Just returned from a Cruise on the Orion from Hong Kong to Tokyo chosen mostly for the destinations. We wanted to travel to Japan and given the fact that Japan is EXPENSIVE, this seemed like a good choice as the ports visited were on our bucket list and meals and accommodation were paid for. Unfortunately unbeknown to us , and our fault it was Golden week in Japan, a 10 day holiday period as well as the crowning of a new emperor. Every place was unbelievably crowded, and on occasion difficult to walk due to the crowds at temples and other places of interest. We have been on many cruises in the luxury category on smaller ships which is our preference. We are not Brand loyal as we enjoy trying different things in life. Given this, it was difficult for us to reconcile the fact that Viking Ocean was voted #1 in many categories. We actually realised why this is the case, as many of our fellow passengers, were on the fourth of fifth Viking Cruise, and had never tried anything else to compare. The liked the Viking new ships and felt comfortable as they knew exactly what to expect. I call it "the Holiday Inn" syndrome. There are so many better cruise lines in this category. I would rate Viking 4th or 5th. in every Category. I might add that the ships are lovely and most of the staff "willing and pleasant" but need more training. Our cabin located at the rear (Deluxe Veranda) was quite comfortable with a larger balcony and the bathroom is excellent. Best shower that I have had on a Cruise ship, ony to be beaten by those that have a Bath and a shower. I like to shower and my wife prefers to bath. The Best bathroom ever is the Spa Suite on the Azamara ships. A tad more expensive, but worth it. We dis not have a great choice of cabins, even though we booked it 2 years ahead and only and a choice of 4 cabins as everything else was booked.. Our cabin was on deck 5 below the infinity pool and was plagued by noise coming from the Infinity pool pump, located across the hall in a service room. We didn't get one night of uninterrupted sleep due to this intermittent pump cycling every 10 minutes or so. Surely Viking have heard of sound insulation!!! We complained to no avail, and on the 9th night they offered to move us to a cabin on deck 3, which we rejected as we were leaving the ship for a 21/2 day trip to Kyoto and rejoining up the coast in Shimizu. I did learn something though - many passengers book and pay the $100 deposit as soon as the cruises are published and then drop out at the 120 day point where they have to empty their wallets. So many people we spoke to, booked at 120 days or less and had a greater choice of cabin. The food was very good at Manfredi's and mediocre/acceptable elsewhere, except for the pool grill. Always a great choice of items so it was easy to find something acceptable, but certainly not the quality of Seabourne or Crystal, and even the special restaurants on Oceana were a cut above those on the Orion. We have actually had our finest meals at the Chef's Table on Azamara. $$$ but well worth it. Entertainment was also mediocre as were the included tours. I am 72, but found our fellow cruisers (most of the same age group) to be a little beyond it. They booked for tours which required a a higher level of exertion (noted in the brochures), only to complain when they got to the destination. They also couldn't figure out which channel to use on the VOX, even though it was always the same # as the bus they were assigned too. And frustration with the questions they asked of the guides even after the guide had already addressed the issue. Perhaps they were hard of hearing! I paid for a couple of additional tours with a US $ credit card, only to find that Viking charged the card with additional foreign exchange charges.I am Canadian and booked in Canada. Also did not get a statement at the end of the Cruise as is customary and found that I was charged for items that were not shown on the cruise account on the monitor in our cabin, even though I disputed these with Guest Services, who had agreed to deduct those charges. Still trying to get resolution with Viking. Read Less

Started with this 2-week cruise from Hong Kong to Tokyo, then a week in Japan on our own. We did a Viking River (Grand European) last year so wanted to try one of their ocean cruises. Loved the Orion. Beautifully designed public spaces without over the top, trying too hard of some of the other, bigger ships. True casual elegance. All very spacious, comfortable AND at the same time cozy. We liked this ship much better than the full size ships we have taken. Great space for passenger count. Sometimes felt almost empty. But not at meal times! Service was great. Except occasionally (again) not at meal times. A couple of "flubs" in main dining room when all passengers hit at once. Overall very good food and wine selection. Our two specialty restaurant meals were lovely. And buffet always a good alternative, fresh and appetizing, sometimes hard to find a seat though. Disappointed specialty restaurants and excursions so hard to book into beforehand. Because we were "only" DV category, things often sold out before we could book. Very frustrating. If we'd been regular veranda, even worse? Viking needs to adjust capacity or ...? Staff really did work hard to please. Pleasant, personable, and efficient. Appreciated enrichment and port talks before excursions. Learned lots. Some excursions were great. A few could be improved. I'd suggest more time AT points of interest, once bus gets you there. And info in description about travel/visit time ratio, (not everyone thinks to research maps.Google when selecting). Entertainment varied. Local dance group fantastic, musicians very good, some onboard singers excellent, others OK. But TURN DOWN the volume please!! Mics or control room? cranked up to excruciating levels sometimes. Didn't use spa but fitness suite exceeded expectations. Nice to keep up routines and offset some of those calories. Planetarium didn't do it for me. over hyped, with awkward viewing angle. And see more under cabin review about my "big" gripe: no pressure balance in shower. Read Less

