We recently went on a 7 night Iberian Explorer cruise with Viking Ocean. DH and I are in our 30s without children. We are gold cruisers and had previously never cruised any other cruise line besides Disney. We value the quality and service.
We really wanted to go on a relaxing cruise in January. We are currently avoiding the Caribbean as we are thinking about having children and don't want to worry about the Zika virus. This ruled out Disney cruises for us for this time of year.
We did a lot of research and knew that there would be differences from Disney. We went into it trying to think about it as a different type of vacation. In the end we did still compare it to Disney so I thought I would share some of our thoughts as I couldn't find much on here prior to our trip.
Dining
The biggest difference we noticed was the dinning service was poor. The idea of not having an assigned time and table seemed nice but in reality resulted in a decently long wait to be seated in the main restaurant. The service in there was very slow. We also frequently requested things that never showed up or didn't get what were ordered. I also was given the menu for the night before one night and the server argued with me that I had the right one and then had to get a different server to fix it.
The dinning room was also very loud and not enjoyable as we couldn't hear each other across the table. Perhaps this was because of the included beer and wine and other passengers over doing it. But in any case it was definitely no worse then the children we have been seated near on Disney and possibly even worse.
Of note we actually met two other cruisers who are Disney Platinum cruisers also on their first viking ocean cruise and they also commented on the poor dinning service.
The other dinning options including an Italian restaurant which was good but required reservations, which were free, but we were only able to acquire one. The buffet, known as the world cafe, was probably a little better than Cabanas with some made to order items but we don't really like buffets and don't usually go to Cabanas. We did end of going to the buffet on Viking more because the dinning room service and experience was so poor. They did have one quick service place that was just ok, I much prefer the ones on Disney. Overall the food was good enough but I usually could only find one thing on the menu I would like were as on Disney I always have trouble deciding because multiple things look good.
A couple of nice features are an afternoon tea every day and an upgraded room service menu including hot breakfast items and entrees such as steak for lunch and dinner.
Room
The room overall I think we feel similarly about as Disney. The rooms are all veranda which is nice because recently we have not been getting those on Disney to save money. The beds weren't quite as comfortable but we still slept fine. There is a refrigerator which comes stocked with soft drinks. Our room category replaced them daily and high room categories actually include beer and wine which is replaced daily as well. The bathroom was very nice. Much bigger with heated floor and bigger shower. I like the split bathrooms on Disney but didn't miss it. The room service was very good, comparable to Disney. The TV had similar features, but as expected less Disney and more other movies both new and old. The one think we did miss was some of the navigation features channel such as the speech and distance.
Wifi was included and free. We have mixed feelings about this. One on hand it was nice to have but on another hand one thing we like about cruising is feeling disconnected.
Spa/Pool
We did both get a massage at the spa which was comparable to when we have on Disney. The overall spa experience was very nice though with multiple hot and cool tubs and showers with heated loungers where you could go any time. The two pools on deck we checked out once. It is nice that the one has a roof that can be pulled over when it is cold to still be usable.
Entertainment
There was no casino like on Disney which we like.
There were daily port talks in person and replayed on demand on your TV. I like this idea a lot but they were poorly done.
Entertainment overall was very poor. We knew it wasn't going to be like Disney and were focusing more on relaxing this vacation but I didn't realize how much I actually do an activity here or there on Disney and value that.
Port Excursions
There is one port excursion in every stop included and 2-3 optional paid excursions. We took 3 of the free excursions and did one port on our own. The excursions were fine with usually a bus tour and small walking tour. I did like having that option. It would be nice to have more optional paid exertions a well though. One nice thing it there is plenty of bottled water handed out when getting off the boat for excursions without an additional cost. Interesting on the excursions some of the elderly we were with were just like having kids with needing breaks and restrooms and having to wait for this. The time in port was short, usually only half a day which wasn't ideal. Also the port choices were a bit odd compared to other cities we sailed by.
Guest Services
Guest services had poor service. We stopped there a couple of times but the biggest was about our transfers on disembarkment. We received the wrong information in our room and went to guest services three times and called once before getting it sorted out, no one followed up.
Transfers
The other disappointment was we booked a transfer to the airport on disembarkment and it was chaos on the pier and not organized by viking well. We finally got to the airport but it is good we had plenty of time to spare.
Overall we enjoyed our vacation and it met most of our expectations as we had done our research and knew it wouldn't be like Disney. I'm not sure if we will go on a Viking cruise again. We don't have any planned. We do have Disney cruises planned though!
