20260318 Viking Vela Northern Lights and British Isles - Day 3/32

Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 3/32 – Boarding the Vela for Viking Ocean Night #300

Tonight marks our 300th night on Viking Ocean vessels, 321st night with Viking, including river sailings, and 702nd night on cruise ships, in general

We both woke up around 7:00, meaning that we both got more than a solid eight hours of sleep. That gave us plenty of time to get the bags outside before the 8:00 pick-up deadline. We wandered down for breakfast and then hung out in the room, watching 15-year-old U.S. sitcoms subtitled in Norwegian.

Even with the good night's sleep, Arlona still needed an extra 20 winks before we left for the ship

We went downstairs at 11:30 to meet the 11:45 shuttle to the Viking Vela. The 11:30 bus hadn't left yet. It wasn't raining, and that means that it is good weather in Bergen, so we decided to just walk to the ship. It measured out to only 950 meters per Google Maps. 

Rosenkrantz Tower, located at the Bergenhus Fortress

The walk only took a few minutes. We passed by the ship.

And then we arrived at the cruise terminal.

Skolten cruise terminal

We went through port security, which meant taking off belts, watches, bracelets, coats, and so on. Of course, I set off the metal detector anyway. The hand wand didn't pick up my hip, but interestingly, it did pick up my new knee. We reassembled ourselves and went aboard. 

The first person we saw had a warm smile and then blurted out, "You were on the inaugural Polaris with me!" It was Fernando, the cruise consultant. 

Our room was right next to his office on Polaris, so we saw him a lot. It was nice to see a familiar face. 

We were also greeted by a traditional Norwegian (actually one of the resident Viking Vocalists with a strong, non-Norwegian accent)

Tonight will be a milestone night for us, as we will spend our 300th night on Viking Ocean ships. It isn't a milestone for Viking as they only care about bookings. Since we book long trips, or, like in the case of this trip, multiple sailings joined into one booking, we only have eight bookings on Viking, including this one. That doesn't even get us close to the top for their Explorer Society gatherings, even though we have more nights onboard than most, if not all of the other guests, as we'll be at 346 nights on Viking Ocean and River by the end of this journey. 

The first stop was at The Restaurant for the mandatory safety briefing on how to put on life vests and such. The rooms weren't available, so we went to the World Café. The layout is similar to that of older Viking Ocean ships, but there are some minor differences. First, both sides are identical, with salad stations near the entrance. Pizza and bread have moved from the starboard side aft to the rear of the café. The gelato station moved from the port side aft to the rear of the café. Still, it was all familiar. After walking through, we decided to head out to the pool deck for burgers at the Pool Grill.

The familiar Viking pool deck, with Wintergarden visible forward, and the retractable roof thankfully closed today

Yummy burgers and a Carlsberg beer - no Norwegian beer was on board yet

After lunch, we stopped by the officer board to see if we might know anyone else.

Of course, we saw Fernando's photo, but we were excited to see that our captain is Captain Olav from our world cruise! He is a fun guy, and we will be happy to see him.

As we wandered around, checking out the familiar layout, we had a wonderful conversation with Debassious, the Hotel General Manager. What an interesting guy. He was born in Sri Lanka, was raised in Toronto, and now lives with his wife in her home country of South Africa. We've heard that he was previously the Executive Chef on the Viking Mars. We'll have to ask him about that. He asked if we had cruised with Viking previously, so we mentioned that tonight would be our 300th night on Viking. Comparing notes, we know a lot of the same people, based on our previous sailings on Viking.

We popped into the gym to see what they offered.

All new and up-to-date weight machines, plus treadmills and other aerobic machines

We walked through The Restaurant. This has also been slightly redesigned. It is somewhat larger to accommodate the additional 60 guests on Vela versus the older ships. The back of the room has also changed, eliminating the large, private table. That has been moved forward into a lovely new space.

We wandered forward and checked out the typical Viking shops through the windows, since they cannot open in port. Then we went up to the Explorer's Bar for a first lemondrop martini. As we sat there, Arlona noticed that a submarine was being tugged into port.

Several sailors were on the deck

The bartender, Angaa, from Bali, said that several countries were operating Arctic training exercises over the next few days. Who knows what else we might see?

About 1:30 pm, Cruise Director Andre came on the speaker and let everyone know that the rooms were now ready. We finished our drinks and went to our room, 5075, starboard side near the aft elevators. Our bags were waiting for us, so we unpacked and settled into our home for the next 26 days. We are in a Deluxe Veranda (DV2) cabin. It is exactly like every other DV we have been in. I'll post some pictures on a sea day.