I was attracted by the destinations and the hype surrounding Viking Ocean Cruises. The ship is beautifully equipped with all modern facilities. Like a beautiful woman until the true character is exposed. The Ship lacked Soul. Furnishings were like Ikea on steroids. There were few activities apart from some excellent speakers and an outstanding performance by 4 dancers and singers. appearing only 3 times in 15 days. Another evening a Kabuki dance by locals was fascinating. People just hung out in corners of the ship reading and relaxing. They were entertained by 2 violinists and at other times by a pianist. Some passengers looked like they had passed away. Nothing much else to do. Excursions were disappointing. The one we looked so forward to going on was cancelled due to low support and the others didn't flow particularly smoothly. Food was the redeeming feature. It was excellent. Service was friendly and almost efficient. Our cabin attendant was very good. Embarkation was smooth and well organised. It would appear that Viking may be growing too quickly since there was what appeared to be inefficient administration processes. On one of our excursions we were instructed in the Newsletter to present in the Theatre for re-direction to our Buses. We had to meet by 1.45pm. Some 50 passengers turned up. But at 2pm when our Bus was due to leave, no staff appeared. A passenger then rang Guest Services to see what was going on and was then told we were supposed to meet on the Pier. No one told us!!! Read Less

Hong Kong to Tokyo 16 days. This was are Second Viking cruise as previously sailed on V.Sea. We found Orion to be a better experience this time around. Orion did not seem so bland as Sea, certainly more pop of colour around the ship. We had a Penthouse Verandah on Deck 5. The room was bright clean and well looked after by our cabin stewards who were very friendly and always had a smile on their faces. Always plenty of places to sit and relax on this ship, never felt crowded except for the World Cafe where at times it was just ridiculous trying to find a free table. There just didn’t seem to be sufficient staff to cope with clearing away dirty plates and resetting the tables. I also got rather annoyed watching one particular wait person chatting away to a couple of passengers for far too long while his colleagues were run off their feet. Food was OK, some really good dishes and then again some very average ones. Manfredi’s was OK just a different venue from the Restaurant, same for The Chef’s Table. Shore excursions were not over priced with one included excursion in each port. Bar prices I thought were reasonable and compare to what I would pay back home. Read Less

This cruise was a little different from all the other ones that I've been to. It is more relaxing, and more intellectual. The ship is newly commissioned, mid size but spacious for the number of guests. Except in the main theatre, and in the World Cafe where breakfast and more casual meals are served, I was able to find a spot all to myself. The ship has all the amenities that are expected, including a fitness centre, (free) Nordic hot and cold spa and whirl pool experience, and a mini planetarium. In room entertainment is excellent, consisting of many live TV stations, a wide variety of movies, TV series, recorded TED talks, and of course all kinds of music stations. The main shipwide entertainment include shows performed in the theater by a 4 members band and a 4 members singing and dancing group. On some nights local artists performed traditional dances. The ship also has a resident pianist, a guitarist, and two classical string instrumentalists. The planetarium provides three 3D shows, but unfortunately, after the first show, the 3D equipment did not work. What I enjoyed most was the lectures given by various speakers, some of whom are very knowledgeable, and spoke with lots of energy and passion. One of them spoke about the Vietnam war, which changed my perspective of what I used to believe - that the war was a struggle between communism and democracy. The performances in the theatre usually lasted about an hour, leaving me with enough time in the evening to finish watching all 10 episodes of the National Geographic series on Albert Einstein. The food was good, with the usual choices, and wine and beer and specialty coffee were included with every meal. I like the large selection of fruits, and the generous but not overwhelming portions of the sit down meals. There are two alternative restaurants which required booking. One of them pretended to offer oriental cuisine but I wasn't impressed. The menu consisted of a four course meal, each with a different choice of wine. The on board staff was efficient, very courteous, and eager to please. Service desk is open 24-7. Services were offered with smiles and humor. All my request for information and change of land excursions were resolved promptly. The itinerary includes a free excursion for each port visited, with a reasonably good selection of alternatives for additional fees. The ship stayed more than one day in most ports, which means that you will have plenty of time to explore on your own, if you do not sign up with the offered alternative excursions. However, some of the excursions were "sold out" as soon as booking became available. Many of the excursions lived up to expectation; the scenic boat tours of the beautiful Ha Long Bay were memorable. For some excursions, the descriptions on Viking's web site were more enticing than the actual trip, e.g., the "Ream National Park" trip in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, was no more than a long boat ride on a river. It was a relaxing ride, but I failed to see the flora and fauna mentioned in the Viking brochure, neither did the local guide point out any interesting features. Some of the land excursions took more than 2 hours to reach the destinations, because the ports were far from any interesting sites. I wish the long traveling time was clearly stated in the trip description. One of the excursions that I signed up was modified one day before the trip, without a clear explanation of the reason for the change. One of the places I really looked forward to visiting was Haikou, China, but this was taken out of the itinerary a month before the cruise started. The stated reason was "poor feedback from past guests" which I doubt was the true reason. My email to Viking requesting further explanation was never returned. Another feature which attracted me to this cruise was the advertised $600 deduction for air fare. Before I joined, Viking assured me that I could choose any airline, but in the end, they could not book me on the airline of my choice, and I had to forgo the $600 deduction. If you are looking for a relaxing cruise, with high quality enrichment programs and lots of free time, and don't mind paying a little more for the services, this cruise is for you. Read Less

