We chose this cruise because of the itinerary and the specialty restaurants. We were disappointed with some of the stops as they were a waste of time, where we could have spent more time in other ports that we visited. We were also very disappointed in the specialty restaurants. The Italian restaurant (Manfredi's) was sub-par (and we ate their twice to give them a second chance), and the other specialty restaurant, The Chef's table, had a different menu every three nights, however, it was a fixed menu and if you didn't like the selections on the menu (we didn't) you could not order anything else. We never went to the Chef's table because the menus were not appealing to us. The regular dining room had many choices and the food and service was good.

Unfortunately, the thing that ruined the cruise for us, and will make us think twice about ever taking another Viking Ocean cruise, is that the last night (we were on the port side) at 1:30 a.m. there was a loud banging of 4 bangs followed by a screeching noise. We had to get up at 5:30 a.m. to have breakfast and leave the ship. This repeated every 30 seconds. I called customer relations at 2:00 a.m. to find out what it was. They called housekeeping, and told me that it was the luggage being unloaded and that it would "stop soon." By 2:30, the noise had not stopped and I called customer relations again, and could not get an answer as to when it would stop. It finally stopped at 3:30 a.m. I contacted Viking by email when I returned home and received a phone call from their customer relations department. He had no idea what the problem was--so why did he bother to contact me until he found out?!? I told him that I would like to know what the banging was, and he called me back two days later to tell me that it was a conveyor belt they used to unload luggage. I'm sorry--this was not an inexpensive cruise--there is NO EXCUSE for loud banging for 2 hours in the middle of the night on any ship.