A Tour, a Lunch and a Palace

by | Jun 17, 2024 | Uncategorized

It’s 3:26 a.m., and I am back on my usual schedule. My hope is that Kathleen is downstairs on deck five, sound asleep, and because I am sitting on the second floor of the Explorer’s Lounge (my favorite place on a Viking Ocean ship) with my shoes off and my feet up on a couch writing this post. At home, this is when I usually wake up, but on this entire trip, this is the first time this has happened. I probably should have gone back to sleep, but I have this nagging cough, the last remaining remnant of my cold, that will not go away.

Enough about me. Let’s talk about Edinburgh. This is the fourth time that Kathleen and I have been there. It is one of our favorite cities; some of my favorite travel memories come from there. We first visited on a whirlwind tour of Scotland back in 2003. The last time we were here was in 2019 when we rented an AirBnB right on the Royal Mile for a week. I think that was my favorite visit because it was in May, and the city was fairly empty. Not as much yesterday.

Our day started with a sail-in that featured some pretty great photographic opportunities for me. The last time we had been here on a cruise ship was in 2017 when we sailed on Celebrity’s Silhouette. We did an overnight here that included us seeing the Royal Military Tattoo (the best show I have ever seen). That time, the ship anchored way off the coast, and we had to tender into the very small port of Leith. Because of the tides and depths of the channel, the tender took about 45 minutes to get from the ship to the shore. Viking uses the port of Rosyth. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because we don’t have to tender. Bad because to get into the city, you do have to drive for almost an hour to get into downtown. I guess it’s six of one and a half dozen of the other.

But one of the good things about Rosyth is the sail-in. There are some islands and three incredible bridges that you sail under to get to the pier. And you have to be a fairly small ship to get under them. We arrived to find Regal Princess heading into port but stopping just short of the bridges because she could not get under them. For those who aren’t cruisers or unfamiliar with Viking and Princess, all Viking ships have less than 1000 passengers and only nine decks. Regal Princess can hold up to 4,272 and has 19 decks—quite the size difference.

But back to the sail-in. We had beautiful weather. I took lots of photos. Here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I just stopped to see if I could find out more about the building we passed on the island just before we got to the bridges and discovered it is/was a monastery that was built in the early 1100s (it always blows me away to read something was built more than 300 years before North America was even discovered by Europeans). Inchcolm Abbey is on an island of the same name in the Firth of Forth. You can take a tour of the Abbey and the island.

Once we were docked, it was time for our “included” shore excursion—Panoramic Edinburgh. As you may recall from my Greenwich post, when it says “panoramic,” that translates to a “luxury motor coach” ride with a narrator and an hour or so at the end to shop or explore. This one was no exception.

Our guide for the day was Scott. He made a point to let us know that the country of Scotland was NOT named after him. He was a witty, verbose kind of guy (being one of those, I know from which I speak ?) who knew his stuff. He got us around Edinburgh with some great tales and anecdotes, and I would have really liked him except for one thing. He totally dismissed something I asked him to do for my comfort and the comfort of those around me.

As we were leaving the port on our “luxury motor coach,” we were in the back of a PACKED bus. I have never seen a Viking excursion so packed. Pretty much every seat was full. When Scott started his tour, he said, “If there is anything we can do to make your tour better, just let us know.” I piped up and asked him if he could request the bus driver give us a little fresh air in the back of the bus. Because we were so packed, it was quite warm and very stuffy. Scott’s answer to me was, “The air will come on once the engine is started.” And then he was off on his narration. Not a second to check in with the driver. Not a thought about the fact that since we were moving already, the engine was obviously turned on and no air was flowing from the vents. Nope, he basically told me he didn’t care about the people at the back of the bus and that his saying, “If there is anything we can do to make your tour better, just let us know,” was just the usual thing guides say to start a tour and he really didn’t give a damn. All he had to do was take two seconds to turn to the driver and say, “Could you put on the air in the back of the bus?” But he truly didn’t care and wanted to get on with his spiel.

Yes, I agree with what you are thinking. I am being petty. But it’s the little things that make a GREAT tour. I loved what he had to say; I laughed at his jokes, and the entire time I was doing that, I was very uncomfortable because it was so warm. And yes, I could have pressed the matter by speaking up again. But once you have been told to shut up (in so many words), if I were going to ask again, I would have to get up out of my seat and walk the length of the “luxury motor coach” to have a personal discussion with him. As it stands, my usual tip for a guide who makes me laugh and knows his stuff would have been £10 per person. Scott got exactly £0.

