We chose this cruise because my sister in-law thought it would be fun to see Cuba.
We made our reservation in September 2016, over a year before the cruise. In August of 2017 Viking informed all the passengers that they never received permission to dock in Havana. This means they sold us a cruise when they did not have permission to dock in Havana/Cuba. Viking informed us/passengers that they had permission (August 2017) to dock in Cienfuegos, Cuba and would be dropping the ports of Belize and Cozumel. As an incentive for people to keep their bookings for this cruise Viking offered us $500 ship board credit and all tours in Cuba for free. We felt that was a fair deal. We were told that the bus ride to Havana would be 2 1/2 hours, again we thought that was ok for the overnight tour. Well, we get on board and come to find out the bus ride will be 3 1/2 to 4 hours! The overnight tour to Havana was good but an exhausting schedule. We arrived at our hotel (dirty and about 2 1/2*) for the night and were informed that we had 1 HOUR to change for dinner and the Tropicana show. The show started at 10:00pm and ended at 12:00am. You could choose to miss the last half of the show and return to the hotel. You had to be ready for breakfast at 6:00am. We got 4 1/2 hours of sleep. then off to the Bay of Pigs museum (all in Spanish) then the ship. Our tour guide was not very good but that can happen with any tour.
Viking had 3 shows One was good, about traveling and airlines. They other two were just ok. They had the same 6 good singers and a modern/ballet dance couple in the shows. Think of ABBA music with ballet dancing? This couple was in 2 of the shows and repetitive.
Response from VikingS, Community Team