We are loyal Viking River cruisers (5 trips) and decided to give Viking Ocean a try. We have traveled on other ocean cruise lines. Generally, things went pretty well for us, though there were a few bumps during the first couple of days. We love the Viking Orion. With only about 900 passengers, it is small and intimate but still has everything we wanted. If you are looking for casinos or large Vegas-style reviews - the Viking Orion is not for you. The good: wine and beer included with meals, free internet, free launderette, free excursion in each port, heated bathroom floors, comfortable beds, adequate sized cabins, alternate restaurants included, outstanding lecturers and speakers, friendly & efficient crew, good food selection and preparation, verandas on all cabins, the "Explorer Dome". Ample storage in cabins. Certain class cabins get free minibar and laundry. Awesome use of state of the art technology everywhere on board. Spa area. Many quiet comfortable spaces to read and relax. Infinity pool. Musicians and singers were all good. What we thought could be improved: Dining Room was crowded - seemed like there were too many tables for the space. Excursions - We usually take the "Easy or Leisurely" excursions due to some mobility issues - Choices were limited. Need magnifying makeup mirror in bathroom or elsewhere in cabin. Itinerary - Bali to Hong Kong - Sihanoukville, Cambodia is awful. Dirty, polluted - No reason for any passenger to go there. Singapore - Needed an overnight there - not just one day. Vietnam, Singapore, Kuala Lampur, Bangkok, Bali, Hong Kong were all very good . Indonesian ports other than Bali were just okay - not great. We'll cruise again with Viking Ocean, but will carefully select the itinerary based on Mobility-friendly excursions. Read Less

Since we were so happy with our Viking River Cruise we figured that we could expect the same overall quality and amount of personal attention if we elected to do an ocean cruise with them. This was not necessarily correct. While Viking's amenities, food, housekeeping, etc., etc were as good as other cruise lines, there was nothing on this cruise that made it any better than say a Norwegian or Holland America cruise. An exception to the above is that Viking does offer an "included" excursion at every port. We were very impressed with the "Pre-Cruise" stay at the Maya Hotel in Ubud (Bali) and with the Shangri-La in Bangkok. The hotels and tours (especially the floating market) were outstanding. I think everyone agreed that the 2 days at Jakarta should be dropped. Singapore would be an excellent 2 day port. Jakarta's air quality was about as good as the burn pits we experienced in Iraq. As for on-board dining , I for one would like to see a Pasta Station and a Stir-Fry station where one would be able to interact more with the preparation of the dish. Essentially, at those stations, the chef simply plates the food after warming it in a skillet. There are few choices in what gets plated. Also, I was not impressed with the supervisor in the World Cafe who verbally abused one of the young ladies about her job performance right in front of us. Definitely bad for business! And last of all, Viking cheated us out of $250.00 on-board credit. We were supposed to have $250 each - I checked with our travel agent just today to make sure- but only had $250 total. That alone makes me think that my future sailings will be with other lines. Read Less

Chose this cruise for the destinations, which were wonderful. Ship was very clean and overall staff very friendly and attentive. Speciality Restaurants were of a very good standard. Spa was excellent. Entertainment shows were very good. Live music being played during day and evenings in Main Foyer was repetitious. Main Dining was at times “ hit and miss”. Felt they had skimped somewhat on the seafood offerings. Buffet selection was limited and very few salads. Hardly any healthy options or sugar free or low carb dessert alternatives. Wine list was very limited as were range of drinks on offer with a silver drinks package. No premium bottled spring water on offer even with drinks package. Ship layout was similiar to that of River cruises. Ship also vibrated throughout the cruise. Had to wedge paper between doors on wardrobe to prevent noise from keeping us awake at night. Disappointing for a new ship. Bed vibrated from the ship shuddering. Captain did a great job of staying ahead of Cyclone at the top of Australia. We did miss seeing Thursday Island and the shore excursions we paid for well before we sailed in March. Quite understand the importance of staying ahead of the Cyclone however we were promised to be refunded the US$278 at the end of our cruise. Home one month now and still have not received a refund! Poor processing and customer service Viking . Overall value for money was not there with Viking. Azamara, Celebrity, RCL offer a better deal, wider variety of food at a higher standard. Have also cruised on Crystal which were faultless. This was our 12th cruise and we would not cruise with Viking again. Read Less

