We chose this cruise because we love cruising. We find this way of travelling very relaxing and at the same time interesting. You can visit many cities and have a general idea of all the places the ship stop. The ship has all you need to have a fantastic vacation time. We never have to wait for a table to eat. The restaurants, all of them are amazing. The chef Ivan, from Chile took really good care of us. He showed as the kitchen and we were surprised how everything was being prepare for each meal in all of the restaurants. The cabin was very comfortable, as well as the bed and pillows, but the best part in the cabin was the bathroom. Really big for a ship bath with warm floor. They have service twice a day to keep the cabin always tidy and clean. We love the entertainment, the 4 young vocalists were exceptional, same as the pianists and the 2 girls who played stringed instruments. We only were sad because the ship couldn't stop in Poland port due to weather conditions.The excursions were very interesting same as the guides, specially Helen in Saint Petersburg. We did some included excursions and some prepaid ones. We already booked a future trip to Egypt in a Viking river for 2021. We recommend the pre and post cruise extensions, both great options, we enjoyed them a lot. We value very much; the quality of service Viking has. Although we did many other cruises with other companies, this last one was overall the best ever. Thanks Viking crew and everyone on the ship for a great experience and a phenomenal vacation. Read Less

We visited Stockholm, St Petersburg, Tallinn and Helsinki. This was a beautiful cruise that is very well organized in every aspect. I think it also gives you a great sense of Italy and their way of life and partying. The only bad thing that I have to point out is that they have VERY small swimming pools on the ship, and this is a real problem when 3000 people want to swim at the same time. I loved the food, Italian cuisine is famous worldwide and I think there is something to eat for everyone. :))) And they have a WONDERFUL entertainment team which made me dance and stay awake every single night till God knows which hours. Important to know: - You can link your credit card to your ship card and then don't have to worry about payment. - They have totems now, so you can book your excursions there. - Embarkation and disembarkation went smoothly and without any crowds and problems. I will definitely travel with Costa again! Read Less

Itenerary, was well planned. The excretions were diverse enough to engage people of all walks of life. Sometimes towns were small enough to explore in your own. We liked having alternative dining as we are not big group diners and we could comfortably dine in the smaller restaurant as a couple. The spa and gym were large enough to accommodate especially days at sea. The ships staff were very professional. The conceierge team needed more TLC & insights of ports, they should have known more so that they could guide you bette at each port.. We like to explore & prefer a more challenging experience. Not one size fits all. Doing research of available concerts, plays or entertainment to offer pre ticket options. Notify by email so that it’s more efficient. For future example we’re booked on the Venice - Athens next Sept, would of liked a pre cruise trip in Venice. Read Less

I wanna visit St Petersburg so I choose this cruise. Come on board to enjoy good food and good service. Embarkation and disemarkation went smoothly.no need to wait too long. cabin service are excellent staffs very polite . Dining room service excellent the waiter Judas a very cheerful guy always has a sense of humour.and the assistant waiter Nykyta he is a very helpful and smart guy . I ordered hot milk for my coffee once and the following days of the dinner time I dont need to ask again and he remember to bring me the hot milk. excellent service. After dinner we will enjoy the show at the theater. good show especially the Rock and Roll time.I love the class to teach cha cha and enjoy to take part. overall the service are excellent . I will highly recommand my friends to join this cruise and wish to board this ship again in the near future. Read Less

Great Itinerary and only 1 day at sea. The food was spectacular and the service was amazing. We had a great time at the bars and the views from being in so close were awesome. The Dining in the specialty restaurants was so great along with the wine pairings. Good entertainment, should add a comedian. Torshaven was to quite at night could have used more entertainment. the food in the Aqua terrace got a little boring after 14 days but it is ok. We ate in specialty 8 times. The spa is amazing and wonderful and the massage was great. We have already book another cruise. On shore excursions they need to break it up to fast groups and slow groups or have slightly more active things to do for the younger 50 year olds. We would do more on our own but the included tours give you a good base line. I would pay for my own additional excursions next time. Read Less

