We have been home for four days now, and survived the Christmas Holiday. It is now Monday, December 26, and we are pretty much back to our normal routine.
We will use this post to make an evaluation of our Viking Ocean Cruise Experience. We had really looked forward to experiencing a higher end cruise line, and we will now give some of our thoughts on what we liked and disliked. We will also give some insights into our pre-cruise expectations, and how those may have affected our actual experiences.
In an earlier post on this blog, we had explained some of the issues we thought were impediments to our taking a Viking Cruise in the first place, and we will now be able to give actual evaluations of those in this post.
We will just list items by category of what we thought we would experience and our actual experiences. They will not be in any particular order of importance.
Included Shore Excursions
This was one of the items we had described as an impediment to our taking a Viking Ocean cruise. We are normally independent excursion passengers, we always do our own planning for port days, and except for a handful of times, for very specific reasons, we have not taken ships excursions. This was the first cruise line where some excursions were included in the cruise fare, on all of the other lines we have cruised on before, all excursions were an additional cost.
One of our main reasons that we do not like ship’s excursions in general is because most of them include transportation on buses, and with Viking, at least for this cruise, this was no exception. There were only three excursions on this cruise, we were only in port three days, including the one day in Barcelona before the cruise departed.
The only excursion that we thought was of any value was the pre departure excursion in Barcelona. Our guide was great, and the best part was that we took the last bus for our time slot, and there were only 15 passengers on the large bus. We did have two persons on the bus out of 15 that had mobility issues, one lady was in a travel wheelchair, and required extra time and assistance getting on and off the bus, but she did not impact any of the walking portion of that tour. Another lady could not do the walking portion of the tour at all, which was about 50% of the total tour time. She and her husband had to wait for the bus at a various cafes while the rest of us did the walking portions of the tour, which were in three different areas of Barcelona.
We realize that these cruises, specifically Transatlantic cruises, are usually an older crowd, and certainly understand that mobility limited people want to enjoy the tours as much as anyone. However, on large buses, especially if they are full, and include several mobility limited persons, getting on and off of the bus multiple times eats up a lot of the tour time. This is probably one of the main reasons we do our own excursions. Being packed on a bus with less than adequate legroom, is not our idea of a fun excursion. However, since we did not have a full bus on this particular tour, this limited the overall impact to the tour. The tour itself was also good, we actually got to see some parts of Barcelona we had not seen before. We had not known that it included a walk around of the exterior of the Sagrada Familia Basilica, it had not been listed at all in the tour description. It was fairly informative even though we have visited that church several time, and also visited it on this trip prior to this excursion.
The second excursion in Las Palmas, Grand Canaria was pretty useless, and in the end, we wished we had opted not to go, as had many passengers we later talked with. In Viking’s defense, this was a last minute change to our original port of call and we were also late arriving. Our bus was mostly full, and although we did not really have issues with people getting on and off the bus, the tour itself was about half in the darkness because of the late arrival. Also, this island was just not pretty at all. We ended up mostly riding on the bus on steep winding roads, and did not really see anything but two different churches. Then the ride back was completely in the dark, and we got stuck in a lot of evening traffic as we headed back to the port.
The last excursion in St Martin was also a waste of time. The main reason we took this tour was because Stephanie had never driven around the entire island, and this was our chance to accomplish that. The island itself has still not recovered from the hurricane several years ago, and what I remembered as very beautiful on the French side was not pretty at all now after all of the damage. We spent entirely too much time looking at Iguanas, and worst of all, the tour did not have any time set aside for Phillipsburg, where the ship was docked. The tour was supposed to last 2.5 hours but was about 45 minutes longer than scheduled, and most of that extra time was due to driving in traffic. We were most disappointed in the schedule difference since we had planned to spend time looking through some stores in Phillipsburg. Everything we had seen or read said the tour was 2.5 hours, and with the short time in port, the additional tour time killed our plans. We later herd that other similar tours had been 2.5 hours long, we were not sure why ours was longer.