Another thing that is consistent on Vela is that Viking simply cannot implement good internet service. It is Starlink, so it should be fast. It is not. I don't know how Viking hobbles Starlink, but they're pretty adept at doing it, apparently.

Lucky for us, the other thing that is consistent with Viking is amazing service. We got a call from housekeeping that they had a bottle of red wine for us. Why? We have no idea. I told them that we don't drink red wine. He asked what we do drink, and I told him we like Moscato. He said that he would check with the sommelier and let us know. A short time later, our door buzzed, and he dropped off a nice bottle of Moscato with two wine glasses. Nice! We expect that it was Debassius. We'll have to ask.

We also met our cabin steward, Yan. She was delightful and took care of the few things we needed, like a softer bed topper, more hangers, and getting rid of the coffee station, since we don't drink coffee.

After getting fully unpacked and settled into stateroom 5075, we went back up to the Explorer's Bar for some social time. Talking with the bartender, Angga, who is from Bali, he mentioned that another crew member, also from Bali, thinks that he sailed with us before. He asked our permission to call him. Of course, we said, "yes". 

Yes, we sailed with Wayan before, back in 2023, on our Vancouver to Sydney cruise on the Viking Orion - it was nice to see another familiar face and to really feel welcomed

After chatting with other guests and enjoying our drinks, we walked to the World Café to figure out something for dinner. We both opted to grab a Caesar Salad. Arlona grabbed crab legs. I picked up crab legs and shrimp. We added them to the salad and enjoyed our custom seafood salads.

In what, for us, is a significant positive change in the drink package, we found out that Moscato is now an included wine! That made dinner that much better, enjoying a delicious glass of Moscato with our seafood salads. They had a lovely chocolate cake available for dessert that paired well with chocolate gelato. It was a very nice first dinner.

We both decided that we had had enough for today. We returned to the room and watched the recorded port talk that had taken place at 5:00. I took a little catnap before getting ready to wrap up this blog entry. A few minutes later, the doorbell buzzed. A waiter arrived with this.

A beautiful presentation - we put it in the refrigerator to enjoy in the upcoming days

It was a beautiful cake to celebrate our 300th night on Viking Ocean. I think that once again, we will have General Manager Debassious to thank. It was a nice touch and certainly made us feel like Viking valued our business.

Our cabin steward, Yan, rang the bell to prepare the room for the night. She added our requested topper to the mattress and got everything else ready. We finished the port talk and got ready for a little bit of an early bedtime to hopefully complete the adjustment to Bergen time. As we wound down from the day, we caught tonight's show on our stateroom TV. Acclaimed Norwegian violinist Tor Jaran Apold performed "Norwegian Songbook - Music of My Childhood". It is a very nice touch that Viking streams all shows and lectures live on stateroom TVs, in case you want to see the event but don't feel like venturing to the theater.

We remain in Bergen tomorrow and will take a panoramic tour of the area before sailing away at about 3:00 pm.

20260317 Viking Vela Northern Lights and British Isles - Day 2/32

Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 2/32 – The hits kept on coming

We got some decent sleep in the Hilton Garden Inn in Orlando, waking up about 8:00 in the morning. We ate at their $16.95 buffet, so with a couple of Coke Zeros and fees, we had an extremely overpriced $50 breakfast. But, without transportation, it was our only option.

So far, so good. We would hang out here until our noon check-out, head to the airport and pick up the car, then drive to Tampa. That was the plan until Alamo decided to cancel our inter-city reservation due to an Orlando-wide rental car shortage. Woo! 

We looked into Uber. That would run us $150-$200 to get to TPA. Our travel agent, Lisa, found a shuttle service from MCO to TPA, but that would have been more than $450. I decided to call Creative Concierge, the car service that we use to get to that airport and back home. He said he should be able to accommodate us. We waited about an hour for confirmation. It came about 10:30, confirming our ride at 1:00 to Tampa.

With a little creative thinking (and Arlona reminding me to call Creative Concierge), in addition to Lisa's extraordinary efforts well past midnight, we had a new plan.

Our driver arrived about ten minutes early. We loaded up our bags and hit the road to Tampa. Shortly after getting on I-4, we came to a stop. Typical I-4. The slowdown was short-lived, but nature had another plan. A short time later, we were in and out of pretty impressive rain, coupled with strong lightning. We soldiered on. The sun made another appearance, and the road cleared up again.

