On board at last

So……….this cruise has been at least 3 ½ years in the planning but a couple of things got in the way. We’ve been fortunate enough to go to see our Polish family almost every second year since Andy moved there in 2007, the last visit being in August 2019, after which I said it was far too hot at that time of year so we decided on a Viking cruise from Bergen in Norway (to see something of my Norwegian ancestry again) through to Stockholm, via a couple of days in St Petersburg, and we booked for April 2021.

Then came Covid in 2020, we knew 2021 wouldn’t happen so rebooked the same cruise for 2023 just to be sure. Then came the war between Russia and the Ukraine and Viking took St Petersburg and a couple of other ports off the plan so we decided to look further west and decided on Trade Routes of the Middle Ages. And at last here we are on Viking Jupiter on Monday 3 April 2023.

More ‘life admin’ with Pete visiting the laundry again, Ailsa packing up the bags again, taxi at the hotel door again, and away we went to the port. The check-in was very smooth, we’d completed all documentation on line, had boarding passes emailed, just had to drop our bags off, have passports checked, picked up our ID cards, went through immigration x-ray and away we went. Very well done.

Viking Jupiter was launched in 2019 then very quickly mothballed due to Covid, came back into service a few months ago so is virtually new. Everything is clean and fresh. The (approximately) 450 crew/staff are from probably dozens of countries, are unfailingly polite, smiling, greeting each passenger they pass but it’s not that ‘servile’ attitude, it’s friendly and pleasant without being over the top. The ship has a capacity of about 950, on this trip there are 813 passengers with only FOUR from NZ, around 40ish each from the UK, Australia and Canada, a few dozen randoms and…….701 from the USA.

That might explain why our grade of room has a pod coffee maker, but we asked our nice crewman Armando and he found us an electric jug and teabags, so helpful. It’s a ‘compact’ room but has everything we need for storage, two armchairs, big TV with in-house movies or satellite TV, music, Viking destination videos. There’s a full width window and a small balcony with two chairs and a table, glass ‘railings’ so we can see everything outside.

We were greeted with trays of sparkling wine and juice, had a quick lifejacket demo then by midday sat in the Deck 7 World Café for a great buffet lunch and more bubbles. Staterooms were ready for passengers with bags delivered at 1pm so we settled in then went on an orientation tour of the ship which showed us the theatre, restaurants (one buffet, one a la carte, two small and fancy, and a couple of snacky places), nightclub and a couple of bars, small museum, two small shops, a spa, ‘living room’ which is comfy sofas at the front of the ship with a great view, and the ‘Wintergarden’ where an English tea is served every day at 4pm.

Wine, beer, soft drinks are served free with lunch and dinner; the mini bar in each room has chocolate, nuts, six soft drinks and water replenished daily; there is an included tour in each port of 3 – 4 hours duration plus maybe 6 – 10 paid tours in each port if you choose to do one of those instead; port talk each day about the next location; gentle violin/piano music in the atrium each afternoon and evening so public spaces on three floors can hear that. No complaints at all about anything, we’re impressed.

We went to the port talk and realised that the included Barcelona tour we’d booked was covering stuff we’d seen round the city so we were able to change it to visit the coastal town of Sitges on Tuesday morning. Had a buffet dinner, went to the show which was a Barcelona group demonstrating the local version of flamenco – rumba – and singing, very loud but despite that I was so tired I drifted off, so I was sound asleep by 10pm. This holiday stuff is exhausting.

Another thing – in the public washrooms they have a calming background noise, I asked about it and apparently its ‘a year in the life of a park’, very much condensed, with birds tweeting, people, cars, more birds. A bit disconcerting, you wonder if you’re going mad when you first hear it but it’s actually very nice.

And one other thing – on the tour Pete saw one of the crew in the atrium with a yardstick measuring out the distance between tables. Perfection.Read more