Overall, we were disappointed in the “Included” excursions and did not see a lot of value in them, which is one of our issues with Viking having them included in your cruise fare. If we opt out, we are paying for something we do not get. It would be nice to receive some type of onboard credit to be used for something more beneficial, or even another paid excursion.
This cruise did nothing to change our mind on the included tours, we still do not like or really want them or see any value in them. We do realize that on other cruises, some of the included tours are waling tours of the port town, maybe those would be better, but still may not be of much value, depending on the port.
Food and Dining
We had great expectations about what types of food we would have on this cruise since it is billed as a premier cruise line. I do have to say that our overall opinion and expectations were falsely inflated by having previously followed some passengers on a Viking World Cruise through their blog. We had not known or anticipated that the World Cruise would have been such a higher class of food, but apparently it is based on what we experienced on our cruise compared to what we read about on that one.
It would be a toss up on whether we were more disappointed in the food or the service. There was nothing bad about the food, but it certainly did not “wow” us. I think we expected a completely different level of food, more like the opulent food of cruising in the past. At best, it was just slightly, if at all above what we have experienced on our many Princess Cruises, and in some areas, less than we got on Princess.
Specialty Restaurants
The specialty restaurants that are included on Viking gave us mixed results. The two dinners we had in Manfredi’s were the best of the cruise, but still not great. The Sea Bass I ordered on the second night we ate there was about the smallest piece of fish I have ever seen served, and it was the nightly seafood “special”. Of course, it was funny to see that same fish and portion size served on our last night’s group dinner at The Restaurant, and the person in our group who got it that night was just as surprised as we had been at its size and quality. For it to be served as a “special” at a specialty restaurant, and then to have the exact same thing served as one of the regular menu items at the main dining room restaurant says it all.
Our two experiences at the other specialty restaurant, The Chef’s Table were mixed as well. The first night we had an “Asian” theme, and that meal was OK, but nothing I would warrant as being “special” It is a fixed menu, so there are no choices and you get what you get. The second time was the “Mexican” theme, and the food was just awful. No one liked it out of the six of us in our group, and none of us could figure out why it was even called Mexican.
The Restaurant – Main Dining Room
We ate in The Restaurant four times for dinner and two times for lunch. Again, the food was just average, and at times the service was just bad. The fact that the waiters could not remember who ordered which entrée between the two of us was terrible. Then the episode with serving the wrong topping on Stephanie’s Cheesecake at that same dinner was again, just bad service. The couple sitting next to us at that dinner got served someone else’s appetizer after thay had already eaten theirs, again, just bad service.
We also had issues with our lunches. Other than the large group dinner, where I think everyone got what they ordered, there was no time we ate in The Restaurant where the service was error free. We were not the only ones who had issues with the service there based on conversations we had with other passengers.
World Cafe – The Buffet
The buffet was again, just average, and as would be expected at a buffet, the food was not that warm, and most of the fish was overcooked from sitting under heat lamps. There was no real made to order items being served other than you could get a steak cooked to order any night. We had gotten used to having some type of specialty item at the buffet on other cruise lines, cooked to order while you waited. We really enjoyed this on Princess, and on Royal Caribbean, we had the best choices on made to order buffet items we have ever seen.
The best part of the buffet was the sushi and also some of the seafood that was served nightly. Our only beef with the sushi (no pun) was that after the first night, they stopped preparing tuna on top of rice, and only had tuna sashimi. Also, there was no option for low salt soy sauce, and the soy sauce they served was very salty, almost too salty to eat. They did have good crab legs at night in the buffet, but I had to find someone to ask for drawn butter at another station, as well as I had to use a small fork from the dessert bar to extract the meat from the split crab legs. The seafood served nightly was about the best “opulent” food that was served, but having that as the only special item to eat every night was boring.
Breakfast was probably the best meal served on the ship, you could get eggs and omelets to order, but who can’t make or serve those anywhere.
The service at the World Cafe varied, but was good most of the time, probably the best we have experienced in a cruise ship buffet.
