Enjoyable, but not as good as we expected. We have heard so much about Viking and I guess we expected more. If you are active and want something better I would suggest a Regent Cruise. Much better selection of included and extra cost tours, and quality all the way around. The basic short bus tours Viking includes were disappointing. Limited choice and not that great add on tours were also not great. I know they cost more, but you also get a lot more on Regent. Great entertainment, great food. Even a great buffet! We will do future Viking cruises if the Itinerary is perfect, but we know to lower our expectations and plan to coordinate some independent tours like some others did on our cruise. On the good side, the service staff were in general, excellent! Very few were just OK. Best service staff we have ever experienced on a cruise!
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Quick and Easy
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
Restaurants were good. Plan on 1.5 to 2 hours for dinner as service is slow. Buffet was just OK. Food awful to OK. The BBQ at pool was hectic and once again good to not very good.
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
Pools, saunas, spa, fitness was great. All other "activities" were not so good.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
Very limited entertainment and quality was great to not good. 21 not cruise with very limited variety of entertainment resulted in us watching more in room movie watching then we ever could have imagined!
Children's Programs
Not available and no children allowed
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Service staff were outstanding!!!!!
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
Very limited understated Christmas decorations on holiday cruise. Ship is very unstable but nice in design. Wish they would have made more effort to decontaminate eating surfaces, menus, services utensils, table masters. They did little or no cleaning of surfaces resulting in a bad cold bug spreading thru the crew and guest quickly. Sick service crew should not be serving passengers in restaurants. Antibacterial cleaners should be used. Room stewards spread the germs from room to room. Same with restaurant staff. Using no cleaners, just toweling off or even less prep on eating surfaces between guests.
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Beds getting old. Requested foam to even out the lumps and low spots. We got noise from sides and above. Could hear clearly what TV show or movie the neighbor was watching and what time they got up every AM. Very thin walls. Adjacent to Explorer lounge, so a lot of noise during amplified activities like dance class during the day. People exercising above us early in AM on deck above even though that area was technically closed those early hours.
Enjoyed the living area, two large TV's, Sofa, large two sink bathroom and large amount of storage areas.
Ship tip
Bring some good reading or explore the dates books on board. You will have a lot of time to read or watch movies.
Loved seeing the inside of the Opera House. Guide rushed us a lot and got us back to ship 1/2 hr early. This was an extra cost tour, so I was not pleased.
Wish we could have had local entertainment and speakers on board. Could have even been local craftsmen. Something to expand our visit and knowledge of the area. All our speakers were retired white men with no real connection with the Amazon or Brazil.
Poor organization by Viking resulted in six of us being placed in a small mini van with no AC! Taxi took us to sites, but no real tour. He would just try to answer our questions. Tour staff on ship really needed more coordination!
Large group in bus where I ended up on wheel bump with no leg room. They should not count those seats as usable space. Tour was good. OK included tour.
Open air truck included tour. Extremely quick. No real tour or historic information. You dont go into down town. Just a couple hill tops and shopping, then back to boat. They should add an hour to tour and give you more historic information in the downtown. Not just a mount top photo tour.
We had an amazing cruise in Viking Sea, and the food and service was excellent. Viking never bill their entertainment as ‘glitzy’ it’s always about enrichment and culture - so if you want Vegas go elsewhere. In a similar vain, the decor is Scandi-chic, so all decoration, Christmas included, is far more muted. Personally I prefer it. Smaller ships do more around a bit more too, that’s to be expected.
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