We were intrigued by the high ratings Viking Oceans have received on Cruise Critic and Travel and Leisure and decided to try this line for a Mediterranean Cruise for our 30th Anniversary. Overall we were extremely happy with this cruise and will definitely sail with Viking Oceans again.

In the one area which we considered Viking to have "missed the boat" in providing a completely outstanding experience - they did not provide any information about transportation availability or shuttles provided at any port on the cruise so that we could plan accordingly. For example - there were some of our ports that Viking provided a free shuttle to town and some that the port authority did the same.....but we were not aware of that until reading the Viking Daily the night before we reached port. If the cruise line knows they or the port will provide transportation - there is no reason this should not be shared with cruisers in advance so they can plan accordingly. We learned what we could by researching cruise websites like whatsinport, cruisemappers, cruisetimetables, etc and reading a lot in cruisecritic forums - so we were usually prepared - except for embarkation in Civitavecchia. Since we wanted to arrive a day early and discover Civitavecchia we did not have a Viking transfer from the airport - and no information from Viking about how to get to the ship. Our research indicated the port authority ran a shuttle to and from the terminal, but we stood outside the terminal for almost an hour and a half and never could identify the shuttle - and none of the locals working around the entry to the port could provide answers about where the shuttle stopped. We ended up walking all the way to the ship - because we also never saw a cab around the port entry. A simple advisory from Viking for cruisers without transfers on the myvikingjourney.com site that taking a cab from their hotel or the train station to the port would have been very beneficial - because some people may not be able to walk as far as we can.

We found the myvikingjourney.com website to be user friendly. Liked the ability to print a calendar with all of the excursions and dining reservations we signed up for included. When we had questions that we could not find the answers to we received efficient and friendly help from the Customer Service reps at the toll free phone number. Read more