Overall, we just expected more variety and better items on the food menu’s and especially the service from what is billed as the Best Cruise Line for 2022 based on several awards Viking has received from various travel related reviews.
Viking Neptune – The Ship
The overall ship experience, meaning the ship’s common spaces, was the best part of the cruise. There was never a time when we could not find a peaceful and quite place to sit. We especially liked the Explorer’s Lounge Area, both the upper and lower floors. The wonderful views out the front of the ship were amazing.
The Atrium and Living Room areas on Decks 1, 2 and 3 were also very quiet and peaceful.
The Infinity Pool area on the stern was well utilized having both some areas to lounge in the sun and for their being tables set up there outside of the World Cafe for enjoying breakfast and lunch outside, weather permitting. We did sit in the infinity pool one afternoon, but due to choppy seas, the water level was lowered, so the “infinity” effect was not in play, the glass in the rear of the pool became a window about 18 inches high.
For the entire cruise, we never knew if we really had neighbor’s on either side of our cabin. We never saw anyone enter or leave those cabins, or almost any other cabins nearby. Of course, all of this wonderful roominess on the ship could be attributed to the fact that there were only 550 passengers onboard out of a possible 930 at maximum capacity. That is only 60% occupancy, and certainly that would have made an impact on how many people we saw at any given time.
We only visited the Spa Area once, and it was nice, but just not our thing. It was nice that it was included, and if we had been on a more colder weather cruise, and unable to enjoy being outside, it would have been something we used more often.
The Main Pool area with its retractable roof was also nice. Viking did a great job of opening the roof when the weather got warmer. The only drawback was that it was fairly hot there because it was so protected from any cooling wind, there were windows that opened on the outer sides, but not very far, so there was just not much of a breeze. This situation was not helped by the fact that the ship and the wind were going in the same direction for most of the warmer days, so the relative wind outside was almost non existent, so there was not much chance for it to be cooler around the pool. However, that wind and sea condition did make for a smoother ride.
Onboard Entertainment
One of the features that Viking is known for is their guest lecturer’s. There were several onboard for our cruise, but we did not attend any of them in the theater, mainly because the weather was so nice outside for about 75% of the cruise, and the days that the weather was cooler were all in the first few days after we left Barcelona.
We did watch a couple of the lectures on our stateroom TV at night, and they were good. One of the things we specifically set out to avoid was to be in tight spaces with a lot of people, and the theater was one of those areas. We did attend a presentation on future cruising with Viking to understand what the perks were for booking another cruise while onboard. Unfortunately, even for that presentation we had to move because one passenger was constantly coughing near us.
With all of the people was saw coughing in Barcelona and on the ship, we just did not want to expose ourselves to being in cramped spaces with people sitting so close by. We knew from the crew that there were cases of Covid onboard, and they were using Deck 3 as a quarantine area for them. It is easier to move almost any where else in the ship, but pretty disruptive to move in a theater setting during a presentation, we did it once and we know.
But face it, we would not give up sitting in the nice weather outside in order to attend a presentation on the Revolutionary War! Again, that is just us, and if it had been cold outside, we would have sought alternative way to spend our days at sea.
There were no “shows” perse, although there were a couple of times that the Viking Band singers performed different singing shows. Again, for reasons already stated, we did not attend, but in general, we don’t go to singing shows on any cruises, just not interesting to us. There was one mentalist in board, but we did not see him either. Comedian shows are more interesting for us to attend, but there were none for this cruise.
There was also a string duo, one played a violin and the other played a cello. They were good, but it seemed weird for them to play in areas other than the Atrium. There were a couple of times they played later in the evening in the Explorer’s Lounge, but there were not many people there, and the group, (OK it was us and our friends) were talking and quite loud. It almost seemed rude for us to be having fun while they were playing there.
There was a guitarist names Zeus, and he was the best entertainer on the ship. He played in several venues, but we really enjoyed when he played in the Explorer’s Lounge. He was very interactive with the audience where ever he played.
