This was our first ocean cruise on Viking and we definitely would love to do another. The staff and food were amazing. Our room steward, Ferdi, was always friendly and accommodating to any request we had. Loved the small number of passengers, so it was more intimate and as a senior it was nice to have no children. Able to meet new people and saw them many times on the excursions. Our cabin was typical size, but more than adequate. Loved the heated bathroom floors and the easy to use bathroom shower controls. There was always something to do to keep busy if you want or many areas to sit and relax and enjoy the view. Wintergarden area was nice for afternoon tea. Enjoyed watching the movie under the stars on the pool deck with popcorn. The included shore excursions were a good introduction to the various ports. We did go on a few optional excursions as this was our first time in the area. In Barcelona I highly recommend the optional excursion "Gaudi Architecture & La Sagrada Familia". In Rome we did the optional excursion "Sistine Chapel & Vatican City". The entertainment was very good and we were happily surprised to hear the wonderful voice of our cruise director, Heather Clancy. My husband loves astronomy so he was happy to listen to talks by Jim Teslow. Resident historian Michael Cheshire and his wife Wendy are wonderful. Went to a couple of Michael's talks and had breakfast with them a few days. All of the port talks did a great job of describing what we should expect on the next days excursions. Sadly we had some high seas in Marseille so we were unable to take a boat trip on part of our optional excursion to Cassis. Viking gave us a credit to our account to compensate us for missing the boat trip. Due to the high seas we were unable to dock in Monte Carlo, so we had an extra day in Livorno (Florence/Pisa). This allowed us to take an optional tour "Lucca on Your Own". Enjoyed taking a leisurely walk thru this town. Our trip was from 10/20 - 11/1. We had heavy rain at times in Pisa, so that was unpleasant trying to get good photos of the Leaning Tower, but it was OK. The rest of the trip the weather was great. At times the weather was warm enough that the roof was open over the main pool area. Cloudy and about 58° in Venice, but good for site seeing. So happy that we were able to see this beautiful city before it was flooded recently. We are pescatarian (vegetarian but eat fish) and never had a problem finding food to eat. The dinner menu always had vegetarian items at the bottom of the menu. We enjoyed having the included wine with our dinner. As on other cruises we enjoyed the variety of countries represented by the staff. I would suggest that on their name tag you add their country instead of saying Viking. We especially liked the "Green" feature that the ship card had to be inserted in a slot to keep the cabin lights on and once removed the lights would automatically go off after a short period of time. The switches by the head of the bed made it easy to dim the bedside light and turn on the night light for the bathroom. It was great to have free Wi-Fi in the room. The information on the TV was informative and easy to use.