The cruise was to Norway but not the one I originally booked

Item: Viking Venus
Rating: 4.2
Author: WilliamJames

Viking Venus Cruise Review to Europe - Northern Europe

WilliamJames

Contributor Level: Deck Hand

Cruises: 2-3 cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 20

Overall rating:

4.2 out of 5

Verified Review

12 Night In Search Of The Northern Lights (London To Bergen)

Sail date: March 08, 2023

Ship: Viking Venus

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 5037

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 1 year ago

Review summary

The ship was nice, the crew was great, the food was very good. However, with all the port changes and terrible communications from Viking of I had known this cruise was going to to make those changes I would have either rescheduled or canceled the cruise! We spend a LOT of money on this cruise and didn't get good value for it. One comment about the 2 day delay, while weather is never assured on any cruise, the magnitude of this storm (which we heard from the crew made many passengers sick), was known to the captain and Viking management many days in advance. Weather predictions are well established a week or more before a storm actually hits. This ship should have changed the itinerary early, gone to other ports, like Amsterdam or London and spent 2 days there. Their choice impacted both cruises in a negative way. Poor decisions on managements part.

Embarkation

1 out of 5

It was not pleasant. We were notified that cruise was delayed for 2 Viking if we had questions on where we were stay in London. We were already in London and told to go back to the airport, meet the Viking rep, and transfer back to London. The Airport is over an hour away from London and would have cost our group of 4 $150 to get to the airport. I called the number given on the email we received to ask where we would be booked. The Viking rep said we don't know, my answer call someone and find out, their answer we have no one to call. I then said, since are already in London, we will waste 4 hours of our time, will you repay the $150 our Group of 4 will spend getting to the airport, their response keep your receipt but we can't promise to repay you. I talked to a supervisor, asking again can we know what hotel we are staying at, the supervisor's response, we don't know, NOBODY knows, my response, SOMEONE in Viking HAS to know. The supervisor said we have sent an email to the European team and hope they will respond. We did find out the hotels being used and were able to determine where we would stay by calling each of them. Others on the cruise received an email telling then what hotel to go to, our group never received an email with that info

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

The food was ver good no complaints

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5

Ports of call

Tilbury (London), England

4 out of 5

This was not the cruise we signed up for. First they cancelled 2 ports with no explanation, then the scheduled Amsterdam instead, then they cancelled Amsterdam. Then, they cancelled a third port in Norway. We spent 5-6 days during our 11 day cruise sailing and only had 2 opportunities to view the Northern Lights. The main reason is a strong storm that kept the ship in Alta Norway 2 days. While storms are not planned, a storm of this magnitude would have been know. Week a0

Thumbs Up 0

Tromso, Norway

4 out of 5

Alta, Norway

4 out of 5

Bergen, Norway

5 out of 5

Disembarkation

5 out of 5

7 Comments

Other reviews of this sailing

We saw the Lights!!!