After we were off the bus, we had a choice; we could shop or explore for an hour, get back on the bus and head back to the ship for lunch, or we could go off on our own for the rest of the day and find our own way back to the ship later in the afternoon. We had already decided before we left the ship that we would spend the afternoon in the city. There were basically two things we wanted to do. One was lunch in the famous Tollbooth Tavern on The Royal Mile. Kathleen and I have eaten lunch there at least once on all four of our visits to Edinburgh. It’s not that the food is that great…it’s good pub grub. But the idea of eating in a pub that has been open continuously since 1851 and in a building that was built in the 16th century is just too cool.

The second thing we wanted to do was tour Holyrood Palace. We have toured the Castle, I have climbed Arthur’s Seat, and we have seen just about everything else in Edinburgh that people see when they come here, but we have never been able to get into Holyrood. It is the “official home of the Royal Family in Scotland,” and every time we have been here before, some royal has been in town. When a member of the royal family or their guests are in residence, all tours are canceled. That has happened to us every single time we have been there. But this time, I had checked in advance, and tickets were available for yesterday, and we could get in. And we did. A somewhat interesting palace (I got to see Mary, Queen of Scots bedroom) but they wouldn’t let me take photos inside and that always bothers me. I usually don’t visit those places. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t until one of the docents told me there were “no pictures allowed.” I had not seen a single sign (and I always look for them) telling me that, but I shut the Nikon off. I’m so sorry you won’t get to see the King’s bed, but there are a few photos I took on the way to the Palace and of the grounds. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

A personal side note: My favorite “mountain” is in Edinburgh. It sits above the city. It is called Arthur’s Seat. I put the word “mountain” in quotes because the definition of mountain in the UK is not the same as in Washinton State. The highest mountain in the United Kingdom is Ben Nevis here in Scotland, which is a hair over 4,000 feet. In Washington, we call those hills. We have Mount Rainier, which is 14,000 plus feet. Arthur’s Seat is 823 feet…but still, it is a mountain in Scotland. And It’s my favorite because I climbed it…at 4:00 a.m. to take a picture of the sunrise (see the photo below). I did that on my visit in 2019. So it has a special place in my heart.

At any rate, I didn’t climb Arthur’s Seat this time, but I was really fascinated by its views and the people climbing all over it. So here are a couple of pictures if that interests you.

That was it for us. We finally got an Uber that would take us back to the ship, and we were off and back on board. I posted the Sea Day post from yesterday, and Kathleen took a short nap before dinner at the buffet. As a special bonus, while we were eating dinner, we were sailing out, and I was able to get some more photos of the things we had seen coming in, plus more that I had somehow missed. So here’s the final group of photos from yesterday. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

 

 

That covers yesterday. Thankfully. I say that because it seems the further north we go, the worse the internet connection gets. We were fairly speedy in London, a little slower in Edinburgh, and now we are crawling. I certainly hope this improves. If it doesn’t, just know that I will be writing this and may have to post it when we are back home or close enough to land to get better speed. For those of you who know what speed your internet is at home, ours is about 500 megabytes a second. Here’s what I am getting this morning. This means that the average photo takes about two minutes to upload…each one. So frustrating.

Today, we are going to visit Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands. We have never been there before, so it should be interesting. We did receive a note from Viking last night that our “included” excursion for tomorrow in Lerwick on the Shetland Islands (our next port after Kirkwall) has been cut from 2.5 hours to one hour. The reason they gave us is a shortage of buses on the island and the fact that there are more than two cruise ships scheduled to be there. That’s just sad.

I hope to have a full report on Kirkwall and the Orkneys tomorrow…especially if I can’t sleep again.

I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Edinburgh a few times over the last few years, and I just loved the city. I find it one of the more beautiful cities in Europe.  —Joe Russo

Viking Venus…We have embarked!

by | Jun 15, 2024 | Uncategorized

Yesterday was our embarkation day on Viking Venus. This 14-night cruise will take us to three additional ports in Great Britain and five ports in Norway, including the one way up north on the map (that I can’t spell and would take 20 minutes to try and get right) deep inside the Arctic circle.

