Viking Orion Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We enjoyed all ports in Japan. The excursions were enriching. The wine tasking were fun and educational. The lectures from the Astronomer, historian were fantastic. We had two sea days but enjoyed every minute of it on board.

Once we got on board, we were very pleased for the entire trip. The extra days in Sydney after the cruise were very worthwhile.

While we've done a Viking river cruise, this was our first Viking ocean cruise. Ships are lovely, and we enjoy the smaller size and lower number (about 900) of passengers. Food and service are excellent. Staff are well trained, friendly, and professional. The atmosphere is quiet, subdued, and somewhat intellectual with more focus on lectures/learning than entertainment. The average age of clientele is 70+ with few exceptions. No matter whether lecture, shore-talk, or vocal concert, passengers flock to the theater early with good seats a premium. Included tours (one at each stop) were generally disappointing bus rides around the city with the driver trying to also serve as tour-guide. Having only been on one previous Viking trip, we were unable to get access to the other tours that sold-out to more tenured Viking guests. This is the pecking order for booking excursions and specialty dining. I wouldn't rule out another Viking ocean voyage, but it was a mixed-bag for me.

This Alaskan cruise is highly recommended with Viking as it's a few days longer than the other cruise lines with a smaller ship.

The Inside Passage is a nice leisurely cruise and we enjoyed it even though we had lousy weather much of the time. We felt the excursions were a little lacking, especially when the main thrust of many of the excursions was to view scenery and wildlife but the weather or the time of year didn't provide an opportunity for either. We felt maybe we should have been warned that we would not see anything that day due to bad weather and maybe offer the opportunity to change to some other excursion. Life on-board the ship was basically good, with several places to hang out and sip a wine or listen to music. There was a dress code issue that surprised us a little though. One afternoon we were looking for a place to sit and listen to the string duo in the swanky Atrium Lounge and walked by a man sitting at a game table with shorts, flip-flops and no shirt. No staff had accosted him so I suppose his attire may have been OK....just seemed very odd to us. We really can't say enough how much we loved the well-trained staff onboard our ship, and what a nice facility it is overall. But we feel Viking let us down in one major area - Health&Safety. We noticed people coughing everywhere we went on the ship almost from Day-One. And after 3 or 4 days we noticed more and more people coughing. Virtually nobody was wearing a mask and there were no advisories. On the 6th day of our 10-day trip we both came down with covid. We were fully vaccinated and boosted and had made through the entire 3-year pandemic unscathed. Then we decided to take our first cruise......bad idea! We had to cancel our last four excursions, one of which Viking did not refund for some unknown reason, and we had to cancel the last week of our trip after the cruise and fly home early for treatment/recovery. We are not happy that Viking didn't place more emphasis on monitoring the condition of it's passengers and issuing a warning of some sort when it was obvious that so many people were coming down sick and spreading germs throughout the ship. This included some staff members as well. So will it be not only our first cruise but also maybe our last cruise? Not likely. But we will probably have to avoid buffets and maybe check the current mask policies more closely in the future.

I'm so glad that we went through Delta Travel (agent Mayra Silveira). She caught several issues prior to our departure, and responded quickly when our flight home was canceled. She also was able to book us into a fantastic hotel in Vancouver at a very decent rate when our flight was rescheduled for the next day. And the cruise itself was a delight. The ship's crew were uniformly kind and courteous, and the history and astronomy programs extremely entertaining and enlightening.

Beautiful ports. Four sea days. Need better communication to prepare for Tasman Sea experience.

Wonderful experience. The Viking ship and personnel are among the best if not the best. Needed 2 days in Singapore, and only 1 in Jakarta. Do get the Bali extension as the island is beautiful.

Despite having rain nearly every day at the end and Skagway stop was eliminated, which was a big disappointment, still had a wonderful time.

Wonderful as as Viking always is. Nice crew - always helpful.

Going through the Panama Canal on a shore excursion ferry was amazing. The feat of engineering is indescribable.

The 6-day pre-cruise "Best of Australia" was very disappointing. It was 2 days Melbourne, 2 days Alice Springs, 2 days Ayer's Rock. Would have been much better if 2 days Melbourne, 1-2 days Outback, 1-2 days wine regions, 1 day Sydney. The 4-day post-cruise was excellent, with 2 days Tongariro National Park and 2 days Auckland. The stops for lunch at local farms were outstanding, as was the visit to Waiheke Island.

After 9 Viking river cruises, I decided to try a Viking Ocean cruise. As usual, the booking was a nightmare. Booking agents are impossible to work with. When you book something, you get an acknowledgement that doesn't reflect what was agreed. This booking was never really correct but we went with it anyway. Air is impossible to deal with. We were told we had seat assignments then found we did not. With a nearly full international flight, we got some bad seats. Shore excursions are a bait and switch. The included ones are worthless and the optional ones are over priced. From the conversation on the ship, the optional tours are no better. I won't say that I will never take another Viking ocean cruise but there are certainly better options out there.

Our trip was probably the best we have ever experienced. AND we actually travel a lot.

Our travel agent Janet Castro is a super star. Janet does the "heavy lifting"!!!!

Loved the ship and staff. Food was great. Two of the ports were a waste of time and paying so much for a Visa for China was a waste of money since you don't need one for Hong Kong an Haikou had absolutely nothing to offer

Ship, food and staff were excellent. Tours were in general poor. Hong Kong pre tour was poorly organized and over priced. Beijing extension was top shelf with wonderful sites and guides. Optional dinner was spectacular. Included lunches were very good.

Awesome ship. The staff was very accommodating. The food was tasty but not so much for the fish other than delicious crab legs & sushi. We enjoyed the wine list as it was interesting to try different wines by the glass. This was something we enjoyed as they rotated the same wines over & over, We simply just got bored. The spa was absolutely wonderful but better than using space for a casino. The included tours were not great but somewhat acceptable. Not a luxury cruise but totally fine. I'm not sure that if I paid full price that I would've given it such good reviews.

Awesome ship. The staff was very accommodating. The food was tasty but not so much for the fish other than delicious crab legs & sushi. We enjoyed the wine list as it was interesting to try different wines by the glass. This was something we enjoyed as they rotated the same wines over & over, We simply just got bored. The spa was absolutely wonderful but better than using space for a casino. The included tours were not great but somewhat acceptable. Not a luxury cruise but totally fine. I'm not sure that if I paid full price that I would've given it such good reviews.

This was the cruise of a life time for us and I would say the only downside would be the quality of internet available. When you are gone for an extended period of time you have to be able to pay bills at home and this was difficult due to lack of signal or it falling on its face just when you needed it the most. But that being said still better than when I actually paid for it!