We really wanted to go on a relaxing cruise in January. We are currently avoiding the Caribbean as we are thinking about having children and don't want to worry about the Zika virus. This ruled out Disney cruises for us for this time of year.
We did a lot of research and knew that there would be differences from Disney. We went into it trying to think about it as a different type of vacation. In the end we did still compare it to Disney so I thought I would share some of our thoughts as I couldn't find much on here prior to our trip.
Dining
The biggest difference we noticed was the dinning service was poor. The idea of not having an assigned time and table seemed nice but in reality resulted in a decently long wait to be seated in the main restaurant. The service in there was very slow. We also frequently requested things that never showed up or didn't get what were ordered. I also was given the menu for the night before one night and the server argued with me that I had the right one and then had to get a different server to fix it.
The dinning room was also very loud and not enjoyable as we couldn't hear each other across the table. Perhaps this was because of the included beer and wine and other passengers over doing it. But in any case it was definitely no worse then the children we have been seated near on Disney and possibly even worse.
Of note we actually met two other cruisers who are Disney Platinum cruisers also on their first viking ocean cruise and they also commented on the poor dinning service.
The other dinning options including an Italian restaurant which was good but required reservations, which were free, but we were only able to acquire one. The buffet, known as the world cafe, was probably a little better than Cabanas with some made to order items but we don't really like buffets and don't usually go to Cabanas. We did end of going to the buffet on Viking more because the dinning room service and experience was so poor. They did have one quick service place that was just ok, I much prefer the ones on Disney. Overall the food was good enough but I usually could only find one thing on the menu I would like were as on Disney I always have trouble deciding because multiple things look good.
A couple of nice features are an afternoon tea every day and an upgraded room service menu including hot breakfast items and entrees such as steak for lunch and dinner.
Room
The room overall I think we feel similarly about as Disney. The rooms are all veranda which is nice because recently we have not been getting those on Disney to save money. The beds weren't quite as comfortable but we still slept fine. There is a refrigerator which comes stocked with soft drinks. Our room category replaced them daily and high room categories actually include beer and wine which is replaced daily as well. The bathroom was very nice. Much bigger with heated floor and bigger shower. I like the split bathrooms on Disney but didn't miss it. The room service was very good, comparable to Disney. The TV had similar features, but as expected less Disney and more other movies both new and old. The one think we did miss was some of the navigation features channel such as the speech and distance.
Wifi was included and free. We have mixed feelings about this. One on hand it was nice to have but on another hand one thing we like about cruising is feeling disconnected.
Spa/Pool
We did both get a massage at the spa which was comparable to when we have on Disney. The overall spa experience was very nice though with multiple hot and cool tubs and showers with heated loungers where you could go any time. The two pools on deck we checked out once. It is nice that the one has a roof that can be pulled over when it is cold to still be usable.
Entertainment
There was no casino like on Disney which we like.
There were daily port talks in person and replayed on demand on your TV. I like this idea a lot but they were poorly done.
Entertainment overall was very poor. We knew it wasn't going to be like Disney and were focusing more on relaxing this vacation but I didn't realize how much I actually do an activity here or there on Disney and value that.
Port Excursions
There is one port excursion in every stop included and 2-3 optional paid excursions. We took 3 of the free excursions and did one port on our own. The excursions were fine with usually a bus tour and small walking tour. I did like having that option. It would be nice to have more optional paid exertions a well though. One nice thing it there is plenty of bottled water handed out when getting off the boat for excursions without an additional cost. Interesting on the excursions some of the elderly we were with were just like having kids with needing breaks and restrooms and having to wait for this. The time in port was short, usually only half a day which wasn't ideal. Also the port choices were a bit odd compared to other cities we sailed by.
Guest Services
Guest services had poor service. We stopped there a couple of times but the biggest was about our transfers on disembarkment. We received the wrong information in our room and went to guest services three times and called once before getting it sorted out, no one followed up.
Transfers
The other disappointment was we booked a transfer to the airport on disembarkment and it was chaos on the pier and not organized by viking well. We finally got to the airport but it is good we had plenty of time to spare.
Overall we enjoyed our vacation and it met most of our expectations as we had done our research and knew it wouldn't be like Disney. I'm not sure if we will go on a Viking cruise again. We don't have any planned. We do have Disney cruises planned though!