Embarkation was a piece of cake. If you are taking a cruise with Viking from Greenwich, you tell the driver to take you to “the Cutty Sark.” This ship (which is on dry land) is directly in front of where you want to be dropped off. If you are coming on a coach, you will be about half a block from where you are if you are dropped by a car. You will be right at this spot as soon as you are out of your car. Two or three Viking people will take your luggage and send you to the next Viking person, who will be about halfway to the Cutty Sark. From there, you turn right and head into the back of the building directly next to the Cutty Sark. Inside, you get your sea pass card, and they send you to the “tender” that takes you to the ship. All along the way (about every 10 feet) there is a Viking person in red telling you where to go next. It is impossible to get lost.

Thankfully, Viking does not use its lifeboats at Greenwich as tenders. Instead, it hires the same type of boat we took yesterday—the Uber Boats (aka The Thames Clippers). Each boat holds about 200 people in decent seats. The best part is that the entire trip from dock to ship takes about five minutes. From the time we got out of our taxis until we were onboard, it was less than 20 minutes. Impressive.

Before I tell you the next step in embarkation, I would like to mention taxis and Ubers. We had been using Uber for everything on this trip until we checked out of the hotel to head to the ship. Because we needed room for our luggage we decided to take two cars, so we thought, why not ask the hotel to get us a taxi. Not a great plan. The day before, when we headed to the Ted Lasso Tour, we left the hotel and took an Uber to the Cutty Sark, where we boarded the Uber Boat. The total charge by Uber for four of us (UberXL) was $6.43, or about £5. When we took the taxis at the same exact distance later in the day, the charge was £13 for Kathleen and me and £20 for Steve and Jamie! WTF??? (Please excuse my French.) And we thought we would get one of those nice London Black Cabs you see everywhere, but I am pretty sure the hotel desk person called his relatives because two guys showed up who barely spoke English and had VERY ratty cars. Our driver even had a hard time finding the Cutty Sark/cruise terminal, even though it is less than a mile away as well as being the biggest taxi destination in Greenwich. So beware! Take an Uber. Download and learn the app before you go.

Once we finished our short tender/ferry ride, we were on the ship which is still moored in the center of the Thames. I need to mention here…keep your sea pass cards in your hands. We had to show the at least six times between the pier, the tender and the ship. It was crazy. Not bad, just crazy. Once onboard, they sent us to deck two forward to the Star Theater for our quick life jacket demonstration. One of the young entertainers showed us how our life jackets worked and then told us that once we were in our rooms, we should watch the video on our TV and then answer a question at the end of the video. By the time we finished that, it was 11:45. We had left the hotel at 10:50, so we were at lunch in the World Cafe (buffet) by noon. That’s what I call a great embarkation. We finished our lunch (the food was excellent) and headed forward to our favorite place on the ship, The Explorer’s Lounge. We sat down and had a single drink, and they announced that all staterooms were ready at 1:00 pm. Exactly as promised.

We have precisely the same stateroom as we had on Viking Sky two years ago in the Mediterranean—5030. It was like coming home. It’s a Penthouse Verandah, which is slightly bigger than your standard verandah stateroom—338 square feet as opposed to 270 square feet. Besides our one-time upgrade to a Neptune Suite on HAL and our stateroom on Celebrity’s Flora in the Galapagos, this is the nicest stateroom we have ever been in. After three weeks in the Med in this room, we feel we are back home again. BTW: we weren’t actually in this room because we were on Viking Sky, and now we are on Viking Venus. But Viking builds all their ocean ships to be pretty much exactly the same, so if you have been in one of their staterooms, you can be very confident that you will have the same one on another of their ships.

We were in the stateroom for a very short time when our luggage arrived. This, too, was pretty impressive since it had to come over by barge. It was not far, but still, it had to be put on and taken off a barge. When the luggage got there, we quickly unpacked, took all our dirty laundry and headed to the deck 5 laundry! YEAH! Clean clothes. We were the first ones there and started two loads immediately. After two weeks on the road, it was great to have 99% of all the clothes I had with me, clean and dry. If you have not used Viking’s laundry before, There is one on pretty much every deck with staterooms. The washing and drying are free, as is detergent. So you pop them in, set a timer on your watch, go back to your stateroom and then return to change them or bring them back. We were sure glad we got there first because there were a lot of people like us who had been in the country for a few days or, in our case, weeks and needed clean clothes.

After laundry, Kathleen took a quick nap, and I headed to the Promenade deck to do a little walking. The Promenade Deck on a Viking ship is deck 2. And four times around, it is a mile. I did a quick three so I could shower and be up in the World Cafe for dinner by 6:15. It felt great to get out and walk for exercise. We have been walking a lot, but you saunter when you walk on a tour. When I walk on the  Promenade Deck, I walk for speed. And I love that the Viking Ocean ships have a deck that goes completely around the ship.

