My 80+ year old mother and I always wanted to take a Viking Cruise. SO we decided the Homelands Cruise would be it. We paid 1300/ea for round trip tickets and about 750/ea for insurance to Viking along with the hefty cost of the cruise itself. Trusting Viking to provide a full service trip. A day prior to departure the Icelandic Air cancelled the flight to Sweden and booked us on a two leg flight United to London and British Airways to Stockholm with 1 hour delay. What we found when we were to check in is that the Airlines would not transfer our luggage. About 4 hours later after mutiple calls to Viking AIr (who insisted they had no responsibility for the screw up) we were stuffed onto Three Flights and had a 12 hour layover at JFK. Not an easy itinerary with an 80+ year old woman! By the time we arrived at Stockholm over 24 hours later than originally planned - we had about 2 hours before the launch, So NO STOCKHOLM. Not to worry Viking assured us - you brought insurance they will cover the missed time. Viking offered no reimbursement, future discount, shipboard money or (god forbid) apology. THEY HAD NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FLIGHTS - EVEN THOUGH WE PAID VIKING.
The insurance from TRIP MATE. TOTAL SCAM. After reams of paper and two months of waiting for a response we were informed that sine the rescheduled flights left on time (even though they would not have gotten our luggage to the destination) and I did not keep any of the receipts from the crap restaurants at JFK we were not entitled to anything.
Once on board the ship thestaff were attentive. Our steward was great - very helpful with settling in and keeping room tidy and clean. We attended a few of the on board shows-the ABBA and the Beetles shows were very good. For the other shows we found the female singers too loud and unable to harmonize and sadly left a few of the shows early. The piano and guitar players that entertained in the longes were excellent and really set the tone for a quite evening drink while watching the midnight sun set.
Response from VikingS, Community Team
Smaller than other cruise ships I have been on. The balcony was great. The bathroom comfortable. Full size closet.
Include tour. A quick overview of the city. Interesting and informative.
Hermitage was so over crowded it made it difficult to truly see the art and enjoy the experience. We were able to get a wheelchair at the Museum.
The Russian Folk Dance was lots of fun - but lots of stairs to get into the venue.
Toured the Viking Ship living museum and nearby cathedral. Would go back in a heartbeat. Best tour of the cruise.
Cute little town - took the Cider tour. Beautiful drive and fun little tour.