This was our second ocean cruise with Viking and we chose the Viking Homelands because of the amazing itinerary. We paid for the air plus but on the way back was not eligible for the transfer. They push everyone off the boat starting from 2:30 am to 8:30 am for the last airport transfer if you use Viking Air. We chose to leave later because we wanted to enjoy the last day of the cruise. It seems disingenuous to call it the “last day” if you’re leaving at 2:30am. We had a few legitimate questions about where to store our baggage, expecting that Viking wouldn’t keep it, but that they would know their home port of Bergen better than us (coming from Hawaii) and could provide us with information we could follow up with like train or bus stations. We were in remote fjords there so there was very limited wifi on the boat and we could not look this up on our own. The stress over this uncertainty ruined our last day and a half. We felt completely on our own.

We were told to go to the shore excursions to get assistance. The woman at the desk said she couldn’t help us because we’re not booked for the transfer through Viking. We acknowledged this, but we still needed some help as far as information about our options as we were literally on the other side of the world from where we started just after spending a significant amount of money to Viking. We expected her to courteously answer our questions, but no.

Viking is planning to roll out several more boats over the next two years, a huge expansion. We felt a palpable difference between the maiden year voyage we took on them and our second cruise. This time around the magic had worn off and we did not feel like guests, but purely economic data points. In other words, they know some people will complain every cruise so you if you’re the one complaining it feels like Viking does not care because its part of their business model. Another example, we emailed customer service to cancel a river cruise we booked onboard right after we returned in Sept. and they did not respond personally but through an auto generated an email to us in December, about three months after we first reached out to them. Our travel agent had to step in even though we booked directly with the Viking rep on the boat. Viking is not receptive to direct contact from its “guests” unless they are onboard. I was not going to write this review until today when I responded to their email and called customer service and realized that they had no idea they had sent me an email. My complaining was destined for their “circular file” I’m sure, so I hung up. It would have been great if they were sincerely interested... Read more