We had dinner at the World Cafe (buffet), and the food was excellent. Contributing to my happiness was finding an entire seafood section of the buffet, where they had mussels, seafood salads, poke, halibut ceviche and more. All of it was delicious. Throw in a roll and two breadsticks, and I was all set. So far, through two lunches, a dinner and a breakfast, the food has been delicious.

After dinner, I got kind of Victor Mildrew again because, by this point, it was 8:00 p.m., and our room wasn’t made up; we had not met our stateroom attendant(s). To top it off, Steve texted and told me that our excursion for the morning (today) was at 8:00 a.m., but my excursion ticket said 8:30. The ticket also said to check the meeting place in the Viking Daily. The only problem was that since our room had not been changed over, we didn’t have a Viking Daily yet. But never fear; there is one in the Viking app. So we go our phones and look up the excursion to see where we were supposed to meet, and it said, “Check your ticket for the time and place of the tour.” We went back to the ticket, and it said, “Check the Viking Daily.” WTF? (Again, please excuse my French). So I called the Explorer Desk that handles shore excursions, and she told me that “you can find the time and meeting place in the Viking Daily.” I explained to her that we don’t have a printed copy yet, but we had checked the Viking Daily on the Viking app. She tells me, “Oh, don’t bother with that. The app is hardly ever correct.” Seriously? Then why have it? We finally got it all figured out, and we went on the excursion. More about that tomorrow. Today I just want to get this online.

Tonight, we sail for Edinburgh at around 7:00. This should be a great sail out as we are pretty far up the Thames. Our guide told us today that when she does big ship tours, the closest they can dock to London is Tilbury, a 90-minute drive to Greenwich. That’s three hours total in both directions. YIKES! I don’t care if it is on a “luxury motor coach;” no thanks!

We start our cruise with an overnight here in London/Greenwich, so that means later, I will have some port info for you as well. I just wanted this one to be about our embarkation.

BTW: we did finally meet our stateroom attendant and his assistant, and as Kathleen and I both believe, their tardiness in getting to meet us and turn our room over has much less to do with them than it does that they have more than 30 staterooms to take care of. When we started cruising, most stateroom attendants handled 10 or 12. I am not sure how Viking (or any cruise line) expects them to be able to meet that many guests between boarding and bed that night. Another case of staff shrinkage.

One last thing. On our previous Viking cruise (21 nights in the Med), I had a real problem with the beds on Viking Sky. Well, I am VERY happy to report that the beds on Viking Venus are wonderful. I slept like a baby last night. I didn’t wake up until 6:15, which is late for me. YEAH!

You can find tranquility, you can find party, you can find new friends. I’m a cruise convert.  —Guy Fieri

Been awhile…but it’s almost time to go again

by | Apr 27, 2024 | Air travel, Photography

Greetings, loyal (I hope) readers. It’s been a while—like since New Year’s Eve. I just wanted to give you a heads-up about some upcoming posts coming your way in late May and pretty much all of June.

Yes, it’s time to travel again. And what a trip we have planned. A full month in Europe will first take us to see two of our oldest and dearest friends, Paul & Gail, in Leeds, England. But before that, we get to try an entirely new airline that will take us from Seattle to Heathrow—Virgin Atlantic. We have never flown with them before, and to make it even more special, we have never (after more than 230 flights) flown on a 787 Dreamliner, but we will on this flight.

When we get to London, we will transfer to Kings Cross station for our train ride to Leeds. That should be fun. We are with Paul and Gail for a long weekend and then we are off on another train to the west coast of Scotland. Both Kathleen and I love everything about Scotland, and since we have spent a lot of time on the eastern coast  (Edinburgh, Inverness, Stirling, etc.), we thought we needed to do the west side, including Glasgow, Oban and the Isle of Skye. Here’s what our route looks like.

Once we finish our Scotland journey, we grab a train back to London (actually Greenwich) for a couple of days. While we are there, we are going to do two things I am really looking forward to. First, we are traveling to Richmond to take a one-of-a-kind Ted Lasso tour. This tour goes to all of the places where they filmed my absolute favorite television show of all time. That night, we are back in the West End to see a new musical (that was nominated for an Olivier Award), Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder!

The next morning, we start the BIG second half of our journey, a Viking Ocean cruise down the Thames River to the North Sea to sail to Edinburgh, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands, Scotland as well as Honningsvåg, Tromsø, Bodø, Geiranger and Bergen, Norway.