We arrived at TPA, found Delta, and checked in at the kiosk. All went well until it told us it couldn't print our bag tags and to see an agent. Into another line and waiting once again.

The board behind the agents wasn't encouraging, even though it showed our flight, at the top, as on time

The line moved reasonably quickly. Eventually, they printed our boarding passes, tagged our bags, and we were off to the terminal. When I got to TSA, I discovered that the agent had removed my Pre-Check status. Arlona was still good. It was also then that we discovered that the Delta Club is in Airside E. Our gate is in Airside F. Our travel agent, Lisa, mentioned E, but I didn't put it together that it was a different terminal than we would be flying from. So, back to ticketing, I got a new, correct boarding pass, and we were off to Airside E. Our boarding passes wouldn't open the gate to the train. Why? Our boarding passes are only for Airside F. An agent said we needed to get a shuttle pass that opens the gate. Who would know that?  Off to the information desk we went.

We passed by "HOME," a 21-foot-tall sculpture of a pink flamingo nicknamed "Phoebe" by artist Matthew Mazzotta. It was installed in the main terminal of Tampa International Airport in 2022. 

We got a pass, returned to E, went through the gate, and arrived at the train. The train came into the terminal, but only part of the way. That was par for the course for today. Several minutes later, they backed it out, and a worker performed a safety walk, walking the entire track, looking for possible obstacles. Once that was complete, the train returned, we boarded, and we were whisked to Airside E. We went through TSA to get into the terminal. This sucks because when we go back to Airside F, we will have to go through TSA again. Congratulations, TPA, for having the stupidest airport design in Florida.

We found the Delta Sky Club. It took us 75 minutes from arriving at TPA to make it to the club. Did I say inside the club? No, I did not. Why? Just like last night, the club was full, and people were waiting to get in. Unbelievable.

Because we had Delta One status, that moved us up the pecking order, but the agent still said there was a potential two-hour wait to get in. After a discussion with her, she suggested that we would likely get in by 5 pm or so, given the upcoming flight departures.

Seats were scarce, even to just sit and wait. Arlona scored seats at a table with a very nice couple trying to get home to Minnesota. After chatting with them for a while, the happiest sound came from Arlona's phone. It was the text saying we were good to enter the Sky Club. 65 minute waiting, but we got in.

A couple of plates of food and a couple of drinks, and we were good to go.

I checked the status of our inbound flight. It kept flipping from 50 minutes delayed to 1.5 hours delayed. It was targeted to arrive at 7:15 pm, a tight turn if we were to board at 7:55 pm.

In the grand scheme of things, our problems today were relatively minor. It doesn't seem like that when it is happening to you, but given that 3,500 flights got canceled today, and another 6,300 were delayed, if we did launch tonight, we would be one of the lucky ones.

We left the lounge, took the train back to the main terminal, and got the train to our terminal. We made it through TSA again and waited at our gate.

"On Time" was a bit of a lie

Our Airbus A330, which just flew in from Amsterdam, getting ready to return to Amsterdam

The flight was full. There were 25 people with passport issues. There was one very frazzled gate agent. We felt sorry for her as she was trying her hardest to get everyone handled. Boarding started about 20 minutes late, but everyone got aboard, and we finally left Florida.

Given our exhausting days, sleep came easily, even for me, and I don't sleep well on planes.

We arrived at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. We didn't have boarding passes because, for some reason, Delta couldn't give us them for the connecting flight. We tried at the Delta desk and were told to head to transfer desk #6 and talk to KLM. The friendly agent said Arlona was good to go, but somehow, Viking, when they rebooked us, left me on the flight from Amsterdam to Bergen yesterday, rather than reticketing me for today's flight. It took them about ten minutes to sort it all out with Delta, but we got our boarding passes.

Schiphol is a huge airport. The walk to Passport Control was relatively quick. There was a long line, but it moved very quickly. A quick, "Where are you headed?", and we were on our way.

We found our way to KLM's crown lounge, got seats, and grabbed a couple of Coke Zeros. Europe's soda culture is very different from that in the USA. While Big Gulps keep getting bigger, this was what was available for soda in the lounge.

Basically a glorified double-shot glass

We enjoyed our swallow of soda and relaxed. I asked one of the entry agents for a time estimate to walk to our gate, D78. He said that it was near the end, so plan on a 15-20 minute walk. Did I mention that Schiphol is huge?

We are now at UTC+1, or five hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast. As I type this paragraph, it is 12:45 in the afternoon on Tuesday, March 17. Our flight to Bergen departs at 3:10, arriving in Bergen at 4:50 in the afternoon. Bergen is also UTC+1, so we'll be in this timezone for a while.

