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.