After the cruise and a day in Bergen, we fly back to London (via Copenhagen), where we will spend the night at an airport hotel before another ride on Virgin Atlantic’s 787 back to Seattle.

All this means lots of photography and, hopefully, my usual daily updates for the full month of June. So stand by. We leave on May 30th. I will check in again before we go.

Adventure is just bad planning.  —Roald Amundsen

Let me sum up…

by | Oct 19, 2023 | Food Experiences

This should be the last post on our Vista cruise from Montreal to Miami. I hope you have enjoyed following along and the photos I have posted. I promised a final review of what we liked and didn’t. Also, since Oceania has decided to become more Viking Ocean-like with their new Simply More inclusions, I will finish by comparing the two. They both desire to occupy the same space and attract the same cruisers.

When doing this post, I consulted all seven members of our party, and they mostly agreed with me. And please—realize these are my perceptions. Not yours. If you had a different experience on your cruise, let me know, but don’t challenge me on my opinion of what I experienced.

What we loved…

  • Obviously, the food. Oceania promises the best food at sea, and in 90% of their venues, they succeed. Every single place to eat was as good or better than any place I have eaten on any other ship. If cruising is all about food for you—you want Oceania.
  • The new-ship smell. Kathleen came up with the description. It was great to sail on a ship that was only six months old. Everything was bright and shiny. Of course, this won’t be true in a couple of years, but if you get on board this year, you should have the same experience.
  • Service was incredible. We haven’t had service like this in quite a few cruises. Besides the crew members themselves their training, the way they are treated and how they are managed. What a massive contrast to our last cruise on HAL’s Koningsdam, where no one was trained to do their job, and some of the things they did were just dangerous.
  • Vista is beautiful. Great design. Some nice art. Just about every part of this ship is gorgeous to look at.
  • The shower in my brother’s stateroom. I’m not sure if he had a different shower than we did; I do get it. He is a big guy, and a big shower is important to him. Sadly, I disagreed because that oversized shower (a big square) meant there was less room in the rest of the stateroom and less storage space.

What we thought needed improvement…

  • Their entire system for doing WiFi. Come on, Oceania. It makes me log in and out and kick my wife off. Even worse, it meant she couldn’t text me if she wanted to ask me something or let me know where she was. I totally realize that the new Simply More program (which includes two device logins) will be an improvement. But if you have more than one device on the ship with you (a phone, tablet and computer), you will have to log off one to get on the other. That means I have to log off or kick myself off before I can receive something else on the new device. Give us WiFi like every other cruise line if you get “FREE” WiFi. Quick messing with it. Even the guy in the digital center hates it. He said it is his biggest complaint. And from what I have seen on Cruise Critic, it hasn’t worked very well since the Simply More changeover.
  • Speaking of technology—they need to get an app! Every major cruise line has an app that you can text in (without having an internet package), you can see the daily program, you can check your account, you can see the menus for that evening, and so much more. In 2023, not having your own app says you are just stupid and living in the last century.
  • The elevators. I touched on this when I wrote about the ship’s public areas, but the elevators are ridiculous, and for a new ship, they broke down far too often. Thankfully, I don’t believe anyone got stuck in one, but there are just not enough of them. Sadly, they can do nothing about this, but they can improve it on future ships.
  • Very few spaces where you can see the sea. For a cruise line named after the ocean, they didn’t want you to see the ocean when they designed this ship. If you don’t have a verandah, you can’t see the ocean until you are on deck 12. Below that, the only place you can see off the ship is the Grand Dining Room. That’s nuts. All the other windows on decks five and six are covered with drapes, and there is no access to outdoor decks, let alone an actual promenade deck that encircles the ship. Again, this is one thing they can’t improve on Vista but should make note of for future ships.
  • The AC can’t keep up. If you are in the Aquamar Kitchen, the Waves Grille and most of the Terrace Cafe and doing a warm-weather cruise—you better love hot and humid temps. Both the Aquamar and the Grille are open to the outside and have no air conditioning that we could see. On cold days, they have heaters but not even fans for hot days. On our last sea day before we got to Miami, the temperature was in the high eighties/low nineties and the humidity was close to 90%. Finding a place to sit in the buffet where you didn’t get a blast of hot, humid air whenever someone came into or went out of the room was challenging. If you are from Florida, this probably won’t bother you, but those of us from the northern climates were dying.
  • Someplace to sit. There is really no place to sit and have a pre-dinner cocktail that doesn’t have music playing in it. Piano player in Martinis, dance band in Horizons and string quartet in the Grand Lounge. This is especially true if you want to get together with new or old friends and talk.   But this problem is one they can fix now. Just play excellent background music (like they play all day) in Martinis. No Bill Murray-style lounge singer with a grating voice who tries to drown out every single conversation. That should do it. If people want a quiet conversation pre-dinner, the only nice lounge is the Smoker’s Lounge. So many convert that to a regular lounge and just make the entire ship non-smoking?

