Our Viking Journey - Part 2

Last week when I wrote of our recent vacation cruise, I wrote mainly of what we experienced when we were off of the ship exploring the various ports of call visited by the Viking Neptune.  Today, I would like to talk about what the experience was like aboard the ship itself.  Please know that this blog, in addition to me reviewing books and movies, blowing off steam about the Pittsburgh Pirates, and highlighting celebrity obituaries, it also serves as a personal journal and historical recored for me.  So, if hearing about and seeing photos of someone else's vacation bores you, please feel free to ignore it.  No offense taken.

As many of you know, I had previously experienced a Viking river cruise back in 2018.  The experience was a wonderful one, so I had no doubt that a Viking ocean cruise would be equally as wonderful, and I was not let down.  Relative to other cruise lines, the Viking liners are small with a capacity for 900 passengers, and they carry a crew of approximately 450 people, crew to passenger ratio the assures excellent service throughout the journey.  Viking liners are also limited to adults only, so no kids makes for a quieter cruise experience.

The service, as I said, was impeccable.  We would leave the room for breakfast, and return an hour later to see the room completely made up.  Same at dinner time when you would return to see that the nightly turn down service had taken place.  The room itself, including the bathroom, was quite roomy.  Never once felt like we were shoehorned into it, and every room had a balcony.  

The food was excellent.  Two fancy-shmancy restaurants for special dinners, another sit-down restaurant (called, appropriately, The Restaurant) available, and a "World Cafe", which was a cafeteria-type place open all day (and trust me "cafeteria" is way to pedestrian a word to describe the food offerings there), and room service available 24/7, of which we availed ourselves for a couple of breakfasts and one dinner when we had a seasick day during the cruise.  

The common areas of the ship were amazing. 

• A 'living room" which was  multi-story atrium that had a bar, comfortable sitting areas to meet and converse, and a baby grand piano, and a rotating group of musicians, that provided classical style musical background featuring everything from Bach and Beethoven to Lennon and McCartney to the Everly Brothers.
• A pool area on the top deck with a retractable glass roof.
• A spa that included a heated jetted pool, a steam room, and a snow room.  Yes, I said snow.  We availed ourselves of the spa services and each got an 80 minute massage one day. They weren't inexpensive, but, trust me, they were worth every penny.
• Entertainment like you wouldn't believe.  On separate evenings we saw four very talented young singers, two guys, two ladies, "The Viking Vocalists", backed by an amazing four piece band, do a Motown show, an ABBA show, and a Beatles show.
• Enrichment Lectures.  We attended one about V-E Day, and two of series given by a woman who served as Head of the White House Visitors Office during all eight years of the Clinton Administration.  
• We participated in three separate Name That Tune Trivia Contests, and finished second each time (drat!).
• A separate late night cocktail lounge with musical stylings by two other young singers, a guy and a lady, who were also amazing.

However, perhaps the most interesting and perhaps the best part of traveling like this are the people that you meet from all over the world.  

We ran into three separate people from Louisiana who, once we told them we were from Pittsburgh, each told us that they either grew up with, went to the same school as, or was a high school classmate of TERRY BRADSHAW! When I asked the one lady if Terry took her to their Senior Prom, she said no, he did not, and I said, well you ought to say that he did, because at this point, who's going to fact check her on it.

Members of the crew were literally from all over the world.   Europe, Asia, Africa.  It was fascinating to talk with them and hear their stories, and EVERYONE has a story.

On our very first night of the cruise, I see a gent sitting in the "Living Room" wearing a Rutgers quarter zip.  I will pare all the details, but that sparked a conversation that led to a friendship between Linda and I and Patti and Barry Rowe from Massachusetts. We would meet up with them just about every evening to review our days, share dinner, and (especially) have a drink or two or three, while just truly enjoying each other's company.  In the two weeks since we all returned home, we have remained in touch, and we have tentative plans to meet up with them in Massachusetts when the Steelers play the Patriots in Foxboro in September.  Fingers crossed.

I will leave you now with some photos taken aboard the Neptune.

The Sproules and the Rowes

Our stateroom

The Living Room Atrium

The Explorers Lounge

Top deck, front of the ship

Great Spot!

Kickin' back!

We had our share of these over thirteen days!

The Pool Deck with both closed and open roof.

Too cold to keep the roof open

The Lounge Singers

The ABBA Show

The pool area in the Spa

Linda made it into the Snow Room at the Spa!

Dance Party Night

Not allowed to post the video I took of Patti and Linda dancing

Did I mention the food?

Gelato with EVERY meal

 at the World Cafe

The Beatles Show.

I will close with this picture that a fellow passenger took of us one day in the Explorers Lounge.  Might be our favorite picture of the two of us from the entire trip.

I will also close by saying that this was probably not our last adventure aboard a Viking vessel.