We chose the Viking Ocean cruise because we had done two Viking river cruises which were exceptional. So we were expecting the same on an ocean cruise. Not to be, alas! The ship itself, Orion, about 8 months old , is very well decorated and spacious. Our room , a penthouse suite with veranda, suited us perfectly: spacious and lots of drawers. The bed was not comfortable: hard as rock. But when I told our cabin steward about this, he offered a topper...which made it a bit softer. Another drawback was a head shower that kept on swirling around every way but the right way! Like taking a shower with an attacking cobra!!! My husband took care of the problem by putting a bandaid on the collar of the shower head and forcing it to stay in the right position. Food was average. Sometimes awful: we asked for a hamburger well done. Came back almost raw. Included excursions were very disappointing. We were expecting guided tours but the guide was the bus driver. So he would stop and let us out on our own to explore. He would stay with the bus. Entertainment was very good. The personnel is absolutely marvellous, solicitous and caring. They treat you like royalty! But they have trouble speaking and understanding english. I would do another Viking river cruise but never another Viking ocean cruise. Read Less

This was our second Viking Cruise. Loved it the first time we cruised with Viking Sea; all went according to what we paid for and what we got. Our Penthouse Junior Suite (PJS 8007) was what we asked for and that was exactly what we got. Based upon this positive experience, we booked a second cruise to New Zealand and Australia. We elected to add a pre-cruise extension in Auckland and love the vitality of the city. The hotel assignment offered comfortable rooms conveniently located to the city's highlights. The cruise lasted about 3 weeks and made all stops as per the itinerary. The ship handled very rough seas fairly well, and the ship's common areas were as advertised on the website. There were many "at sea" days. Meals in the dining venues allowed for decent variety. The restaurants are the same ones on all the ocean ships and, at Manfredi's, we saw the same things on the menu as we'd seen on the Viking Sun. Breakfast in the World Cafe offered a good variety. We saw one or two shows while on board. The Aboriginal show the last night was quite good. Some of the lecturers were outstanding and it was nice to be able to watch them in our room when we were not able to attend the lectures. The crew were helpful and performed their jobs well. There was not enough time in ports to really enjoy the areas. We would have liked more free time. Embarkation and disembarkation went smoothly. The Viking Orion is identical to any of the other Viking Ocean ships which made the entire experience very predictable. Our room was horrible. Our Viking Agent concealed from us that we were assigned one of the two "handicapped' rooms (room 6020) and we only learned about our room assignment until the day before departure. This handicapped room is grossly misrepresented as a Penthouse Junior Suite room. Viking's website contains not so much as one photo for this inadequate room (there are only 2 handicapped cabins on the entire ship). If someone needs wheelchair access, then 6020 or 6021 are the rooms to book. Otherwise, the access to the cabin's deck posed a serious tripping hazard. Furthermore, the room configuration further reduces any usable interior space. Our room had no sitting room (like every other room on the entire ship besides room 6021) and we needed to sit on the bed to watch TV. We needed to bring in the table from the deck whereas all other rooms actually had a coffee table, etc. Viking advertises this "handicapped room" (rooms 6020 and 6021) as consisting of 405 sf. but it is not. We measured the suite and deck; our suite 6020 fell so far short of 405 sq as to make this a case for a serious misrepresentation. The General Manager of our cruise wrote to Viking's head office telling them "we have had complaints with this room in the past" (so Viking had already known about previous problems with these rooms) when we told him about our concerns. He told us Viking would only deal with us when we returned home. Which they did. Just as an aside (and a heads-up), unhappy travelers who decide to settle their claims with Viking are required, by Viking, to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Viking that prohibits us travelers from saying anything negative about Viking or talking about our experiences. Ever. Go through a travel agent. Protect yourself and your investment. Your own personal travel agent is interested in having "you" return as a future customer to whom they will sell future travel business. We also have an official BBB claim in progress against Viking (with photos). Variety is the spice of life. There is little or no variety here. And the more ships Viking adds, the greater is the impact on quality control. One of the two main elevators did not function for the entire duration of our cruise. The main oven in the restaurant did not operate properly one night and the raw fish for dinner was apologized for with free bottles of wine sent to rooms of all those who dined there. The room greatly impacted our ability to enjoy the cruise. Read Less