We chose this cruise because due to the location we knew it would be cool weather wise.This was correct..nice and cool.Itenerary was Stockholm/Helsinki/St Petersburg/Talinn/Stockholm.Absolutely loved all the ports except St Peterburg.Would not recommend going there.And if you do my advice is if your there 2 nights as were were only sign up for one day of excusions.Many people had booked both days and wished after the first they had not.You cant get a refund if you book both.Also avoid walking tours in St Petersburg...terribly crowded in summer and street level grim and dangerous w pick pocketing.Be prepared for all the tours in St P to be extremely crowded.Your main concern will be not losing your tour guide.On this cruise the best place to shop is Talinn pricewise.We were very pleased with the Luminosa.Service was great food was good.Biggest complaint which is significant is no free wifi.Its crazy paying extra for wifi and we didnt but our trip would have been easier if we could have.Also wish they would have been better about keeping kids out of the adult pool.Other wise we were happy with our cruise. Read Less

Royal Caribbean was so disappointing this time around. The staff did not seem sympathetic to our plight of lost luggage, and assured us that we would be able to shop for clothes on our excursions. We were not able to shop for any essentials on our excursions as we only went to souvenir shops. I suggested that Royal help us find a way to get to shopping and they did not. All they were able to give us for the five days that we had no luggage was a white t-shirt and sub very sub-par toiletries. They offered us laundry service, but the guest services desk lady must have not been very in touch with what was happening because when I asked how long our laundry would take to get to us she said "48 hours." Luckily, housekeeping was a bit more realistic and when we discussed it with them, they were able to turn our laundry around in a couple of hours. For formal night, she offered to give my husband a free tuxedo, but offered nothing to me. The lady at the front desk (Jasmine) told us she would locate our luggage, and then told us she couldn't locate it. When I asked her who she called, she told me SAS. To that I told her that we had a transfer from United to SAS and our luggage was most likely with United. She asked ME if I wanted to call United myself! My husband firmly recommended that she do it herself. Later that day, she told us she was able to locate it with United. So that caused an unseemly delay in getting our luggage because of her ineptitude. I came crying to the front office after four days of no luggage , no makeup and no toiletries and she offered me 100 dollars credit to my account (any outfit on the ship cost no less than 54 dollars each) and a night at one of their restaurants in her words "out of my own goodwill towards you." I was aghast at the lack of sympathy. She later told me our luggage would be waiting for us in Estonia on the morning before our excursion. To my dismay, we did not get our luggage as promised in the morning but at night. The ladies in the spa, were very gossipy and rude, even talking about guests behind their backs. The people working in the Windjammer never smiled or offered any table service. The whole crew (aside from a few people in housekeeping and in various bars) were amazingly lacking in customer service. After this trip, I will never want to board a Royal Caribbean trip again! Read Less

The finest ship on the water at that size (930 passengers) Best service from all personnel including management. Food was great and the buffet is probably the best on the ocean. Overall ship design and quality of interior public space could not be better.. NO CASINO was a welcome relief!! Free land tours at each port were well above expectations. Once onboard the ship, it was perfect. HOWEVER, it was necessary for my travel agent and I to contact the Los Angeles based ground service group several times before departure and our experiences there were with the WORST GROUND SERVICE GROUP OF ANY CRUISE LINE. We have traveled over 20 times on several lines and never have we seen such totally incompetent service. Nothing was correct, factual or relevant to the requests being made. Unfortunately, we plan on another Viking Ocean cruise and dread the interface with the Los Angeles ground service people. Read Less

On these back-to-back cruises, there were 215-20 passengers or 70% occupancy. The positives are: 70% repeat passengers who only travel on small, luxury ships; superior service (waiters address you by name); you get to know other passengers as there are no balconies and people socialize on deck; food is very good to excellent; ship may visit small, isolated ports; the five masts project a fine image; and the ship is great for relaxation. All suites have two bathrooms and more than enough storage space. There is over 300 sq. ft. We were in two cabins and 326 was superior to 318 as to ability to control temperature, quality of linens, and attendant service. There are no verandahs on this ship as it is over 20 years old although rooms were renovated in 2012. However, for a small ship entertainment and number of activities are limited, ship speed is about 10 knots so that time in port can suffer, the cruise line only owns three ships so it may not get competitive airline fares, it outsources planning of excursions, and parent company doesn't understand the industry. A greater concern is that at 70% occupancy in Europe during August, these cruises did not meet financial break even. I am concerned that this means Wind Star may cut expenses and mitigate a great experience. Read Less

