TRAVELORE DESTINATION REPORT: Luxurious Viking Ocean Cruises, Best All-Inclusive Value, And Its West Indies Explorer Itinerary

We recently had the opportunity to expereince the luxurious Viking Ocean Cruise Line's West Indies Explorer, 11 days aboard the beautiful Viking Sea. Our journey started in Puerto Rico, to Tortola, St. Kitts, Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, St. Martin, St. Thomas, and back to Puerto Rico. Each destination has an included tour with picturesque highlights. A few of our favorites are Stony Hill in St. Lucia with its tropical gardens and the Botanical Gardens in Dominica. We opted for 2 optional excursions, horse riding on the foothills of the rain forest in Puerto Rico and the Barbados Beach Break. We highly recommend the riding excursion, the horses exceptionally well mannered and the scenery is beautiful.  While I am generally not a beach person; the Barbados beach is beautiful, water is crystal clear, you are provided a beach chair with umbrella and a beverage upon arrival.

The most important trend in travel and gifting is experiential. What Viking does best is its focus on destination based enrichment with lectures, outstanding authentic foods, and providing the most inclusive cruising value in the luxury category.

The Ocean Cruise division of Viking debuted in 2015 and has become top rated, its success largely built off their sterling reputation for river cruises in Europe. Many of our fellow cruisers made the trip from England and some even booked the next journey on the ship. Their ships are a fraction of the size of most of the ships being built at 48,000 tons, versus Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas at over 228,000 tons. The ships also feature all cabins with verandas, included specialty restaurants, unlimited wine and beer with lunch and dinner, included internet and 24 hour room service. Their Silver Spirits package at $19.95 a person per night is also a bargain providing upgraded wine selections for meals and other beverages. Individual cocktails can also be purchased at $7 and you also have the option of bringing on your own bottles.

Pictured are a pristine shrimp appetizer, creative and delicious napoleon presentation,
breakfast on our veranda, Peeking duck at the Chefs Table, perfectly prepared tuna steak
and a wonderful scallop entree at the Restaurant.

Outstanding Culinary Options..   Many of us place the quality of food options, along with service, as a main reason we select a cruise line. You will not be disappointed with the consistantly outstanding food served on a Viking Cruise, as well as the service. While the 2 premium venues on the ship, Manfredi's and the Chefs table are outstanding, we also found the main dining room the Restaurant to be wonderful. We most appreciated the personalized detail of the staff taking care of our needs accommodating food allergies by pre-ordering the day before and fine tuning selections before preparation. The World Cafe, buffet style, provides a more casual option for lunch and dinner without requiring long pants or closed toe shoes. Before heading to dinner the World Cafe also has an exceptional selection of sushi that makes a very nice light appetizer. The excellent selection of gelato was also a big draw to the World Cafe.  Traditional afternoon tea is served in the Winter Garden and Manson's serves traditional  Norwegian specialties including delicious waffles with fruit or cheese and open faced shrimp sandwiches.

Our cabin was very comfortable with a veranda that was ideal for eating breakfast while sailing into the lush Caribbean ports.  Included amenities that you will appreciate include a daily replenished refrigerator with soft drinks or alcoholic drinks depending on your category, ample plugs and charging stations for your electronics, plush robes and slippers, binoculars, larger shower and heated floor in the bathroom. My travel companion most appreciated the desk converting into a makeup mirror.

Access to the beautiful Nordic Spa is available to all on the ship, not just to those booking treatments. In the Nordic tradition you go from cold to hot, starting with a cold plunge pool in the locker rooms, and finishing in Viking's exclusive Snow Room. Strangely enough after sitting in the steam room, sitting in the Snow Room was actually refreshing.  