That’s about it. See, we really had a great cruise. Yes, we missed two ports, but O gave us a future cruise credit for the one they were responsible for, and the other was due to weather, so it was not their fault. On the list of all our cruises, I would put it up with our HAL cruise on Nieuw Statendam or one of our early cruises with Celebrity until they decided they didn’t like cruisers our age anymore.

Let’s Compare

Over the last six months, Oceania has been bringing out its Simply More program that incorporates much of what Viking Ocean Cruises does. It adds free wine and beer at dinner, free internet (but only two devices at a time per stateroom) and more. So clearly, Oceania sees itself competing with Viking Ocean for the same clientele.

Since we left Celebrity, we have been looking for a new cruise line to lend our loyalty to. And so far it has come down to Oceania (O) or Viking Ocean (VO). So, since both O and I have decided to make a comparison, here is ours based on this 15-night cruise on O’s newest ship and our 21-night cruise on the slightly older Viking Sky last year around this time. Here’s how I see it. Again, please realize that this is MY PERCEPTION. If you had a different experience, please let me know but don’t attack my reality.

  • Stateroom Design (Viking wins). Staterooms on Viking for close to the same price are much bigger—there is a ton more storage space, which is important on longer cruises that we seem to take now.
  • Bathroom Design (Viking Wins). Even though my brother likes his shower better on Oceania, I like the bathroom layout much better. No wasted floor space
  • Internet (Viking Wins). I think I have been over this enough. From the minute we got on board Viking until the minute we got off, we had complete WiFi on every device we owned. I am not even sure if Viking offers an internet upgrade.
  • Cruise Ship App (Viking Wins). Oceania has no app. Viking’s isn’t perfect, but I can at least see what is going on during the day without a paper copy, and I can check menus around the ship and text each other.
  • Elevators (Viking Wins). Enough said. Kathleen never had to wait for an elevator on Viking. Ever.
  • Lounges (Viking Wins). There were a number of places we could get a quiet drink and have a conversation.
  • Closed-in Ship (Viking Wins). You can see the ocean from almost any public space on a Viking Ocean ship. Not true on Vista, where you can’t see it until you get to deck 12.
  • Promenade Deck (Viking Wins). If I am on deck five and want to know what the weather is like, I have to wait until I get back up to my stateroom to find out. There is no place below deck 12 (other than my verandah) where I can step outside. Plus, as a walker, I much prefer a walking track that is partially protected. With Vista’s being on deck 15, they closed on a number of days to walkers and joggers because of strong winds.
  • Interior furnishings (Viking Wins). This is really a matter of taste, but I just love Viking Ocean’s Scandinavian design. Much of Vista’s public space was beautiful, but some bordered on gaudy. I said bordered (the lighting in the Grand Lounge was really close to Vegas).
  • Horizons/Explorer’s Lounge (Viking Wins). Horizons is a cocktail lounge/dance hall. Explorer’s Lounge on Viking is on two levels. The top one is for quiet reading (I did most of my writing and photo processing up there), and the lower level has a bar and excellent seats for conversation.
  • The entire spa (Viking Wins). I am the first to admit that even though we were in a Concierge stateroom, I never tried the Aquamar Spa, but in my mind, Viking wins this one because everyone has access for free. Not just those in Concierge or above staterooms.
  • Outside activities (Oceania Wins). Deck 15 and 16 had so much you could do on sea days it wasn’t even funny. From bocce to shuffleboard, from pickleball to mini golf (not to mention the golf simulator and cornhole), it was a veritable playground for those wanting an outdoor diversion. If I had one criticism, it would be that they need more barriers to the wind as they had to close these decks fairly often at sea…which defeats the purpose.
  • Culinary Center (Oceania Wins). I don’t even think Viking has a Culinary Center. It is undoubtedly a draw for me.
  • Smoking Lounge (Oceania Wins). If you want to smoke on Viking, go outside in the weather. Vista’s Smoking Lounge is gorgeous. How about both cruise lines ban smoking entirely, and then Vista can open up her Smoking Lounge to people who want to gather before dinner and not hear music?
