My wife and I were eager to try Viking as we've heard multiple stellar reviews (from friends and family both). As someone who has in the past been on a lot of cruises with multiple different cruise lines I can sum up our experience on this cruise by simply stating it exceeded our wildest expectations in every category and has ensured two new Viking customers for life.

The ship itself is stunning, beautiful and spotless with hidden treats throughout (the planetarium and the snow grotto were two of my favorites). The food was consistently excellent and to my surprise we found ourselves frequently eating at the World Cafe simply to allow us to sample more choices (and as the location was so comfortable)! The lack of crowds anywhere on board was a special delight (especially compared to prior cruises), and on multiple occasions we felt as if we had private reservations to wherever/whatever we were doing at the time.

I cannot praise the crew/staff highly enough! There was such authentic friendliness and attention to detail from everyone we interacted with. We were able to talk with the cruise director 1 on 1 multiple times and were never made to feel like anything we asked for or needed was an imposition (even if we just stopped them to chat we were never made to feel as if they had somewhere else to be). The head chef came out to check our happiness with the food (spoiler alert: we were!) multiple times as well, even stopping to chat with us at the tea service in the Wintergarden (which we went to every day!). The caliber of service so thoroughly exceeded anything we expected that again I cannot stress enough how impressed I was. Read more