It only took about ten minutes to walk from the KLM Crown Club to gate D78. Boarding started a few minutes after we arrived. We were flying "European Business Class" on this Airbus A321neo. What that means is similar to what South American airlines call Business Class. There are still three seats on each side of the aircraft, but in Business Class, they don't sell the middle seat. Not as nice as individual pods, but no one is immediately adjacent, and there is semi-reasonable legroom. The flight was uneventful, and we touched down at 4:42 pm local time.

Does Bergen have an identity crisis?

Our bags took forever to arrive on the carousel, but everything was there, and that's always a good thing. That gave us time for pit stops as we waited for the bags to appear.

We took turns :-)

We wish US airports would label baggage claim like this.

At US airports, everyone crams around the carousel, and nobody can see their bags. You have to push people apart to reach in and grab your bag as it goes by. By keeping people back, everyone can see, and there is no pushing and shoving to get to your bag. It's so simple.

We walked out of the baggage area and immediately spotted a young lady holding an electronic pad with "M/M KOLB" on it. She escorted us to her waiting van, loaded our bags in the back, and drove us through Metro Bergen.

After about 25 minutes, we arrived at the Radisson Blu, our crash pad for the night.

This is a sore spot for us. We paid for a pre-stay in Bergen. We have done pre-stays and post-stays before with Viking. In fact, we are doing a post-stay on this trip, taking the train to Oslo and spending a couple of days. Viking always does a great job, and typically includes a tour or tours. Today was the day for tours for the pre-stay. Because of our travel delay, we missed today completely. That sucks. But...we saw the itinerary for the pre-stay. Viking supplied no tours, and today was a day on your own in Bergen. For what Viking charged for the pre-stay, they offered almost no value-add. We hope that isn't a sign of things to come with Viking.

Our room is quintessentially European. Clean lines, efficient, small room, and twin beds.

We're always amazed that Europeans don't seem to enjoy sleeping in the same bed as their spouse

Since we ate on the plane, neither of us was hungry for dinner. We did want something to sip on tonight, and some cold caffeine for tomorrow morning. Arlona spotted a 7-11 on Google Maps, so we hoofed it the few blocks to the store.

Classic Bergen architecture

That ornate building contains a Starbucks

Viking Vela is already in port in Bergen - we board her tomorrow

Let's summarize our travel to get here. We left our house at about 5:00 pm on Sunday. I'll reference all times in Eastern Daylight Time for ease of calculations. With the exception of a few hours of sleep that night in Orlando and a few hours on the plane today, we traveled until noon on Tuesday. I will sum that up in two words. We're tired.

With all the cancellations and delays across the country, we know that we're lucky that we even got here. But we did, we're here, and the trip will start in earnest tomorrow when we board the Viking Vela. We will remain in Bergen on Wednesday and most of Thursday, sailing that night.

Tonight's plans? Shuffle a few things in our bags, shower, and hit the hay sometime between nine and ten. Our bags have to be outside the room before 8:00 tomorrow morning so they can be transferred to our stateroom. We have breakfast at the hotel tomorrow morning and need to be downstairs at 11:30 to catch our ride to the ship.

Glad we're here and glad this travel adventure is over. Let the cruise begin!

20260316 Viking Vela Northern Lights and British Isles - Day 1/32

Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 1/32 – Time for another trip! (or so we thought)

Noon on Sunday - the car arrives at 5pm to take us to the airport

Have you missed traveling? We have! So...we're back on the road again.  In truth, the packing started Saturday evening.

Arlona, the more organized of us, started putting things in packing cubes Saturday night

I, however, didn't even un-nest my suitcases and just put a small pile from the laundry on top

Where are we going this time? Since you asked, this trip will take us to the Arctic and the British Isles on two back-to-back cruises on the brand-spanking new Viking Vela. It's only been sailing for just over a year, entering service in December, 2024. It marks the first substantive change in the design of Viking's ocean fleet, jumping from 930 passengers to 998 passengers. The layout of the ship remains unchanged. There are just a few stretches here and there. Manfredi's, Mamsen's, Chef's Table, the World Cafe, the spa, Explorer's Bar, the Living Room, Finse Terrace, Torshavn - they're all still there.

Let's check out our itinerary. Here is cruise #1.