  • Casino (Viking Wins). Because they don’t have one. The space they saved by getting rid of their casino went into the Wintergarden, a beautiful room where anyone can gather. With Viking, we were drawn to the things they don’t have as much as to the things they do. No kids under 18, no casino, no ship photographers, no upsell in the spa, no indoor smoking, etc.
  • Artist’s Loft (Oceania Wins). Another great extra on Vista. I didn’t use it, but it was jammed every single day.
  • Complimentary pressing (Viking Wins). Oceania said we got pressing of our clothes when we arrived. There were coupons in our stateroom. Five of them. That means that you can have five things pressed. On Viking (in the PV–the stateroom we had), you got free pressing all the way through the entire cruise.
  • Free Laundry (Viking wins). We got about the same amount of free laundry on both ships, but the note on Vista said that it could take “up to three days.” Well, if I have three pairs of pants and two are dirty and I send them to be laundered and then I spill something on the one I kept, I am out of luck for three days. I do realize that they were under-promising and over-delivering because many who sent their laundry out got it back one day later. But I can’t take that chance.
  • Launderettes (tie). Both have great self-serve laundries, although the ironing boards on Vista could be bigger.
  • Beds (Oceania wins). This is a hands-down thing. My bed on Viking was almost unusable. It was way too hard for me. Our bed on Vista was excellent (Kathleen thought the pillows sucked, but they didn’t bother me that much).
  • Ships across the entire line (Viking Wins). We were on Vista, Oceania’s newest ship. The entire line has seven ships, with one on the way in 2025. We have heard that Vista, Marina and Riviera are all about the same size and have the same features. But the other four are old R-class ships with some of the tiniest staterooms in all of cruising.—175 square feet in their verandah staterooms, and their Penthouse Suites are only 260 square feet—they call that a suite? Our Concierge verandah on Vista was 250 square feet. The staterooms on those ships are just too small. And those ships were all built in the 1990s. That’s just too old. Viking has 11 ships, with one on the way in 2025. They are all identical—seriously. You go on one, you go on all of them. And all were built since 2014, with four of them going into service since 2022.
  • Deposit and Final Payment Due Dates (Oceania wins). This is a total given. Viking is notorious for having the earliest final payment dates in all of cruising. For instance, if I buy a Viking cruise today (October 2023) that will sail in December 2024, my Viking Ocean final payment will probably be due on December 31, 2023. But by the same token, Oceania’s final payment will be due 90 days before the cruise sales. Of course, you can still get all your money back from Viking before 120 days with only a $100 PP booking fee loss (and you can apply those to another cruise), but the biggest complaint I hear from Viking cruisers or those who want to cruise with Viking but haven’t tried them yet is this early final payment date. When someone asks me why they have that early a date, I tell them, “Because they can.” Their passengers are amazingly loyal. If people stopped booking Viking or their ships were sailing empty, this might change. But as of now, it isn’t.

Food! I thought this deserved a special category all its own

  •  Grand Dining Room/Main Dining Room (Oceania wins). I HATE Viking’s dining room. There were low ceilings and a staff (at least on our cruise) who was totally disorganized, not to mention some food that wasn’t really that good. O wins here big time.
  • Specialty Restaurants (Oceania Wins). Was there ever a doubt? There are only two on Viking—Manfredis and Chef’s Table. Manfredis is a sorry excuse for an Italian restaurant, and the Chef’s Table has a fixed menu. It changes every few days. If you don’t like what you get when you go on the day of your reservation, you are stuck. I was stuck. All four Vista specialty restaurants are better than either of these.
  • Grille (Viking Wins). Surprise. But the Grille on Viking is so much better than the Waves Grille (for lunch) that it isn’t even close.
  • Buffet (Tie). I almost gave it to Oceania here, but cold desserts and serving entirely the same menu two nights in a row knocked it down to a tie.
  • Mamsens/Baristas (Oceania). I have to get this to Baristas. I love Mamsens, but Baristas’s pastries and coffees are so much better.
  • Aquamar Kitchen (Oceania Wins). Because there is nothing like it on a Viking ship. And I want to eat lunch there every single day.
  • Pricing (Tie): Here’s a comparison of two different cruises in three types of staterooms.

