Tag Archives: Viking River Cruises

With ocean line expansion, Viking will bring first ship stateside

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Viking Ocean Cruises is a little more than two months away from accepting its second ship, the Viking Sea, an event that will multiply the fledgling line’s ability to offer varied itineraries.

Already Viking has said that its first ship, the Viking Star, will reposition to North America starting in September.

After a transition cruise that follows the route of the Viking explorers from Norway to the New World, the Viking Star will offer some fall cruises in Canada and a trip down the eastern seaboard before making its home for the winter of 2016-17 in Puerto Rico.

Richard Marnell, senior vice president of marketing for Viking River Cruises, said the company intends to hold the line on pricing.

“It is our intent to maintain the value at what it is today and essentially to fill the ships as quickly as we can build them,” he said.

Marnell said the company, which is new to the ocean side of cruising, had some kinks to work out in its first few months, but its debut received positive feedback from media and customers.

He said a rating of 5 from the editors of the Cruise Critic website and a “Loved It” endorsement from 86% of the site’s readers were especially exciting. Internally, the line’s surveys are “very, very good and encouraging,” Marnell said.

“What people are applauding is the understated elegance, the residential feel, the great bathrooms, king-size beds, the housekeeping,” he said. “Food is a surprise, and people are quite pleased with our food.”

One of the kinks had to do with an electrical transformer problem that led to the early termination of a cruise in Estonia. Another involved sudden breakage of glass shower partitions in the bathrooms.

Marnell said both problems have been fixed, and Viking might be making a design modification on future ships to ensure that the glass breakage doesn’t reoccur but added that “from a safety perspective and a utility perspective it’s fine.”

There was also an IT problem that torpedoed the television system on early cruises; that, too, has been resolved.

In addition, he said, Viking has learned from experience that some things aren’t working as expected. A singular reception area on the Star has been split into separate shore excursion and guest services desks. The gangways have been modified because the ship is too small for most air bridges, which are designed for bigger vessels, Marnell said.

By bringing the Viking Star to North America, Viking hopes to give more people a chance to see the ship. On its transition cruise from Canada to Puerto Rico, it will be making stops in Boston, New York and Florida.

Those stops, Marnell said, “will give the opportunity for those who weren’t able to attend other functions — and this is particularly important to agents — to be able to see the vessel and experience it.”

For the winter months, the Viking Star will do a series of nine 11-night roundtrips from San Juan, visiting Tortola, British Virgin Islands; Antigua; St. Lucia; Barbados; St. Kitts; Guadeloupe; St. Maarten; and St. Thomas.

Marnell said that homeporting in San Juan saves time that would otherwise be taken up sailing from South Florida for more port time in the Caribbean, a key brand promise.

Also, Viking’s overall value continues to get high marks in customer surveys, according to Marnell, and that remains a key point of differentiation.

“So we feel like we’re in a very good position, and it’s our intention to maintain that moving forward,” he said.

River cruise news to watch in 2016

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KV Ganges Voyager

As I look ahead at what news the river cruise industry will bring in 2016, I’ve got my eye on several stories and developments.
As we kick off the year, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection is launching its first-ever program on India’s Ganges River with Haimark Travel’s luxury vessel, the 56-passenger Ganges Voyager II. We’re bound to start hearing some of the initial feedback and reviews from that product launch in the coming days and weeks after completion of the first few cruises.
Michelle Baran
Michelle Baran

This spring, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the launch of CroisiEurope’s 80-passenger Elbe Princesse, a paddlewheeler the French company has custom-built for Germany’s shallow Elbe River. And of course I’ll be looking for new innovations and ideas among all the ship launches in Europe this spring. With Viking River Cruises, Amawaterways, Avalon Waterways, Tauck, Scenic and Emerald Waterways all adding inventory this year, someone is bound to surprise us with something, no?

Come summer, I’ll be looking for word on how the new Adventures by Disney river cruising product plays out after the first sailings begin in July on AmaWaterways’ AmaStella. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say one of the developments I’m most curious about is the introduction of Crystal Cruises’ first river cruise effort, the renovation and relaunch of the former Peter Deilmann Mozart, which will set sail anew on July 13.

This will be our first glance not only at Crystal’s version of river cruising but at how an ocean cruise line interprets the river cruise market. I, for one, am agog. And Crystal only has additional excitement planned for us in 2017 when it introduces us to its version of four river cruising newbuilds.

Elsewhere in the river cruising world, I’m wondering how and whether the Nile will pull out of its perpetual slump, and if the Amazon will see an uptick in interest due to the Rio Olympics. I’m also following developments in Asia, where Pandaw River Expeditions keeps surprising with new river routes and other companies keep adding capacity.

And imagine, that’s just the stuff we more or less already know about. There’s no telling what river cruising bombshells (either good or bad) are yet to be dropped on us. Take cover!

Viking, Crystal and navigating new waters

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Less than one year after Viking launched into ocean cruising with the delivery of the Viking Star in March, Crystal Cruises announced that it would go from ocean to rivers, with the launch of its first river cruise ship slated for 2016.

So what are some of the potential advantages and disadvantages of each approach? Of bringing your past river cruisers onto new ocean ships and of introducing your ocean cruisers to your new river program?

The key to success in these ventures is likely the fact that ocean and river cruising are just similar and different enough to offer something both distinct and yet familiar to the other. They are products that complement each other perhaps more than they compete with each other. Yes, they’re both a form of cruising. But that’s just about where the similarities end.

And yet, it’s still a bit of a risk, right? If you’re Viking and you introduce your past river cruise passengers to ocean cruising and they realize they like ocean cruising more — maybe you’ve just lost some river cruise customers. Ditto Crystal introducing ocean cruisers to the rivers with the chance of converting some customers away from the company’s core product.

It’s hard to say whether that risk is higher in one direction or the other: Avid river cruisers might say ocean cruisers are bound to be courted by the central docking locations and intimate environments on river cruise vessels, and ocean cruisers might feel that once river cruisers come onboard they’ll never go back to smaller vessels with fewer amenities and shorter itineraries.

But clearly for Viking and Crystal, the benefits outweigh any potential drawbacks. Perhaps rather than lose their customers to other companies, they’d rather keep them within their fold by offering river cruisers ocean vessels and by offering ocean cruisers river vessels — keeping them in the family, so to speak.