Viking Cruises 🚢
Not going to go into too many details here, but this domain is to access the details of our cruises:
- Viking River Cruises
- Viking Ocean Cruises
In the Viking River Cruise space, I stated "If we ever take a
non-Viking River Cruise, I may need to change the name of this page and subdomain..." Well, guess what?!!? We took a
non-Viking River Cruise.
Well, I guess maybe it would be better to say we took a Viking non-River Cruise.
And hence I created a new subdomain: VOC.
Though the "O" stands for "Ocean", not all the cruises take place on an ocean but on an "ocean-class ship".
But then the question is raised "What is the different between the River ships and the Ocean ships?"
Originally, this was going to just be a bullet list, but while setting this up, I decided to make it a comparison table.
| Category / Class | River | Ocean |
|---|---|---|
| Travel locations | Rivers | Oceans and seas |
| Travel focus | Destination | Ship |
| Ship capacity | 190 (such as the Legend) or less, 106 (such as the Helgrim) or even less, 98 (such as the Beyla) |
990 (such as the Vesta) 930 (such as the Neptune) |
| Decks | 4 (usually) Or 3 (such as the Beyla on the Elbe) |
9 |
| Size | 442.6' (such as the Legend) 361' (such as the Beyla [Elbe River]) 262' (such as the Helgrim [Duoro River]) |
784' (such as the Vesta) 745' (such as the Neptune) |
| Room size | 135 sq ft and up |
288 sq ft and up |
| Room Verandas | About a third to half the rooms have one (We never stayed in a cabin that had one) |
Every room has one |
| Restaurant(s) | 1: |
7:
The Restaurant
World Café Manfredi's The Chef's Table Wintergarden Mamsen's Pool Grill
The Restaurant
World Café Manfredi's The Chef's Table Wintergarden Mamsen's Pool Grill |
|
Food availability: - Breakfast - Lunch - Dinner - Other |
6:00 - 9:00 menu and buffet 1:00 - ~2:30 menu, one seating 7:00 - ~8:30 menu, one seating Room service (for a fee) 24 / 7 snack station |
6:30 - 10:00 menu (The Restaurant [starting at 8:00]), and buffet (World Café) 11:00 - 3:00 buffet (World Café) 6:00 - 9:00 menu (The Restaurant), and buffet (World Café) Mamsen's, Manfredi's, Chef's Table, Pool Grill, Wintergarden (daily 4:00 tea), 24 / 7 room service (included), and even snacks in the Living Room that change during the day: |
| Bar(s) | 1 in the 1 lounge |
6 bars in various areas
Explorer's Lounge
Living Room Pool Aquavit / World Café Star Theather (likely only open when the theater is) Torshavn Lounge
Explorer's Lounge
Living Room Pool Aquavit / World Café Star Theather (likely only open when the theater is) Torshavn Lounge |
| Lounges | 1 lounge |
2 The primary 2-story Explorer's Lounge on the 7th deck fore Torshavn Lounge Torshavn Lounge |
| Live Entertainment |
Lounge pianist (daily)
Occasional guest entertainment
Lounge pianist (daily)
Occasional guest entertainment |
Atrium duo (daily)
Atrium pianist (daily) Theater performances (frequently) Put on by Viking Performers or occasional Guests Explorer's Lounge guitarist (frequently) Not pictured
Atrium duo (daily)
Atrium pianist (daily) Theater performances (frequently) Put on by Viking Performers or occasional Guests Explorer's Lounge guitarist (frequently) Not pictured |
| Walking track | 12.75 laps |
4 laps |
| Laundry | For a fee | Self-serve for free |
| Sundeck | Includes a shuffleboard, and or a large chess set, and an herb garden |
Full sun deck, PLUS a sports deck on with shuffleboard, lawn bowling, table tennis, and a putting green |
| Other amenities | Only the River of Gold ship has a small pool |
- Full spa (not pictured)
- Exercise gym - Hair and Nail salon - Star Theater - Two small cinemas (the seating is used for the Star Theater most of the time) - Infinity pool and a hot tub - Retractable roof covered pool - Hot tubs (1 next to the Inifinity pool above, and 1 [here] to the left of the main pool) - Video game tables
- Full spa (not pictured)
- Exercise gym - Hair and Nail salon - Star Theater - Two small cinemas (the seating is used for the Star Theater most of the time) - Infinity pool and a hot tub - Retractable roof covered pool - Hot tubs (1 next to the Inifinity pool above, and 1 next to the main pool) - Torshavn "night club" / lounge - Video game tables (about 4) |
| Excursions (More about the cruise than the ship) |
Usually a traveler can do two in a day: one before lunch and one after. |
Typically only one per day with some lengthy ones available, but also
with an opportunity for free time in town / the city. |
| Ports |
Usually city- / town-side with an easy walk right off the ship. |
Typically requires a bus / shuttle from the port to somewhere inland. |
We have been asked, more than once: "Which is better, oceans or rivers?"
It isn't a case of one is better than the other. While talking to The Husband (IYKYK), I made the comment that
the rivers seem to be more about the destinations whereas the oceans are more about the ship. He agreed.
The ocean ports tend to be a little further away - sometimes the ship is anchored and passengers take a tender to shore - and
there is more time spent on the ship. Usually excursions ended by lunch or early afternoon with the ability for guests to easily
only do one a day, whereas on the rivers guests could typically do a morning excursion AND an afternoon one too.
There is far more to eat on the oceans, with much more time to do so. The breakfast times are about the same. However,
the oceans have lunch available starting at 11:30 through 2:30 (rather than a full single seating at 1:00). And dinner
starts at 5:45 (maybe earlier, somewhere) and runs until 9:00 in the main dining rooms (rather than just a full seating
at 7:00). The Wintergarden has daily tea at 4:00. And Mamsens has a "midnight snack" available between 10:00 and midnight.
Even the Living Room bar had a small display case with fancy snacks in it including cookies, muffins, pastries [in the
monring] or fancy open face sandwiches [in the afternoon] including shrimp salad and roast beef. If you like food or like
to eat, there is certainly no shortage of food available to sate anyone's appetite.s
There is plenty more to do on the oceans too, such as some sports on the sport deck, the pools (plural),
the spa, the gym, and the Star Theater shows.
Right at the end of typing up the second VRC, we stumbled upon information regarding Viking referrals.
(I mention this because I want to emphasize that the referral information was added after the fact and at the end of typing this up, and not that this was typed up due to a potential for some sort of referral). Anyway...