Most of my cruise ship experience has been with Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Norwegian, MSC Cruises, and Virgin Voyages in the Caribbean. I have also sailed Carnival on a few occasions and on Margaritaville at Sea Islander.
Those cruise line’s ships, while they vary greatly, cater to a mass audience. Even the smallest ship in Royal Caribbean or Carnival’s fleet accommodates over 2,000 passengers while Viking Jupiter, the ship I’m on currently, only serves about 900 people at full capacity.
Related: Royal Caribbean drops another popular port from multiple cruises
It’s a very different experience. The ship is smaller, but it lacks for nothing and areas that feel small are actually quite large given the lesser amount of people the ship needs to serve.
Only high tea on a sea day had any sort of a wait and most areas fill up a bit, but still have seats when bands play or for lectures, games, or other activities. It’s a luxury experience with very attentive staff (who quickly learn your name) and very high-quality food.
After only a few days, I’m certainly missing some things, but here’s an early take on what it’s like on a Viking Cruises ocean ship.
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A quick look at Viking Jupiter (2:22)
A quick look at Viking Jupiter
Transcript:
Hello there, cruisers. I am Dan Kline, Executive Editor of Come Cruise With Me. That is ComeCruiseWith.com, and I am joining you from one of the upper decks of Viking Jupiter.
This is a spectacular ship, something a little bit different. You’ve seen us on the Royal Caribbean, the Celebrity, sort of the mega ships. This is a 900-person luxury ship.
We are leaving from London and heading all the way to Norway. There are stops in places I have never been before, but because we’ve never done this before, I thought it would be nice to talk a little bit about the ship.
It is incredible the attention to detail they spend, and every place, because it is a smaller ship, is used for multiple things.
So a bar might host trivia. It might be a venue for a lecture later. There is a lot of space that seems underused, but then when you actually look at the daily schedule, it is doing a lot of things.
So I’ve spent a lot of my time on the first floor, where there is just sort of a gathering area, but there’s also a bar that you can seat at the bar. You can go sit in sort of a more remote area. There’s coffee. There’s snacks. There’s sort of all sorts of things, and you can just watch different activities and watch the space transform.
Up here, I’m on what’s called the Explorer’s Deck, and there’s a pub below me.
There’s live music. And so far, the thing that’s knocked me out the most, besides the service, because basically if you bat an eyebrow, someone comes over to help you.
Viking offers a higher-end food experience
The thing that’s most impressed me is the food. And look at me.
Yes, food. Ha ha. I get it.
The buffet, every night you can see the menu in the app, and the first night, we were tired, jet-lagged, went to the buffet with some of the other journalists here, and there’s king crab legs. There’s a chef making sushi. It is not what you think of as a typical cruise line buffet, and the same thing with the dining room.
There’s a main dining room you can eat in every night. You don’t need to make a reservation. There’s a high-end Italian restaurant, I would say pretty equivalent to what I’ve had on other cruise ships, and there is a different chef’s table each day.
So I’m tonight doing a Chinese chef’s table. It’s about a 90-minute experience. They take you through how the dishes are made, and then as it rotates, you can see the menus in the app.
So you can book, hey, I’d like to do this one, I don’t want to do that one, and also, it’s a very itinerary-heavy ship, or we’re on a sea day today. I think we only have one more sea day in the entire 14 days, but as I do these videos, if you notice me getting a little bit crazier, the last five days, the sun does not set, and while I have a lovely cabin, it does let light in, so there might be a few days where I haven’t slept. Until then, I am Dan Kline.
Come cruise with us soon.
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