Viking Sea Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We booked this cruise two years ago and it was worth the wait. The Viking Sea is a new ship. We took the Viking Homelands cruise starting in Stockholm, Sweden, on May 22, and ending in Bergen, Norway. We were in eight countries, including Iceland as we did the pre-cruise trip there. I would highly recommend this pre-trip if you get the chance. Of the fifteen days of the cruise, there was only one day at sea, but the ship stopped at some of the ports for only enough time for a brief tour. The ship is absolutely stunning. Although it's a relatively small ship with a little more than 900 passengers, there are many places on the ship that feel private with a lot of inviting, comfortable places to relax. Our favorites were the main Living Room area and the Explorer's Lounge. The Scandinavian decor in general is incredibly warm and inviting.
We were in three ports for two nights. The first was Stockholm, where the cruise originated, the second was St. Petersburg, and the last was Bergen, where the cruise ended. The extra days in Stockholm and Bergen were very nice as you got to tour the cities with an included or optional tour plus time to get settled in Stockholm and packed in Bergen. There's so much to see in St. Petersburg, so it was great to have two days there. If you do only tours with Viking or any other acceptable tour agency, you don't have to have an expensive Russian visa. Most of the included tours in all of the ports were pretty good with a little bit of variability in the quality of the tour guide. Most were very good to excellent. We did optional tours in St. Petersburg, the Pushkin Catherine Palace, The Hermitage, and the folk dancers as well as the included tour. We also did the Flam in Norway as an optional tour, which was very scenic and a wonderful excursion. When we booked the tours, we opted not to do the two-day St. Petersburg tour as it included the ballet, which none of the four of us wanted to do. We chose the folk dancers instead. That meant we could not do the Peterhof Palace tour. Our understanding is that they are now offering a choice between the ballet and the folk dancers. We talked to people who had gone to the ballet and they were not happy with the seating at the ballet, but I can't speak to it from personal experience.
The port talks were very good. We also attended some of the enrichment lectures, which were very informative. We didn't go to much in the way of the evening entertainment, but what we saw of it was very good. The small classical group that played in the Living Room and Wintergarden for high tea were outstanding.
Cabin Review
We were in the Deluxe Veranda category. I think if we go on another Viking Ocean Cruise, we will go up at least one category. There wasn't much in the way of storage space in the cabin and what there was was scattered about the room. There is no dresser in the room. I realized this before we went and bought a hanging shelf and that helped a lot. The desk is also a vanity table, which could be inconvenient at times. I think I would have preferred a large magnifying in the bathroom instead, but I got used to it. The cabin is not very wide, so we eventually rearranged the two chairs and the coffee table to put the coffee table out of the way. The shower is excellent and the bathroom in general was well designed with a lot of shelf and drawer space. The heated floor was very nice and clothing that was hand washed dried fairly quickly.