Here’s a price comparison on a 2024 New England cruise. This is much like the one we did, minus Miami and Charleston.

  • Viking Penthouse Verandah (338 square feet) for 15 nights in New England is $8999 per person. Per Night cost on Viking is $599 pp
  • Oceania Concierge Verandah (173 square feet) 18 nights New England on Nautica (one of the older ships) $10,599 per person. Per Night costs $588 pp
  • Oceania Penthouse suite (260 Square feet) $13799 pp, $766 per night pp.

Or I did a Mediterranean cruise in the same time frame. Comparing a Rivera–10-night Med cruise in the fall of 2024 with a 15-night cruise in the Med on any Viking ship.

  • On Viking: Penthouse Verandah for 15 nights Med (338 square feet) $ 11809 Per night $739 pp
  • On Oceania: Concierge Veranda Stateroom (242 square feet): $6299 pp Per night  $629.
  • Penthouse Suite (420 square feet) $ 7599 pp Per night $759

Yes, each line offers different things with their base price, and they aren’t all the same. I met a guy on Vista, an accountant who does an Excel spreadsheet for all their cruises. I am not that interested. A few dollars either way doesn’t make that big a difference to us. Ultimately, it all comes down to what is important to you. If it’s food, sail with Oceania (stick to their bigger ships), but if it is pretty much everything other than their final payment stuff, try Viking. All that said, we have future cruises booked with both of them, so I guess we are still deciding.

Reality doesn’t bite, rather our perception of reality bites.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo

 

 

 

And We’re Off!

by | Aug 28, 2022 | Air travel

It’s almost time to start our big journey. Just before 2:00 pm on Monday, our good friend Marjorie is going to pick us up and take us to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport where we will check in with Delta and wait about three hours until we are scheduled to take off on flight 144, a non-stop to Amsterdam at 5:20 pm (just about 24 hours from when I am writing this). We did a COVID test this morning and we are good to go. Our meals on the plane are ordered and after we eat dinner, I will get our boarding passes printed out.

We are supposed to get into Amsterdam at 12:20 on Tuesday afternoon (that’s our route above). Hopefully, we will be on time and picked up at the airport and transported to what we believe is the greatest hotel on planet Earth, The Banks Mansion. By the time we walk into the “Living Room” at The Banks, my brother and sister-in-law should be sitting there having a drink (free bar!!!) and waiting for us to join them.

We are then headed to a traditional Dutch dinner at Moeder’s. Probably going to have stamppot, a traditional Dutch dish. According to Wikipedia, it’s Dutch comfort food. We had it the last time we were in Amsterdam and it was wonderful.

We will spend the next day (Wednesday) touring Amsterdam, going to the Van Gogh museum and having dinner at Restaurant ZaZa which we loved on our last visit to Amsterdam. Then early next morning we will all head to the busiest airport in Europe, Schipol, where we will catch our 12:20 pm flight to Athens, Greece. Hopefully, we will arrive pretty close to when we are supposed to, meet our other traveling companions (my sister-in-law’s sister and her husband) and hopefully head to dinner at a traditional Greek restaurant I have reservations for.

The next day we will tour Athens with Alexios from Tours By Locals (a tour company we have used before and I love). Then another dinner in the Plaka district. The other thing we have to do on Friday is to take a COVID test. Here’s a strange situation. Greece requires a COVID test to LEAVE their country. I get it when someplace wants to keep COVID out of their country by testing those coming in. But to require a test only for people leaving their country makes no sense.

Then next Saturday, we will board the Viking Sky for our 21-day cruise. Viking calls it the Mediterranean & Adriatic Sojurn. Here’s where we are going.

For Kathleen and I this will be a chance to revisit many places we have been. For the rest of our group, this will be their first time in this part of the world. Although we have been to most every place after we leave Sicily, we have never been to most of the stops in the Adriatic Sea. We have spent time in Venice and it has always been one of our favorite cities. It was really the first place we ever went to in Europe. Luckily for us, we have almost three full days in Venice. Our good buddies (and always neighbors, Jayesh and Lisa) were there last month and did some scouting for us, finding us some amazing restaurants to try. We can’t wait to try.

So I want to invite you to virtually follow us on this journey. I will do my best to post here on a very regular basis but with not a single sea day on this trip, I might run a little late. And of course, it also depends on the quality of the WiFi on the ship. So make sure you have subscribed so you can keep up with the ports. You know how much I love to share our travels. See you soon, right here.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
—St. Augustine