World Cruise Day 25/152 - Sea Day Service

Cruise day: 25/152
Ports days: 9
Sea days: 16
Countries: 4
Continents: 1
Ports: 6

Let me first start by apologizing for my misstatements about azipod technology on Viking ships in yesterday's blog.  I knew I had read about it somewhere and I finally found where the person was discussing it.  It turns out that Viking is adopting azipods on a new ferry ship that they will introduce in the future.  The current fleet of Viking Ocean cruise ships does not use azipods.  My bad.

Now, on to a better topic.  Service.  I have already addressed some of the terrific service we have received from the crew.  Today, I want to feature our cabin stewards.

Meet Mohammed and Nestor.

 

Mohammed (right) and Nestor (left) make up our terrific stateroom team.  They are responsible for cleaning and maintaining a block of staterooms and that block includes ours.  These guys work hard.  After they finish up, our room is immaculate.  I've tried, but I cannot find a speck of dust when they're finished.

We returned to the room one morning and caught them mid-job, cleaning our room.  We asked if we could interrupt them long enough to brush our teeth and then we would get out of their way.  All they wanted to do was apologize for being in our way.  Seriously - we were interfering with their work and they were apologizing.  They are incredibly gracious.

When we looked in the room, most of the furniture was pulled away from the walls and they were vacuuming behind everything.  Did I mention I can't find any dirt anywhere?

They expertly put together our bed every day.  Our refrigerator is always stocked.  Our ice bucket is always full.  These guys learn the individual wants and needs for an entire block of different passengers.  They do an incredible job.

Another amazing thing they do is greet every single passenger in their care by name, from the first day of the cruise.  Their ability to learn about their passengers and be able to customize their services is second to none.  And, to top it all off, they are both extremely nice guys and a great example of Viking's outstanding service.

Today was a picture-perfect day at sea.

We did our usual sea day bridge lesson and trivia fiasco - another pitiful 10/15 performance.  How many sonnets did Shakespeare publish? 154. (we answered "24" - missed it by *that* much)  The hottest planet?  Mercury?  Nope - Venus - even though it's farther from the sun, its atmosphere retains heat.  Grr...

This afternoon's buffet featured all kinds of pasta.  While it all looked terrific, we opted for some tasty chili dogs.  Arlona went off to art class again.

I met another passenger that wanted some assistance with their Blogspot blog.  As we were sitting in the atrium on deck two, around 3:30 PM, it got really loud when the officer vs guest Baggo (cornhole) challenge kicked off.  It all looked like great fun.  Eventually, they wrapped it up by tossing bags from the top of the grand staircase on floor two all the way down to floor one.

We're convinced that Viking is trying to increase the occupancy in each stateroom by doubling the size of each occupant!  Tonight's dinner in the World Cafe featured surf & turf with lobster tails and filet mignon.

Sides included king crab risotto and spaghetti carbonara.  Dinner was awesome.  They say that tomorrow will be a Tex-Mex offering.  We're looking forward to it.

Tomorrow, we visit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This will be our first new port in eight days, due to the changes in the itinerary.  We've been at sea a lot, so we're looking forward to not just a port day, but a port day in someplace new.