pm, we saw these NLs from our balcony. This was the same night folks all the way down in Alabama where we live saw the NLs as well.

 

 
Both photos were taken with an iPhone SE with no delay exposure capability. Our upcoming Aug 10-24 cruise on the Viking Neptune we will be cruising from the 15th on in a southerly direction towards Bergen where hopefully looking out the aft around midnight every night might offer some potential for seeing them.
 

For me, it’s all about the hunt. But at the same time we have a Princess NL cruise a couple months later that goes to Tromso and Alta that will probably increase our chances tremendously! Did I mention we are cruiseaholics and are easily entertained when it comes to experiencing nature when we’re on a cruise! 😁

 

In any event, we are super stoked about going on our first Viking cruise, regardless of whether we see the NLs or not. They would just be an awesome bonus!

[Peregrina651]

2 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

especially if we get an added bonus of seeing the Northern Lights from our balcony once or twice as we cruise above the Arctic Circle headed south towards Bergen! 

 

The Northern Lights require darkness to be seen. You can go to timeanddate.com to learn about the sunrise and sunset schedule for the various stops along your route. It will help you figure out what time you have to get our of bed in the middle of the night to see the lights. Night gets shorter the further north you go.

 

Timeanddate.com has some great graphics, like these Sun Graphs. https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/iceland/reykjavik

 

[MMMCruiser]

I have a question about the minibar that they restock daily (at least for the cabin that I booked it says that online).  If I don't drink alcohol, would they be willing to put soda or juice in the fridge instead?

[Ken the cruiser]

12 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

The Northern Lights require darkness to be seen. You can go to timeanddate.com to learn about the sunrise and sunset schedule for the various stops along your route. It will help you figure out what time you have to get our of bed in the middle of the night to see the lights. Night gets shorter the further north you go.

 

Timeanddate.com has some great graphics, like these Sun Graphs. https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/iceland/reykjavik

 

Thanks! I’ve added it to some of my NL monitoring links:

 
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-viewline-tonight-and-tomorrow-night-experimental 

 

https://auroraforecast.com/

 
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast

[MMMCruiser]

My family has taken a Norway/Iceland cruise and a Norwegian fjords cruise on different cruise lines and I'll just add that I highly recommend it.  There is so much natural beauty to see in both of those countries.  

[Peregrina651]

43 minutes ago, MMMCruiser said:

I have a question about the minibar that they restock daily (at least for the cabin that I booked it says that online).  If I don't drink alcohol, would they be willing to put soda or juice in the fridge instead?

 

All cabins have minibars stocked with sodas, at minimum. The contents is complimentary. (BTW, the minibars are not covered by the drinks package).

 

V cabins have to pay to have them restocked (or snag and extra can or two at meal times)

All other cabins include daily replenishment as part of the fare.

PV cabins and higher are also stocked with alcoholic beverages. Nip bottles of gin, vodka, bourbon and ?, wine, beer. You may request any assortment of soda and alcoholic beverages.

 

I do not know if juice is available for the minibars. The minibar is a separate concession than the rest of the beverage department. So, just be cause it is on the ship does mean that it can be supplied in the minibars.

 

[MMMCruiser]

Thanks.  I was just curious about how things work.  The previous cruises I have been on either had complimentary sodas or we had a premium drink package included.  It sounds like this will work for us. 

[Peregrina651]

12 minutes ago, MMMCruiser said:

I was just curious about how things work

 

I'm still trying to figure it out.

[LindaS272]

1 hour ago, Peregrina651 said:

gin, vodka, bourbon and ?

Usually gin, vodka, whisky, rum. No juice that I’ve ever been able to get. And not an unlimited selection on sodas. Depends on their stores.

[duquephart]

2 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

All cabins have minibars stocked with sodas, at minimum. The contents is complimentary. (BTW, the minibars are not covered by the drinks package).

 

V cabins have to pay to have them restocked (or snag and extra can or two at meal times)

All other cabins include daily replenishment as part of the fare.

PV cabins and higher are also stocked with alcoholic beverages. Nip bottles of gin, vodka, bourbon and ?, wine, beer. You may request any assortment of soda and alcoholic beverages.

 

I do not know if juice is available for the minibars. The minibar is a separate concession than the rest of the beverage department. So, just be cause it is on the ship does mean that it can be supplied in the minibars.

 

 

Gin, vodka, scotch, rum. No bourbon.

[OneSixtyToOne]

I learned this today aboard the Venus.

There is a 40 second delay when an announcement is made and when it can be heard on the TV.
 

Only emergency announcements are broadcast in the room. All others are only in public areas. So if you hear an announcement in the hall, quickly turn to the bridge cam channel on your stateroom TV and it will play in 40 seconds.

[FetaCheese]

11 hours ago, MMMCruiser said:

I have a question about the minibar that they restock daily (at least for the cabin that I booked it says that online).  If I don't drink alcohol, would they be willing to put soda or juice in the fridge instead?

 

Edited August 10 by FetaCheese