For more details about this and other Viking itineraries please visit:

https://www.vikingcruises.com/ 

To view more of our photos and others sharing their

Viking Stories please also visit:

https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/why-viking/community/my-viking-story.html

New York’s $25 Billion Hudson Yards Development Opens

Visitors to "Vessel" climb its staircases on its opening day at Hudson Yards, Friday, March 15, 2019, in New York. Hudson Yards, a $25 billion urban complex on Manhattan's west side, is the city's most ambitious development since the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. When fully complete, the 28-acre site will include 16 towers of homes and offices, a hotel, a school, the highest outdoor observation deck in the Western Hemisphere, a performing arts center, Vessel and a shopping mall. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

By VERENA DOBNIK

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s $25 billion Hudson Yards development is open to the public, offering both basic daily life amenities and luxuries that have earned it the nickname “Manhattan’s mini-city.”

People lined up Friday to climb the 2,500 steps to the top of a massive, honeycomb-shaped sculpture called Vessel — the visual centerpiece of a complex of high-rises on Manhattan’s West Side with pricey commercial and residential space, plus about 100 shops and restaurants.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper hosted the inaugural ceremony, joined by singer Andra Day, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and a lineup of New York business luminaries.

CNN will be a tenant at Hudson Yards along with its parent company, WarnerMedia. Other well-known corporate tenants include the BlackRock money manager, L’Oreal USA, Equinox and Coach.

Hudson Yards bills itself “the cultural center of Manhattan’s New West Side,” and on its first day, the culture came in the form of familiar brands at the five-floor retail mall — from Dior, Fendi and Neiman Marcus to Uniqlo, Banana Republic and H&M. New employees being trained inside the shops got last-minute tips before customers arrived at noon. A hungry crowd packed the affordable Shake Shack, with a line winding out the door.

The powerhouse figure at the opening was developer Stephen Ross, the CEO of Related Cos. that partnered with Oxford Properties Group to build Hudson Yards, where the price of apartments ranges from about $3 million to $32 million.

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“Today, we created a dynamic hub of creativity and innovation,” Ross told a standing-room only crowd of hundreds gathered under Vessel. “Today, once again, we showed that New York will always be the greatest city in the world.”

Another prominent guest was Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York that finally last week settled its bitter labor dispute with Related over use of union and non-union workers; the two sides are now collaborating.

Only half of the 28-acre community by the Hudson River is completed, including the highest observation deck in the Western Hemisphere atop a 100-story building, and The Shed, a 200,000-square-foot art center with a telescoping outer shell.

The rest of Hudson Yards is to be constructed by 2025.

US Grounding Boeing 737 Max 8, 9 After Ethiopia Crash After Canada Joins Ban, Again Demonstrating A Lack Of Leadership From Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is issuing an emergency order Wednesday grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 aircraft “effective immediately,” in the wake of the crash of an Ethiopian Airliner that killed 157 people, President Donald Trump said.

Many nations had already barred the Boeing 737 Max 8 from its airspace, but until Trump’s announcement, the Federal Aviation Administration had said that it didn’t have any data to show the jets are unsafe. Trump cited “new information” that had come to light in the ongoing investigation into incident. He did not elaborate.

“All of those planes are grounded, effective immediately,” Trump said during a scheduled briefing on border security.

Trump said any airplane currently in the air will go to its destination and then be grounded. He added all airlines and affected pilots had been notified.

Trump said the safety of the American people is of “paramount concern,” and added that the FAA would soon put out a statement on the action.

Trump said the decision to ground the aircraft “didn’t have to be made, but we thought it was the right decision.”

The president insisted the announcement was coordinated with aviation officials in Canada, U.S. carriers and aircraft manufacturer Boeing.

“Boeing is an incredible company,” Trump said. “They are working very, very hard right now and hopefully they’ll quickly come up with an answer.”

In a statement, Boeing said it “continues to have full confidence in the safety of the 737 MAX.” The company added that it had decided “out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public of the aircraft’s safety — to recommend to the FAA the temporary suspension of operations of the entire global fleet of 371 737 MAX aircraft.”

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company was “supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution.”

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

Americans Will Need A Visa For European Travel Beginning 2021

By Maria Chamberlain

For Americans accustomed to just booking European travel without the hassle of going through an embassy, those days are numbered. 

In two years, the European Union will begin implementing a new travel visa as a requirement for U.S. citizens and citizens from 59 other countries to enter.  

The Visa website cited concerns over illegal migration and terrorism as the reasons for the increased security measures. 

