Viking Sky Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We chose this specific itinerary because it made three stops in Norway, including Stavanger where my wife's great-grandfather grew up. Of course, St Petersburg is a highlight, but less traveled ports such as Gdansk and Tallinn are wonderful and often better for shopping. Like a river cruise, the ship mostly sails at night, so you wake up every morning at a new destination.
We have traveled twice with Viking River cruises, so we anticipated a wonderful journey, and the Viking Sky came through in all areas. The staff and officers of the ship have the friendly smile and helpful attitude that we loved on river cruises. The ship never seems crowded despite 900+ fellow passengers, and disembarkation for shore excursions at each port was precisely organized.
The included shore excursions were generally either a panoramic bus tour of the city with photo stops or a walking tour of historic areas. It's a good start, but the optional tours are better for those with specific interests. We supplemented with several optional tours, including the Flam Railway which was expensive, but highly recommended for the incredible scenery. We also enjoyed the tour of Lubeck and Wismar which we chose instead of the included long train ride to Berlin. Both the Flam and Lubeck tours included lunch at very nice local restaurants.
Cabin Review
Cabin was super, and we loved the heated bathroom floor. The main difference between Veranda and Deluxe Veranda 6 seems to be the proximity to potentially noisy public rooms. I was concerned because this cabin was located close to the forward elevator, but noise was never an issue as soundproofing was excellent. Gangway was typically on the starboard side, so the port side location gave us some beautiful harbor views. We would have appreciated additional storage space- that's partly our own fault as we packed too much, but we were uncertain about weather conditions and tried to allow for all possibilities. Self-service laundry was excellent once we figured out how to add the provided laundry detergent.
Port Reviews
Bergen
Easy to walk to the Bryggen. On Sunday we attended the Anglican service at the nearby church.
Eidfjord
Flam Railway is expensive, but you see some of the most beautiful scenery in Norway.
Aalborg
Uncrowded port. Was fun to see the old town and city hall.
Copenhagen
The included tour gets you to some but not all of the major tourist sights.
Gdansk (Warsaw)
Took the included walking tour and bought some amber and Polish pottery at reasonable prices. Gdansk means shipyard to me, but it has a beautiful old town.
Tallinn
Beautiful old city with lots of ancient buildings. Nice shops selling amber.