Our 2nd two-week Viking Ocean Cruise and our 1st on Viking Sea. We did a Venice prestay for 3 days. The ship actually did not depart from Venice--it departed from Trieste because fog prevented it from docking in Venice. That was a very challenging start to the cruise part of the trip because Viking didn't have any on-the-ground people who knew what was happening and it wasted a day in Venice for anyone on the prestay because our hotel Viking representative said to stay put, rather than go out and around Venice. So everyone waited for hours in a hotel and then a port terminal lobby doing nothing until mid to late afternoon when buses took everyone on a 3 hour bus trip to Trieste. Arrived in the dark and cold and stood outside the Trieste port terminal with 900+ others while 1 Italian whose English was a bit spotty searched names on a pages-long list to match it to the passport. This went on into the late hours of the night. We are very able-bodied, but felt bad for many elders who had to stand for hours or needed assistance where none was to be had. I insisted on being allowed to access a restroom in the terminal and a local Viking rep helped me do that finally.

Onboard: We had a penthouse veranda stateroom deck 5. Because we arrived late evening and things were chaotic, we were never shown around our stateroom by a steward and we really didn't run into our steward the whole trip. I supposed we could have asked at guest services for the steward to come by, but we didn't bother. Funny thing is that we did not see the refrigerator stocked with the champagne and snacks until the day we left as we checked all drawers in the room. The frig is in the far end of the desk and corner of the room and we never thought to look there.

Room and closet were spacious; plenty of drawerspace. Loveseat had a few stains on it, which is too bad for a new ship. There were also 2 chairs and a coffee table, but not really any place to dine together if you ordered room service. One ate on the coffee table and the other at the desk. Bathroom was nicely appointed. They could do a better job of cleaning the corners of the shower, though, as we noticed slightly pink slime build up there. Towels are thick but a bit scratchy. Shower is decent. Heated floors nice. Read more