Currently, Americans traveling to Europe for 90 days or less don't need a visa.

Beginning Jan. 21, 2021, all Americans looking to travel to a European Schengen-zone country, including France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and others, will need an ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorization System) visa. This includes minors.

In order to get one, you'll need a valid passport, credit or debit card and an email account. 

The visa is valid for three years and is "multi-entry," so you don't need to apply every time you want to visit. 

The visa website did not list the cost but said payment must be paid in advance online when applying with the traveler's contact information and passport details. Registration will also include some basic security questions.

The ETIAS is similar to the ESTA, which is what Europeans currently need in order to enter the US. 

With the impending Brexit deal between the UK and the EU, Americans will not need a visa to enter the UK. 

Travelore News: Airbnb Acquires Last-Minute Booking Service HotelTonight #AirBnb

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Airbnb is acquiring last-minute booking service HotelTonight in order to boost its offerings.

The two San Francisco-based companies announced the deal Thursday. Terms weren’t revealed.

HotelTonight co-founder and CEO Sam Shank will lead Airbnb’s boutique-hotel category.

HotelTonight will operate separately, offering discounted rooms for last-minute trips. It has partnerships with thousands of hotels in North and South America, Europe and Australia.

Gradually, some of those rooms — particularly ones in boutique hotels — will also be offered by Airbnb. Airbnb may also direct users to HotelTonight to help them find last-minute properties.

Airbnb lists more than 6 million places to stay worldwide. Last year, it doubled the number of hotels and bed and breakfasts on its site in order to meet users’ demands.

Holland America Cruise Line Adds Fee For Second Entree In Main Dining Room #Cruise

If you’re the type of person who brings a big appetite and orders two entrees in the main dining room, you may have to fork over a little extra money to do so in the future.

Holland America is testing a program that would see passengers charged $10 for a second entree… and if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that when it comes to up charges, where one of the major players goes, the others tend to follow.

Why You’ll Have To Pay For That Second Entree

According to a report on Cruise Critic, Holland America is set to begin testing a policy which would see people paying $10 for a second dinner entree in the main dining rooms.

The reason behind the move? An attempt to cut back food waste. “Over the years,” a Holland America spokesperson told the site, “we have upgraded the menu, and we have experienced that guests occasionally order additional main courses they simply can’t finish. Holland America Line has made great efforts to reduce food waste, and with this, we can better determine if guests who order a second entree will truly enjoy it.”

Passengers will still be able to order multiple appetizers and desserts without an additional fee should they wish.

For the moment, the up charge is being tested on four of the cruise line’s ships: Nieuw Amsterdam, Eurodam, Oosterdam and Zuiderdam, and the line is actually running two separate experiments.

One will offer a menu each night of the sailing offering second entrees for $10; the second will only ask for the extra $10 on Gala Night.

The tests will run from now until the end of March, at which point Holland America will look at the results — and, no doubt, the passenger feedback — and decide whether or not to continue the up charge moving forward.

Will Other Cruise Lines Follow Suit?

Nieuw Statendam via Holland America Line

Early feedback on Holland America’s Facebook page has, nor surprisingly, not been positive. Noting that the menu lists several salads as main courses, one unhappy passenger said that if they ordered one of these and were then charged an extra $10 for a “real entree,” they would never sail on the line again. Another, while admitting they never actually order a second entree, said that the up charge “cheapens the brand.”

Steak served at sea.

Currently, most cruise lines have up charge items — usually lobster or a surf-and-turf option — on the menus in their main dining rooms, but this appears to be the first time a charge has been levied for a second entree off the standard menu. And of course, it begs the question of whether this might become common practice on other lines.

By https://cruiseradio.net/author/richard-simms/

After all, whether we’re talking about raising the daily gratuity rate or adding a new type of restaurant, where one goes, the others tend to follow soon after. The most noticeable exception to this rule seems to be Virgin Voyages, which will eschew the notion of for-fee specialty restaurants in favor of having all the eateries aboard their first ship, Scarlet Lady, covered by the initial cruise fare.

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