We had done a Viking Phine River Cruise 3 years ago and that was wonderful. I didn't want to do an ocean cruise on one of the mega ships, the size of Viking's looked perfect. The level of service and attention we were afforded was beyond compare. Everyone was happy, helpful and acted genuinely glad to see us. They made us feel special. The food on board was the absolute best. Plenty of choices, except near the end I was longing for some simple "fast food" type grub, nothing fancy. The various shore excursions were plentiful and generally well planned and executed. A couple might have tried to cram in one too many stops however. There were at least two where we wished we'd have been given more time (Monte Carlo and Eze Village France in particular). Getting to/from each of the excursions was smooth and easy. Our cabin was plenty spacious and well appointed. The ship itself easy to get around and looked brand new (although we knew it wasn't, Their attention to cleanliness and safety was fantastic). My only knock was against the "resident historian" on board. Tried to listen to a couple of his presentations and he about put me to sleep. Very poor presentation skills. The daily "port talks" were helpful, but were continually interrupted by announcements, etc. rather than stopping them to make the announcements and then restarting where they left off (they talked over each other). The Port talks were canned/pre-recorded.

The fact that there were NO children on the cruise was another huge plus. Disney can have them! Given this cruise's focus was on antiquity, most if not all of that would have been lost on them. I'm a history buff, so the subject of many of our shore excursions suited our interests perfectly.

However, would I do another ocean cruise? Probably not. We had 36+ hours of pretty rough seas between Crete and Naples (24' crests) where the ship actually bounced a few times. Dramamine to the rescue but pretty well caused me to want to do nothing but sleep. We'll stick to river or train trips I think. The "Viking Band" and vocal group were OK (I'm a fairly hard critic of entertainment having been in the industry myself so I have pretty high expectations and criteria). Most of the time the band looked bored and as a result their music reflected it. The Assistant Cruise Director should have stuck to being just that and not trying to be an entertainer. Seeing a 1st run movie one night on-board was a nice treat. The New Years Eve party on board was nicely done.