The second best entertainer was the pianist, Antonina. Once again, she was great wherever she played and we all had a good time when she played requests in the Explorer’s Lounge. We also saw her play many times in the Atrium while we were waiting to go to dinner.
We never took to the Viking Band, but the only time we saw them play was in the Torshavn Bar, and they were just too loud in that small of a venue. When they were playing, it was too loud to have a conversations. It was almost too loud to talk when you were just outside of the bar and they were playing inside.
In general, that was all of the entertainment there was on the ship.
Bar Service & Silver Spirits Beverage Package
The bar service was generally on the excellent side. As is normal for us, we spent a lot of time getting to know various bartenders while on the cruise, and that was no exception for this cruise. The various bars onboard were nice, but we had some issues with the availability of some of the items we like to drink, specifically Seagram’s VO.
We were not sure if it was even a liquor that was served on the ship before we got on, but when we boarded, we saw that it was on the menu. Unfortunately, it was in VERY limited supply. We found one full bottle in the World Cafe Bar, and that was how we met Milos, the bartender there during the daytime/evenings. Then we found another bottle about half full at the Pool Bar, where we met Gore. He was kind enough to have that bottle sent to the Explorer’s Lounge later in the cruise when the full bottle ran out at the World Cafe Bar. Those two bottles were all that was on the entire ship, and none was brought onboard in Barcelona during the resupply. That was disappointing.
Another disappointing item was the availability of Diet Coke, or Coke Light as it is known in Europe. It was listed on the bar menu, and we knew that ahead of time, but it was absolutely not available on the ship, zero, zilch. There was only Coke Zero, and Stephanie can’t tolerate the sweetener in that. Luckily, we were able to purchase 15 cans in the duty free store in Barcelona before we departed. Nothing like being on a premium ship and having to purchase your own Diet Coke.
Another item that we found was in short supply was Clamato Juice. It apparently was more rare than the Seagram’s VO. Once we finally asked about it and found out they did have it on the ship to make my Bloody Caesars, it only lasted for about three days, and than the supply was gone, and so was my Bloody Caesar. Again, that just did not sit well with us for being on a premium cruise line.
The last two complaints we have about Viking and Bar Service is the limited availability of spirits in general. The bar selection was pretty weak unless you were a Gin or Scotch Drinker. Vodka was a close third in supply, but after that, it was quite limited. There was only one Tequila in the price range for the Silver Spirits package, Don Julio Anejo, which is good, but not what I prefer for making margaritas. Also, the selections of Bourbons was pitiful unless you went to the Torshavn Bar, where there were a couple more options, one being Buffalo Trace, one of my favorites. However, with the limited selections in the general bars, I did not understand why they only served certain other spirits only in Torshavn’s, which only opened at 9:00 PM, and seemed to always have the loud music playing there.
Not having all of the same spirits in all of the bars seemed cheap to us, were they using that limited availability to limit the consumption, that was our guess. This was also true of mixers. Apparently there was a brand of tonic that is higher end, but was only available form Torshavn. It was nice that Gojco had some sent to the Explorer’s Bar at the request of Tony and Angie, who like that brand. But really, not available everywhere…..
In general, we have to say that even with the issues we had with not all of the beverage options being available, the Silver Spirits package was a great value. In addition to the mostly available spirits, there was a pretty good wine selection available by the glass that was covered by the Silver Spirits package.
We had wanted to make sure we understood the value of having the package taking into consideration the free wine and beer that is always served during lunches and dinners. The red or white wines served with those meals was different from the wines on the wine list, but we tried several, some were good and some were not. The beer list was adequate, and it seemed that you could order almost any beer you wanted during the meal times. We did drink a few beers, but were not always sure if they would have all been included, or were charged off to the package when we ordered them with our lunches.
In general, Viking was more than generous with the free mealtime alcoholic beverages, many people continued to drink them well after having finished lunch or dinner, they were pretty much available for the designated time the buffet or restaurant was open for those meals.