With 700 passengers Voyager is 3 times larger than Silverseas and Seabourn, so we read the negative reviews with some anxiety. However, No long check-in lines, we were in our superbly appointed cabin within 15 minutes of boarding. cabin equal to Silverseas and much better than Seabourn. Love the walk in shower, L'Occitane products, large bath sheets. Hectic schedule of ports, with only one day at sea, but well managed tours with staggered set off times and no waiting around. Lots to do on board, award winning spa, excellent daily fitness classes. Food plentiful, not gourmet, but up to top hotel food. Great choice of fresh, healthy options. We asked on several occasions for something not on the menu and it was always provided. Main negative was the appallingly slow and unreliable and very expensive internet connection - a major source of aggravation to us. This apart, this was definitely 6* luxury, the cabin was very spacious, very quiet and the balcony plenty big enough for two to sit and dine. and the crew were friendly, courteous, attentive. We can't wait for next time. Read Less

I took this cruise in July 2011. It was my second cruise on Vision of the Seas, an exact repeat of the one I took the year before that departed from Stockholm and visited Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Riga, Gdansk and Visby. Though some people prefer the newer ships, I really liked Vision due to its somewhat smaller size. We didn't have some of the problems that I've heard about on other ships with crowding and not having enough deck chairs, seats in the Windjammer, etc. This is a port-heavy cruise, with only one day at sea, and ports that generally take a whole day to sea. For that reason, I didn't partake as much in the ship's entertainment as I might have on a cruise with lighter ports. I found the service in the bars to be very good, as was the dining room and cabin service. My least favorite part of every cruise is embarkation. I don't blame the cruise line for it, but it seems such an arduous process of waiting in long lines to embark. But once on the ship, everything went smoothly. I really liked the demographics on this ship. I favor a younger demographic, and a mid-summer cruise is good for that. There were a good number of young adults that add life to the cruise. I also liked that there were a lot of non-Americans on the cruise; I did not want to go to Europe and then only hang around with Americans. It was a really nice mix of younger, middle-aged and older passengers, and a good international mix. The trip through the Stockholm archipelago is my favorite part of the cruising itself. I got a nice seat on a high deck up in front of the ship and just watched the sights for a couple of hours. The seas were pretty calm the whole time other than the last night, when we had a windstorm that precluded going out on deck. The solarium and gym were very nice. I loved to swim in the solarium pool at night, and I spent a lot of time before dinner in the gym. There was a certain "crew" of the same people who were in the gym every day, and I got to talk to a few of them. Nice guys. The ports were fantastic. It was so interesting to see the Russian influence in Helsinki. The tour in Helsinki was so-so. We missed seeing the Rock Church, and for some reason, we were only given about 5 minutes to look at Senate Square. Luckily, I had time to go back and spend some time in Senate Square on my own. St. Petersburg came next. We had a very interesting tour guide whose family had been high up under the Communist system. She seemed less than enthralled with developments under the current regime there, but I thought it remarkable to be able to voice these misgivings to foreigners in Russia. That in itself was very interesting. We saw Catherine's Palace outside the city, which was fantastic. And then we took a tour of the Neva River and saw a lot of beautiful landmarks from the water. St. Petersburg is the most "alien" feeling stop. You can't go off on your own because of visa restrictions, so the visit there is much more controlled. Riga was my "sleeper" favorite, in that it wasn't an original destination, but accepted because it was part of a larger trip. I was due to go to the Auto Museum, but the tour got cancelled and I just toured Riga on my own. It is a stunning city. So many parks, churches, and beautiful buildings. It had a very friendly, open feel. One would never have guessed that it was so recently part of such an oppressive regime and how much suffering had taken place there since 1940. It was really nice to see how well it seems to be recovering. Gdansk is a bit of a misnomer for the next port. The ship docks in Gdynia, an unremarkable place, and it's necessary to travel from there to other places. Gdansk is about 30 minutes from Gdynia. This year, we chose to go to the Malbork Castle, about a 90 minute bus ride from the port. It was a fantastic choice. The castle was beautiful as was the surrounding area, and the Polish people were so friendly. They reacted especially well if you tried, as I did, to address them in their own language. Last stop was Visby. This was the only stop where we weren't blessed with beautiful weather. This is a great stop and we took a nice tour here. This was a trip that I tremendously enjoyed, both from the standpoint of the ports visited as well as life on the ship. Read Less