Perfect Way to Explore and Learn About Mediterranean

Viking cruises are for adults who want to learn something about the places they visit and don't want to be "nickel and dimed" for every little extra.

Embarkation and disembarkation were quick and smooth. With only about 900 passengers, you're never fighting crowds.

The service was exceptional on this ship, with very happy crew members. The ports were a good variety of Mediterranean stops. Because there is an included tour at every port, there was always an excellent guide describing the attributes of an area, telling you the best places to shop, and highlighting additional things you can do after the tour was completed. We chose a couple optional tours, such as the Opera at night in Venice, but for the most part, the included tours were enough.

The ship is well appointed, with several lounges. The musical entertainment was exceptional. The band and singers were skilled and worked well together. The variety provided was good, with even a talented cruise director performing one night. By the way, the cruise director was the best we've ever had and we've done dozens of cruises.

This is not a ship with lots of entertainment venues for youngsters nor a casino. What we enjoyed instead were very interesting lectures by guest speakers who gave us the history of the places we were visiting and many other TED type talks. I loved listening to these.

Our veranda stateroom was roomy enough, but could have used more drawer space. Our cabin steward brought us as many extra hangers as we needed. A nice amenity is the free laundry facilities which are quite useful on a 14 day cruise.

The fitness center and spa were fabulous. I used the fitness center every morning. It had lots of equipment, was very spacious, with windows looking out to sea. The dressing rooms were large and included were a sauna, cold dip, large vitality pool, hot tub, snow grotto, and steam room. On the last few days at sea, the snow grotto was closed for maintenance.

The food was very good and they were very careful to plan for my allergies.

We would definitely book a Viking ocean cruise again.

Nice cabin with sliding door to veranda with chair and two tables. Bed was very comfortable, lights for reading in bed, TV directly across from bed.
The desk in room lifts up for a compartment to hold cosmetics.
Room bathroom with nice walk in shower. Plenty of storage in bathroom.
Only issue is that there were very few drawers to place clothing. Most had to be hung, but the steward brought us as many hangers as we needed.