The last item to mention was the lack of diet sodas available in the bars and restaurants. Other than the Coke Zero, and the missing Diet Coke, there were no other diet soda options for mixers, at least none that we drank. Maybe there was a diet 7Up we were not sure.
Embarkation and Disembarkation
In general, Embarkation went smoothly, but with the ship only being 60% full, and some passengers already being onboard from the previous cruise segment, that was to be expected. There was no line to check in, and that went smoothly. It was a little funny that other than our passports, there was never any review of our Covid Vaccine cards on this entire trip, even though they were “required’ for entry into Spain, and by Viking for the cruise. We had uploaded them for Viking through the Verifly App, and I guess that was sufficient.
We were given all of out shore excursion tickets at check-in and our room key cards. We had checked our bags in through the porters out front when we got to the terminal in Barcelona, and did not have to deal with them again. We were given a cool wash cloth when we got on the ship as well as a welcome aboard glass of champagne. We were escorted to a small theater area and given a demonstration on putting on a lifejacket. That was all we had to do for muster drill, other than acknowledging we watched a safety video on our stateroom TV, once we got into our room. That made the muster “drill” pleasant since we did not have to congregate at a specific time in waiting areas like normal.
Rooms for our cabin category were not scheduled to be available until 1:00 PM, which was what we already knew. They were actually available about 30 minutes early, and when we arrived, our luggage was already in the room, which was nice, we were able to unpack quickly.
We needed additional hangers and that was handled quickly with a call to housekeeping. They were brought by our room steward, Irene, and that was the first time we met her.
As for Disembarkation, that was a disaster. Part of that was due to being on a Transatlantic Cruise and the ship entering the USA for the first time after being in Europe, we have seen it before. The immigration for the crew and the general ship’s clearances are always more time consuming, but it was not adequately addressed by Viking, and that caused a backup of passengers trying to get off the ship at their ship assigned times. The transfer to the airport was of zero value to us with all of the delays sitting and waiting on other passengers to board the bus. They should have just loaded up buses by color designation as people were coming out of the terminal instead of having specific color/number designations and making everyone wait on late arrivals. Let the late arrivals take the last available bus, they will all be together.
We would never have thought it would take over two hours from the time we left the room until we arrived at the airport, only ten minutes travel time away from the port. Maybe the transfer would be a better option in Europe, but not in the USA, and certainly not in Ft. Lauderdale.
Room Steward and The Cabin
Overall, we were very satisfied with our room steward Irene and her assistant. They were efficient and as long as we abided with using our room status door hanger, they kept up with our schedule and did not really impact our ability to get back into the room after the morning cleaning or evening turndown. There were a couple of instances where we did not receive new drinking water cups, and had to ask for additional body wash, but those were infrequent and taken care of quickly.
Probably the most noticeable error was that we did not receive headphones for our excursion intercom system, and we had to ask before our first excursion for them, which was not a problem. However, by the end of our cruise, there were two new sealed sets of headphones in the room, we surmised for the next passengers, our old headphones had been removed from the intercom receivers. Maybe the previous occupants in our cabin had taken our new ones with them before they departed, who knows.
The cabin was a Verandah with a balcony, basically the lowest class of cabin size, but we had paid an additional cost “upgrade” to have a DV4 classification. That basically allowed us to be more in the center of the ship and on Deck 4 instead of Deck 3, the lowest deck with cabins. There were a few other “perks” that came with that classification, including the ability to make two specialty dining reservations ahead of the cruise departure. We also had the use of one pair of binoculars, and had free daily replenishment of items in our mini fridge, all of which were non-alcoholic. It also gave us the ability to pick shore excursions some number of days before the cruise, maybe 60 days if I recall correctly. Maybe we also got free use of robes and slippers, but we only used them once anyway.
We had chosen this classification more to have access to the middle of the ship since we were on the smallest ship we had ever cruised on before, and were a little concerned about rough seas crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Being in the middle is better for rougher seas.
