Not Worth the Money

Viking Venus Cruise Review to Europe - Western Europe

dwrjr

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 27

Overall rating:

3.2 out of 5

14 Night British Isles Explorer (Bergen To London)

Sail date: July 29, 2022

Ship: Viking Venus

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 2 years ago

Review summary

The Good : the ship is nice and the ports are interesting. Manfredi’s is a great place and the man who manages it is a very accommodating fellow. Our room Steward was very good. The not-so-good: The silver liquor package is not worth it anymore. When we traveled with Viking on the Budapest to Amsterdam river cruise the higher-end wine and liquor were worth the extra money – on this cruise the wine/liquor that was EXCLUDED from the silver package is the higher quality. Definitely a downgrade since 2019. The Music on the ship was fine the first day – But became very repetitive and tedious. The group that traveled with us averaged around 70 and we all felt the music was way too sedate for an “every night” entertainment package. The Viking band was good – when they played. Everyone else was average or below. Booking air through Viking: Avoid at all costs. They are interested in the most low-cost solution and really don’t care how many legs of the trip you have to travel and for how long as long as it's cheap. If your luggage is lost – you are basically on your own. Both our bags were late making it to Bergen – when they did arrive the Viking agent found one but “missed” the other. We spend the rest of the cruise missing that bag and spent about 9 hours with the Viking explorer desk or on the phone with Delta/Air France trying to get it to us. The common theme from the Viking folks was…it’s the airline's fault…there is nothing we can do. I heard that about 10-12 times. The ship manager – who has the aura of self-importance – was interested in talking to me – only until he realized how messed up our situation was…then he could not wait to pass me off to one of the front-line people (who were very nice – but undertrained and not real effective) and then basically spend the rest of the cruise hiding in his office or avoiding me when I was talking to his underlings – clearly problem solving was beneath him. For the inconvenience of missing ½ of our luggage and clothes for the 14 days (plus the 3 we spent in London after) Viking gave us $150. Shore excursions – be prepared to sit in front of your computer and be ready for the excursion booking window to open up – whenever that is – if you don’t all the interesting excursions were booked within the first two hours of the booking window being open. Side Note: I felt bad for our tour guide in Greenwich - there we two (quite entitled) couples from our ship that were incredibly rude to the poor guy - because he was requested to wait a few minutes before starting the tour - I was embarrassed for them and us...it was an "ugly American" event. This was no fault of Viking. Overall, Dinning – Food was okay – be prepared though – in the world restaurant – if it says they close at 9:30 am – that actually means 9:15. The staff will start to close up and hurry you out at 9:15. The cruise director – I only heard – never actually saw him – not sure he was on the ship – I think he must have phoned in his announcement from a remote location. The assistant Cruise director was a very good singer. We have been on 7 ocean cruises and 1 river cruise before this. I doubt I would take an ocean cruise with Viking again. Surprising given how much we enjoyed the River cruise with Viking – Maybe my expectations were too high. Either way, it was a disappointing 2 weeks. Oh yes and 22 days later we still don’t have our luggage. But that's not Viking's fault