Viking ocean cruise -has anyone taken one?

[stephenson]

Hi All. We are considering taking Viking's ocean cruise "Viking Homelands" next May, 2024. Has anyone taken an ocean cruise? Where did you go? Has anyone taken this cruise around Norway, Sweden? What were your thoughts/ pros and cons? Would you recommend it?

We've only taken one river cruise (Romantic Rhine with Avalon). That was very positive experience, but Avalon doesn't do ocean cruises. The Viking ocean ships hold 930, but not as many as some other ocean going lines.

Thanks!

 

[braumeister]

No experience with that, but something similar would be Hurtigruten.
We did their Northbound trip, sailing from Bergen to Kirkenes, then flying back to Oslo. This is basically the mail route along the Norwegian coast, and it makes many stops. We loved it, and I would love to do the southbound version (different stops) or even the round trip again.

https://www.hurtigruten.com/destinations/norway/

In fact, we enjoyed Hurtigruten's experience so much that we used them again for our Antarctica trip and loved that even more.

 

[RetiredAt49]

I’ve only been on two cruises and both of them with Royal Caribbean. We hit various ports in the Caribbean and had a great time! We just returned from our last cruise yesterday.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Why, yes. I have taken three Viking Ocean Cruises. Two were in the Mediterranean Sea in 2017. The third was the Viking Homelands itinerary in the first two weeks of May 2023.

Are you asking about the Viking Ocean experience, or about that particular itinerary?

We've sailed on several cruise lines and like Viking very much. Smaller ships, elegant design, comfortable. No children, no annoying photographers, and no casino. We think the food has been good.

My wife and I both enjoyed the Viking Homelands cruise. The weather was quite variable. The first week on the ship was cold, with daily high temperatures in the 40s and low 50s. The second week was significantly warmer with daily high temperatures as high as the low 60s. So I'd recommend bringing clothes for varied weather.

The Baltic can be very windy. We had one port visit canceled because it was too windy for the ship to pull into Gdansk, Poland. We ended up with a second day in port in Warnemunde, Germany. And we pulled into Aalborg, Denmark instead of Skagen, Denmark.

On a different Baltic cruise in 2004, the ship was using tugs to tie up at the pier - do not recall which port. It was so windy that the tugs snapped 4 or 5 mooring lines in the process.

We liked the itinerary and would recommend it.

What specific questions do you have? Feel free to PM me if you prefer, or want to set up a phone call.

 

[wmackey]

My wife and I did the viking Caribbean cruise in 2018. We had a fantastic time. That said, we did a river cruise this year and would love to do that again. At this point, if we did anything it would be another river cruise.

 

[DrRoy]

We did Viking Romantic Danube and loved everything about it. Then we did a Viking Alaska from Vancouver to Seward. On board the ship it was great. The port locations and many of the excursions were disappointing though. We think the Viking was late to the Alaska market and other cruise lines had filled up the better locations to berth the ship. We had to tender or berth away from the town center where the other ships were. There was less to do on "at sea" days. We will stick with Royal Caribbean for ocean going forward, but will do Viking river again.

 

[RetireBy90]

DW and I did a New Zealand-Australia cruise earlier this year, and enjoyed it very much. It was the initial cruise for this particular ship (Viking Mars) and there were some troubles including sailing on 3 of 4 engines for a few days and a port that was damaged by storms and unavailable. Still, it was a trip of a lifetime.

I would caution that Viking seemed to dock in berths that were away from anything and then you would catch a bus to your excursion destination(s). On a previous cruise we always docked right in the middle of everything so we could take some time to just stroll around town and have a beer or 2. Couldn't do that on our Viking cruise.

We booked another called Trade Routes for April, Barcelona to Bergen. We will spend a day at Normandy, the main goal of this trip. Also get to see Portugal briefly.

Then we were lured into a 3rd Viking in 25 that includes northern Africa. So we like the Viking trips. Expensive but you have to consider the cost of hotel and food if you go by land. Also no packing and unpacking every other day if you drove to these destinations. I could say more but for now despite some issues and problems we still enjoyed the trip and talk about it all the time.

 

[jerryo]

My wife and I took a three week Viking Ocean cruise from Buenos Aires to Barcelona last March and really enjoyed it. The ships are elegant, the cabins are comfortable and the itineraries are interesting (Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio, Recife, Cape Verde, Casablanca, Malaga, Barcelona). Meals were good and we had a hard time choosing between the (included) speciality restaurants, the main dining room, the buffet (with sushi every night!), the pool bar (with great burgers, dogs, salads and wings), Mumsens (the Norwegian comfort food place), and a wonderful (daily) high tea! Fantastic spa and interesting lectures workshops and entertainment (including a nightly show). The included excursions were a little weak, our paid excursion to the Alhambra well worth it, and independent sightseeing generally worked well. We liked it so much that we booked another transatlantic (from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona via Madeira) this March and a crusie from NY to Newfoundland, Greenland and Iceland next summer!