In the end, all of the other “perks” were basically useless. The pre cruise reservations for specialty dining were ridiculous. The only time slots we could reserve were at the latest dining time of 8:30 PM. Nothing earlier was available pre-cruise. Who eats that late. We had to change both of them once we were onboard, so we could have easily just made them then to begin with. Maybe it is a better perk for much higher cabin classifications
For excursions, we were only doing the included ones, and all of them are guaranteed, but maybe we got some benefit of being able to choose our times. None of the times were ever fully booked when we looked later, maybe that was a sure sign of the ship not being full.
We used the binoculars once to look at a yacht pulling a smaller boat, but they were small and not very powerful.
The mini fridge resupply ended up not being used at all, although that was partly our fault. Apparently we did not see the free nuts and chocolate’s until later in the cruise, the small chocolate bars were good and we would have kept a few more of those to take home. However, with the Diet Coke debacle, there were no sodas we needed to be replenished. We had gotten some sodas changed out to Ginger Ales to have with the supply of Seagram’s VO we had brought from home, but we never had a drink in the room, we needed that supply of VO to take to the bars once the ship’s supply ran out. We used our four mini bottles we always take with us on the flights, plus two more we got on our flight to Barcelona, to refill from our two run runner bags full of VO that we brought with us. We would take the mini bottles to the bars at night and serve ourselves with glasses filled with ice and ginger ale from the bartenders. It all seemed weird, but that was the only way we could enjoy whet we like to drink after the ship’s supply ran out.
The bathroom in our cabin was the best we have ever had. There were heated floors, and a larger than normal glass enclosed shower, plus ample drawer and shelf space. The toilet paper was not as good as Charmin, but much better than any we have had on any other cruise line. The bath and lotion products were nice, and the shower nozzle had plenty of power.
The balcony was also a good size, but the table was a little large, and for some reason, the cabin steward always wanted to put one of the two chairs in front of the door opening instead of farther back in the corner.
The overall room layout was good, the TV was large and had the best availability of information from dining room menu’s to onboard lectures, etc. we have ever seen. However, the available TV channels for live TV were not good. Other than news networks, and some weird movie channels that showed older movies, there were zero selections of sports channels like ESPN. Zip, nada. There were good music channels and they had added some specific channels for Christmas to the overall selections.
There were charging stations on the nightstands for USB and 120V plugs, as well as USB charging stations on the desk lamp. I had an issue with the USB-C plug on my nightstand, it just did not work, maybe someone had tried to use a different style plug in it and had messed it up. Overall, we were quite satisfied with the room and storage space.
The internet was generally good except when we were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but that is typical, and not the fault of Viking. Satellite overage in the middle of the ocean is just poor
Well, that about sums it up for our Viking Cruise experience. We enjoyed the Transatlantic Cruise, we felt that we did accomplish our goal of understanding everything about a Viking Ocean ship. We still do not know how to fully evaluate the quietness and availability of open spaces since our ship was only 60% full, the additional 40% may have had an impact on that evaluation.
Overall, we though we were not as satisfied as we expected to be on a premium cruise line, mostly being disappointed by the food and service in the dining room. We can pay a lot less for average food and average service on another cruise line.
We did like the smaller size of the ship, and maybe that is where we need to focus on the value for the cost. We did like that there are no kids onboard, no smoky casino, and having no exercise classes and other loud and disruptive activities in the atrium during the days and evenings. The Atrium was quiet and had suitable entertainment to keep the peaceful mood.
Would we cruise Viking again, we are just not sure at this point in time. This was actually a lot more affordable Viking Cruise for the duration as compared to their more port intensive cruises of this same length, and we were still trying to see the value even at the more affordable cost point. To pay more is not necessarily attractive to us, so we may just be giving up in cruising in general.
We felt we got a lot more enjoyment and value from our two previous land trips and we were able to see so much more than we can being on a cruise, no matter the cost of the cruise. That along with having to deal with early port calls most mornings on a cruise, just to be disappointed by being crammed with a lot of other people on a large bus, may make cruising not an attractive form of travel for us anymore.