Viking Sea Review

A wonderful Christmas abroad

Review for the Mediterranean Cruise on Viking Sea
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Lkclark
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Dec 2016

We are "orphaned" older adults with no immediate family to share the holidays with so we opted to treat ourselves to this wonderful cruise. On the whole it was a fabulous experience, but we have some unique travel needs that made it a bit challenging. My husband has a back/leg/foot disability and uses a cane to walk. While he can walk a good amount and good distances he cannot walk fast or carefree, especially on cobblestone streets. We have been used to joining "the leisure group" (slower walking, less hills) on Viking river cruises and sorely missed that there was no such option on the big ship. Most tour excursion guides took off and never looked back as he struggled to keep their pace. We gave up on organized excursions in several cases to be able to go on our own and move at a slower pace best for him.

Also, the big ship experience wasn't best for him due to the amount of walking required not only on the ship (cabin to dining rooms distance) but the distances to walk to disembark, cross huge cruise terminals, across parking lots for tour bus loading, etc. We learned he has to be careful in how he expends his energy on a trip of this magnitude. Walking the cobblestones is a big challenge, but the addition of extra steps expended just to reach all the cobble streets is another!

A (normal) embarkation to start the cruise in Venice was not possible due to fog and repositioning the ship to Trieste was the only option. 900+ passengers disembarked as 900+ tried to embark. The embarkation was a nightmare but we learned later that the Trieste port authority was mostly responsible for that disorganized snafu as they would not allow Viking to oversee a more organized approach to embarkation. And Viking has tried to make up for that experience too, so we do not fault Viking. But the experience was a worst case scenario for a disabled person. Surviving in a throng of people all trying to get access to ship entry at the same time was dangerous. It was sort of a "survival of the fittest" situation.

Cabin Review

Cabin Veranda

The cabin was fine. The heated bathroom floor was nice but in ways too hot, although I did ask to have the temperature turned down. Down comforters (always used in Europe) are too hot for us. Should have asked for blankets as a replacement. Cabin steward was excellent. Wifi is slow.

Port Reviews

Corfu

the city is a bit tattered but the shopping area is a fun place for a few hours.

Dubrovnik

Enjoyed the walled city area. Festive for Christmas. Pretty area.

Malta (Valletta)

The gereslized city overview (included) tour was fine.

Toulon

Took the excursion to Aix en Provence. Saw a lot of countryside by doing this (bus ride was about 1 1/2 hr each way). Aix en Provence is a nice city, good flavor of Provence. Lots of activity as it was Christmas Eve. We heard from others that Toulon was not very exciting so we were glad we did our full day tour of Provence.

Venice

Too little time in Venice. While we would've had some free time there on the day we were to embark the ship, the fog situation caused the ship to be moved to Trieste so we lost a whole afternoon/evening to be in Venice. Only having 10:00 am - 2:00 pm is never enough time in Venice!

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