We start in Bergen, Norway. We will spend a couple of days there before boarding the Viking Vela on March 18 and heading north. We will cross into the Arctic and spend a couple of days in Alta at 70° north latitude. The goal for this cruise is to see the Aurora Borealis, more commonly known as the Northern Lights. Next, we'll spend an overnight in Tromsø, before continuing to Narvik. After our time in the Arctic, we will head south to Amsterdam, and eventually end this cruise in Tilbury, a London port, on March 30.

The second leg has us continuing on the Viking Vela, departing Tilbury and sailing through the British Isles.

Our cruise will visit Ireland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland before returning to Bergen, Norway. We will disembark the Vela and hop a train to Oslo, Norway, where we'll spend a couple of days before flying home. We visited Oslo on our World Cruise, but Arlona was locked away with Covid, so she missed it completely. Since Viking offered Oslo as a post-cruise extension, we jumped at the chance.

Technically, this trip started on March 15, but since it was just an overnight flight, we're officially starting on March 16. We will fly home on April 15, arriving home in the wee hours of April 16.

This trip is unusual for us. Most of our trips seem to start by getting picked up for the ride to the airport before the sun comes up. This trip started with a ride to the airport at 5:20 pm. How nice to have the entire day to pack!

Our driver was scheduled to arrive at 5 pm to take us to Orlando for our 8:20 flight. With all the spring break hubbub at Orlando International Airport and the partial government shutdown, we wondered if we were cutting it a little too close, with potential TSA slowdowns.

To make matters worse, this happened on the way.

We hit some major weather, slowing the Florida Turnpike down to 50MPH from its usual nearly 80.

Good news, if you interpret it that way, came in the form of a Delta notification that our flight was now delayed 90 minutes. Problem solved. We have a 4.5-hour layover in Amsterdam, so no biggie there.

Well, sort of. We got a second notice that we were now delayed 145 additional minutes with a new departure time of 12:15 am. That put our connection in jeopardy. The gate agent booked us on a contingency connection to Bergen, just in case.

We cleared TSA in less than five minutes. They did need to take a look at the ice packs, keeping some meds cold, but it was otherwise uneventful. We grabbed the train to the gates and headed for the Delta Sky Club. Well, that was the plan. This sign greeted us.

Yup, full. Nice. There were 17 ahead of us in the Delta One line. 

The regular line for credit card holders had at least 75 people waiting to get in.

Starbucks had a line at least 50 people long. The airport was crazy.

After 35 minutes in line, we got in. The Sky Club at Orlando is small as clubs go. Seating was at a premium. We did score a small table and got something to drink and a snack.

Our inbound aircraft was diverted to Atlanta and got stuck there. We got an update that it was supposed to leave Atlanta at 9:30 pm and arrive here in Orlando at 10:52 pm. That will make a quick turn to get us to launch by 12:15 am. The issue is that our 4-hour layover in Amsterdam was now down to 50 minutes. Plus, Amsterdam is our entry to Europe, so we'll have to clear immigration. Delta saved space for us on a contingency flight in the event we can't make our original connection. That leaves seven hours after our original connection. Woo.

What could possibly happen next? The Sky Club kicked everyone out rather unceremoniously at 10 pm, so we made our way to the gate and found seats. A little after 11 pm, our flight got canceled. We first saw it when the marquee at the gate changed. No announcement. Eventually, a text came in.

Arlona was checking at the Delta desk, and there were already at least 150 people in line. I called Delta and was told there was a two-hour wait. Yikes!

We waited in line to talk to a Delta rep on the phone. He was utterly useless.

The line to talk to a useless Delta rep on the phone

I texted our intrepid travel agent, Lisa McKay at CSB Travel, who jumped into action. Over the next two hours, she was able to rebook us. The only flights from Orlando weren't until Tuesday! She was able to book essentially the same flight with the same departure time out of Tampa tomorrow (Monday). We figured that we'd rent a car and drive home, and then drop it off in Tampa tomorrow. She tried to get us a rental car tonight, but there was nothing available. She scored us an Alamo Jeep Wrangler tomorrow from Orlando to Tampa, and a room at the Hilton Garden Inn on American Way for tonight.

We went down to baggage claim to find our bags already on the carousel. We grabbed our bags, hopped in an Uber (with surge pricing due to the scads of stranded passengers), and headed for the Hilton Garden Inn.

We arrived about 1:45 am. An unusually cheerful desk clerk, Cat, greeted us warmly. We hit the room, I finished this blog, and we hit the hay.

We'll grab breakfast tomorrow at the hotel and take an Uber back to the airport to pick up our car. Then, we'll drive to Tampa and try this overnight flight thing all over again. 

Travel is so exciting...