Superb Cruise

Embarkation and disembarkation. Smoothest ever! Less than 20 minutes from car to ship on the front end and 10 minutes from ship to car on the back end. It doesn't get much better than that unless it's during a pandemic and no one else is getting on or off. OK, river cruises are easier but I am talking ocean here.

Main Dining room is too noisy, buffet was great. Let's talk about the food We ate in the following spaces (in order of the number of times we ate there), and this is what we thought of them: (Before we start, a word about the Steve Test. My brother Steve created this test about six cruises ago. It works like this: If you eat in a restaurant while traveling, and that restaurant is near you once you get home, would you go there again?)  The Restaurant/Main Dining Room. We ate there once. For lunch. On a sea day. When the sea was at its worst, rocking and rolling. We figured we should go there then because no one else would be there and because it was close to the water and much less rocking than the buffet on deck seven. We were right about the rocking and the emptiness. We were four of about 30 people there. Still, it was a little louder than the buffet, and the food was basically meh. I had a dry Rueben sandwich that was not on rye bread, had little Russian dressing and came with almost cold fries. The service could have been more consistent as well. See why we don't eat there? That's a fail on the Steve test. The Chef's Table. This is one of the ship's specialty restaurants. It features a fixed menu. They rotate three menus throughout the cruise. You can see the menu on the Viking app or on your television and know what menus are coming up. The only problem is that you can't see them three months before the cruise when making reservations. We had reservations for two nights. When we got on board and looked at the three menus that would rotate through our cruise, we canceled our first reservation. Three people in our party of six could not (allergies) or would not (preference) eat anything in the first three courses. We did keep our second reservation, and when we got there, the menu did not match what was on the app or our TV. Thankfully, the menu had turned to a Mexican meal, and everyone could and would eat all of it except the first course. It was very good and restored my faith in The Chef's Table. The food was excellent. The molé sauce was a LOT better on Oceania Vista but the rest was great. That's a pass on the Steve test, but only for this menu. Manfredis. This is Viking's Italian specialty restaurant. We ate here twice on our previous 21-night Viking Ocean cruise, and once Kathleen got food poisoning, and the other time was just meh. This time, there was no food poisoning, but it was still meh—just not great Italian food. Maybe I say that because I am half Italian, love to cook Italian food and love a great Italian restaurant. We went to one in Glasgow (Banca di Roma), and on a scale of 1-10, the one in Glasgow was a nine, and Manfredis is barely a three. This does NOT pass the Steve test—FAIL! Come on, Viking, you can do better. Mamsens. This is a small deli-type place just inside the door of The Explorer's Lounge. They serve amazing Norwegian waffles with fruit, sour cream and brown cheese for breakfast, which I love. You can also get substantial pastries there. Actual Norwegian bakery goods. YUM! At lunch, they have great open-face sandwiches that I also like a lot. When we were on Viking Sky, there were usually three choices: two meats and one seafood. On Venus, there were just two choices (one less meat), so we ate there less as Kathleen couldn't eat the seafood choice. But they still pass the Steve test with flying colors. I could eat breakfast there every day. The Pool Grille. I love this place. It's out by the pool with delicious hamburgers, hotdogs, a few salads, fries and onion rings. It's in the open air when the weather is good (it has a roof that opens and closes). I ate a few lunches there and loved the food. It's a big fat PASS on the Steve test. I would eat here once a week if it were near our house. The World Cafe/Buffet. As you know, if you have followed along, we ate here for most dinners, about half of our lunches and breakfasts. We thought the food was of high quality and well cooked, and the hot was usually hot, and the cold was usually cold.One of the nicest surprises was the new Asian counter, where you could get some excellent Asian food prepared in front of your eyes. And the two guys that worked that counter were great! What we didn't like (compared to our Viking Sky cruise in 2022) was that there seemed to be less selection. Please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying there weren't plenty of choices every day. It was always a completely full buffet. But the same food was often repeated over and over again. For instance, on the first night, Steve and I were thrilled to find a massive seafood display with ceviches, seafood salads, salmon, marinated octopus, and so much more. There was also an outstanding selection of sushi on the opposite side from the fish...but it was exactly the same EVERY NIGHT! I mean, in 14 days, how often can you eat the same fish dishes or the same sushi? At lunch, that seafood spot was the salad bar. But at night, that went away. That means if you just wanted a salad for dinner, you better like seafood because that's all there was.There was too much red meat. I mean a lot of red meat. Beef, venison, veal, lamb...all stuff we love, but too much of it. Kathleen said, "It was like your choices were red meat or seafood. If you want to eat vegetarian for a night, good luck." There were always steamed veggies but very few vegetarian entrées. We loved the red meat dishes but we are going to have to go full vegan for a few weeks to get over this cruise.Lastly, pizza on Venus was the WORST I HAVE EVER HAD on land or sea. I am a pizza lover. I make the best pizza I know of. Of course, I am a little bit prejudiced. During the entire cruise, they only had three kinds: Margherita, cheese, and one night, they even threw some mushrooms on one. It was just awful.

They were just fine/

We don't stay up late

Viking does not allow kids

Outstanding all around.

The ship. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And to my eye, Viking Ocean ships are just about perfect when it comes to appearance. Nothing ever jars my eye. The color palette for the entire ship just works for me. Some folks say it's just Viking and IKEA getting together to design a ship. Well, if that is the case, that's fine with me. But it is a really high-end IKEA. Just think of Scandinavian design. Clean, muted, nothing jarring. No flashy colors. No Las Vegas at all

We consider the three best to be the verandah stateroom we had on Celebrity's Flora yacht in the Galapagos, the Neptune Suite we got upgraded into on Holland America's Nieuw Statendam and this Penthouse Verandah stateroom on Viking Ocean. This stateroom is larger than your standard verandah stateroom, and we love the extra room.

Superbhttps://cruiseline.com/ship/1132/review/new/2024-06-14#