Dis / Dreams Viking Sea Cruise around Italy 3/24 - 3/31/2018

Hey @DisneyKevin for anyone who might be wanting to do a trip report on this cruise ( :wave: )where do you think will be the best place to put it on the boards? I am going back and forth in my mine between the podcast board or just puttting it with the Disney TRs and posting a link on the podcast board? I’m also probably overthinking this, but...that’s what I do best.
 
Hey @DisneyKevin for anyone who might be wanting to do a trip report on this cruise ( :wave: )where do you think will be the best place to put it on the boards? I am going back and forth in my mine between the podcast board or just puttting it with the Disney TRs and posting a link on the podcast board? I’m also probably overthinking this, but...that’s what I do best.
Oooh - I'd love to read it! :)
 
Hey @DisneyKevin for anyone who might be wanting to do a trip report on this cruise ( :wave: )where do you think will be the best place to put it on the boards? I am going back and forth in my mine between the podcast board or just puttting it with the Disney TRs and posting a link on the podcast board? I’m also probably overthinking this, but...that’s what I do best.

I was wondering the same thing ... I think, since I am also in the middle of my trip report from my Disney Cruise, I am just going to do a mini-trip report for the Italy Viking trip as an Intermission to that trip report
 


I'd love to see peoples' trip report. I think it might be easier though to make each of them a separate thread but post a link here. That may make it easier to read multi-part reports.
 
I'd love to see peoples' trip report. I think it might be easier though to make each of them a separate thread but post a link here. That may make it easier to read multi-part reports.

Yes, sorry, I did mean making a separate thread. Just wondering about which board would be the best to start it on. I might not have explained myself well lol
 


We just got our ceramics from Orvieto and they are beautiful!

There was a bit of delay in getting them though as many others got their shipment a week or more ago. Sunday I got a call from a strange looking number, which went to voice mail. Turns out it was Ceramiche Giacomini letting us know that our shipment had arrived (a bit of a language barrier) and giving us our DHL tracking number. Went to the DHL website and saw that it had been in Orlando since Monday and was being held. Further scanning of their web site showed something about customs. Tried calling but apparently DHL's customer service isn't open on Sunday. Val called yesterday and gave them a CC number for the ~$55 customs charge and they brought the package today.

Apparently the snag was a minor blip in the email address they had. A simple change of an underscore to a dash, which of course made email notification impossible. Thank goodness Giacomini had called with the tracking number. Had a very nice follow-up call from them this morning (before the box arrived) and I let them know it was being delivered today.

We unpacked everything (a task in itself - this stuff gets very carefully packaged) and it was all great. Sent an email off to Orvieto letting them know everything was fine.
 
We unpacked everything (a task in itself - this stuff gets very carefully packaged) and it was all great. Sent an email off to Orvieto letting them know everything was fine.

Glad to hear your ceramics arrived. They truly are gorgeous pieces. We have several on display and have been using our dinner plates nightly.
Could you send me their email address? I'd like to send them a thank you and order a few more pieces if possible.
 
I am kicking around the idea of taking this same trip in 2020 with my DH instead of Trish. Love her dearly but I spent most of the cruise wishing he were with me and how much he would enjoy it.

The cruise was pretty weak on evening entertainment but that doesn't hold much interest with us. If I hadn't spent most evenings in the Explorer's lounge with the lovely disboard people here while Trish had her nose in a book I would have been bored to tears but I'll have the DH to hang out with next time and that will be fine.

The food in the World Buffet, The Restaurant and Manfredi's was outstanding I could probably skip the Chef's Table. My husband has the palate of a 10 yr old boy so we would end up going to the buffet or getting room service. Room service was outstanding. The food is definitely a step or two above DCL but the atmosphere wasn't as entertaining. The Silver Sea's package was an unbelievable bargain and room service would deliver glasses of wine at no charge. I expect they aren't used to passengers with fully functioning livers.

My big problem was with our excursions with Viking, beginning with the extra Pompeii excursion. It is labeled demanding and I have arthritis in my feet after years of being a pharmacist. I can easily walk miles but standing in one spot gets uncomfortable not to mention boring so I was a bit on the fence about it. I was surprised when we loaded the bus to find two of the guests using canes and several of the guests quite elderly and moving slowly. The tour moved so slowly it was a shuffle and we saw what I felt was a small percentage of Pompeii. The tour guide would often come to a stand still waiting for guests to catch up and several of the guests had to sit for a bit. I think it was the luck of the draw which bus you were on because I don't think others had the same problem. I think it would have been better if Viking had a separate excursion labeled "moderate" that the slower moving guests could enjoy. As soon as I boarded the ship I canceled all of the extra excursions except the ones in Venice and the cooking class. Viking immediately refunded those without penalty which was wonderful.

Another of our extra excursions also had issues. The Unraveling St. Mark's Square and Doge's Palace in Venice. We got to the theatre early and was placed in group number 8 and we waited. Then our number was called and we disembarked from the ship and we waited. Group 9 passed us by and left. We then got in line for the shuttle behind Group 10 members of whom got to the theatre long after we did but got better seats on the boat shuttle. We get to St. Mark's Square and there was some confusion about getting tickets into Doge's Palace and we waited. We finally got the tickets and we got in line and then we waited in line again, for awhile. We had left our room nearly two hours ago and had seen nothing but did a lot of waiting standing on my feet and I'd rather be walking. The tour inside Doge's Palace was meh but the guide upon leaving the large room did not make sure we were all together and a group of non-English speaking tourist cut off about a third of us. Unfortunately this happened during the walk through the prison and all of our headsets went dead, we were too far away from the guide who did not notice we were missing. So we heard nothing of Cassanova and what I thought would be the most interesting parts of the tour. The tour was over before anyone could get into the Basilica and some guests elected to stay and catch a later shuttle.

The cooking class, another extra excursion, had the feeling that it opened up the tour to more guests it was a bit more than they could comfortably handle. The big bus could not make it up to the school so there was a little walk but it was fine.

All of the excursions through Viking had that big box feeling of too many people being herded together moving at the pace of the slowest person which would have been fine for the included tours but was really unacceptable for the extras.

I've read TheMaxRebo's TR and am following khertz's TR and agree with everything they have said and it sounds like Kristy had a better Pompeii experience than we did. I had heard that others enjoyed the River Cruise excursions more and it would seem to me that a cruise line that is by nature a port intensive cruise line would have had better excursions. The best one we had was the private one organized by Cousin Orville.

What was everyone else's experiences with the Viking excursions? How were the ones in Croatia and Bari? If we do go we are definitely getting TheMaxRebo's and Cousin Orville's contacts for private tours but I don't like the idea of having to do that in every port.
 
I decided to go with the podcast board since it was a cruise talked about a lot on the podcast.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/a...s-dis-viking-italian-sojourn-2018-tr.3676698/

If anyone is interested, I did a mini Trip Report for this trip as an intermission to my ongoing trip report from our recent Disney Cruise:

Part A) Introduction and Time In Rome

Part B) The Viking Sky - Our Room, the Ship, and the Food!

Part C) Excursions and Recap/Comparison to Disney Cruise Line

thanks for the links to your trip reports...

i just saw a tv show on a cruise on the Viking Star (or maybe the Sun - saw it this morning and already forgot)..
so i was curious to see if anyone on the dis had written a trip report on the viking cruise...and voila!!
thanks for sharing!!!!

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