Our First Cruise......Could it be our Last?

Cruises: 1 cruise (first)

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 35

Review summary

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.

Embarkation

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

Onboard Activities

Entertainment

Children's Programs

Service and Staff

Ship Quality

Cabin / Stateroom

Ports of call

Vancouver (Canada Place), British Columbia

Cruise Inside Passage, Alaska

Ketchikan, Alaska

Sitka, Alaska

Juneau, Alaska

Icy Strait Point (Hoonah), Alaska

Cruise Yakutat Bay

Valdez, Alaska

Seward (Anchorage), Alaska

Disembarkation