My wife and I took a Viking Ocean cruise 2 years ago. We spent one week sailing from Rome to Barcelona, and a second week sailing back to Rome. Here are some notes we took then for a friend about to sail with Viking.
Stateroom:
1) Two good-sized drawers in the bathroom, along with 2 shelves on each side of the large sink.
2) Room came with binoculars, umbrella, and 2 QuietVox receivers for use on ship tours.
3) Large closet.
4) Bathroom has heated floor.
5) Lots of electric outlets, both 110 volts and 220 volts. One set on each side of the bed, one set by the desk. All of these 110 volt outlets were 3-prong outlets,
6) One 110 volt outlet in the bathroom, 2-prong.
7) There was a hair dryer in the room.
8) There was a small mini-bar in the stateroom. They will restock daily. Complimentary.
9) We used the balcony a few brief times, but the weather was usually too cold to stay outside very often.
Ship:
1) Ship was clean and well-maintained.
2) Clean Scandinavian design lines.
3) About 90% full, but generally felt empty. Not at all crowded. Capacity ~ 950 passengers.
4) Wi-Fi works, but the connection speed is much slower than what most people are used to on land. Slow but usable during our first week. Much slower and barely usable at times during the second week. When the wifi is included, seems like everyone is using it.
5) There is a putting green, with clubs.
6) My wife liked the spa. I did not use it.
Food:
1) Many of the food items from the main restaurant are also available on the buffet.
2) Quality was generally good to very good in the main restaurant. A few exceptional items and a few poor ones.
3) Specialty restaurant “Chef's Kitchen” has a wine paring menu, and each menu runs for 3 nights. Only one option for each course during the meal.
4) Specialty restaurant “Manfriedi” has a full menu of Italian food. We both liked it very much.
5) We enjoyed going to their afternoon tea several times.
6) We ate most dinners and one or two lunches in the main restaurant.
7) All of our breakfasts were in the buffet due to time constraints with our shore excursions.
8) Room service is available 24 hours a day at no extra cost.
General:
1) Ship shore excursion times are fluid. No matter what time you schedule a tour from home, you need to check the daily program the previous day to verify the time of departure. Several of our tours had changed drastically. We recommend caution and flexibility if you want to plan any other activity on a day when you take a ship tour.
2) Two of our planned port calls were changed the week before the cruise due to security concerns. Tunis and Algiers were changed to Naples (Italy) and Palma de Mallorca (Spain). As a result, there was a minor shift to the other scheduled port stops. Be cautious about paying in advance for anything in port independent of the ship. These changes were not just for our sailing, but for the rest of their season.
3) Entertainment options and activities were much fewer than we are used to, but this is a much smaller ship than we are used to. Usually only one thing going on at a time, sometimes two at a time. But we were in port every day. No sea days.
a) They had one 4-person crew put on a couple of shows, one pair of singers, a guitarist, a piano player, and a small band.
b) In ports where we stayed overnight, they brought on entertainment troupes from the local area. A Spanish band/flamenco dancers in Barcelona and a small college orchestra in Livorno (Italy).
c) They showed (usually) one movie each night.
4) I read that all of their ocean cruise ships are of the same class, so your ship should be nearly identical to ours.
5) Elevator service was good. Long waits only when returning from shore excursions.
6) They passed out bottles of water and apples at the gangway if anyone wanted to take them. Most took water. We saw few taking apples.
We've taken 12-15 cruises and would definitely sail with them again. Our friends who we compiled these notes for also enjoyed their cruise (different itinerary). Let me know if you have any specific questions.
