Virtual Travel Talk with Viking Cruises

thank you everyone for joining us my name is susan walker if you don't know me by now and um i'm thrilled to have miss kim lucy here with us i'm just letting some more people in to talk to us tonight all about river and ocean cruising with viking and i also have with my team members i have chris who's also here and uh miss janice as well so thanks and ed as well so thanks guys for joining us and uh kim thank you you're a busy lady now with everybody super interested in the river the ocean bookings are coming up rather quickly and so this is a great time to reintroduce everyone to the to the company of viking river and ocean cruises thank you it's my pleasure something i love to do and i've done lots of it over the last year talking to people and trying to keep their dreams alive and i think that's what we all want to do right we want to take those dreams now and make them happen so tonight i hope i will inspire you and take you on a bit of a journey with our river and ocean cruises and just give you a little piece of what's to come we have started to sail which is great news we have started um ocean cruising in europe in the uk with with some of our british clients and we'll be starting we're going to be starting to travel in in europe in iceland in bermuda and also in the mediterranean starting in july for a doubly backside vaccinated guest mostly from the us right now but in talking to everybody uh just a few minutes ago it sounds like many of us are getting those two vaccines so we hopefully will be able to travel very very soon so i'm going to take you on a bit of a journey today but i thought i would start with a little bit about biking we are we have been in the industry or we've been around for almost 25 years we started in 1997 uh in russia with um four ships sailing along the waterways of the czars but we have built our product around people that are curious travelers we like to say the thinking person people who are curious about the destinations that they visit they're traveling uh to learn to understand to be educated to be immersed in the destination not just to go and sit on the beach they really want to connect with the with the people there and they want to learn as much as possible and a lot of them have stayed very much engaged with us through our viking tv platform as well as through filmographies and videos and virtual travel talks that we've been doing we have lots of reading lists and filmographies to learn about that destination and we help you get prepared if you're like me you like to you like to do a little research so you don't miss anything when you go so we do that as well but more importantly what i love about travel is getting to connect with people that share my interests people who love to travel who have a passion and i always find that when i sit down at dinner um and start to talk to people about the places they've been i always add new things to my bucket list so if you're like me you're going to enjoy the people that travel with biking and all the destinations that we go to and if you're also like me maybe got your bucket list backed up i know mine is a year and a half of not being able to go anywhere i've been adding things to my list and the one thing with biking is that you can travel the world with us we travel to seven different continents so if that's on your list you can do that 95 countries we visit five oceans 20 rivers and we even go to five great lakes with our beautiful expedition ships starting in 2022 we also visit 403 ports of call so if you're a port collector we've got all those ports for you you can see them all on this map and in many cases you can do them with one of our world cruises so um if you want to really catch up you can certainly do that unfortunately i have to tell you that both 2022 and 2023 world cruises are already sold out so a lot of people are looking to uh to catch up on cruising now we travel by both river and by sea we have as i mentioned started in 1997 in russia with four ships we've expanded our fleet we now have a fleet of six ocean ships we're adding two more to that fleet this year we also have 64 beautiful brand new river ships that are sailing along the rivers of europe and we also have 74 ships that are sailing around the world to a variety of destinations including vietnam cambodia egypt uh as well as china will be going back into china in the next few years but one of the great things about these ships is that they're small and intimate and they're able to dock right in the heart of the destination and i think that's one of the things i miss the most about big ocean ships is that you often are far away from the destination you want to be in getting on and off is always a little bit of a challenge it takes time and what i love about these ships is that we are able to dock in the center even our ocean ships are only 930 passengers and you'll find that they have the latest green technology i know everybody's concerned about the environment um and we also have four different choices for you here you can see you saw our ocean ships our river ships and here you can see our beautiful mississippi ship that will be joining our fleet in 2022 and one of our two expedition ships that will also be joining our fleet in january traveling to the polar regions as well as the great lakes so you've got lots of choices i mentioned and with all of our products you're going to find yourself in a really beautiful uh kind of elegant but relaxed environment with big open windows floor to ceiling lots of skylights lots of opportunity to bring that destination inside everywhere you look on our ocean ships you can see out even our main dining room has windows that open along the promenade so you can have an al fresco dining experience even in the heart of uh in the main dining room you'll find lots of beautiful uh art and surprises throughout so whether you were traveling on our ocean or river ships you're gonna find that same environment you can see the picture at the very top that's the lobby of our riverships and down below is the lobby of our ocean ships with those lovely conversation areas where it's easy to get to know each other and then our state rooms are beautiful as well again floor to ceiling windows the upper category or the upper photo is one of our river staterooms that is a veranda state room that you can step out onto the outside and down below is our standard ocean ship stateroom which has a sitting room and a full step up veranda as well you'll find lots and lots of lovely uh inclusions so talk to your expedia advisor and they'll be able to give you the details of what's included in each of those itineraries but one of the things is is that with biking we do include most things now one of the other things that you're going to experience is destination focused dining when we're traveling through these various parts of the world we want to make sure that you also get to taste the food maybe go to the market with the chef and do a little bit of shopping so you'll always find on our on our ships no matter where you sail with us the uh on changing menu every day uh always available steak caesar salad chicken and salmon vegetarian entrees and then we always have a destination menu every single day too so you can try some of the local food uh no matter where you are it's a wonderful experience and it's a chance to really dig a little bit deeper into that destination but one of the things i love to do is to really get out and explore and we do this in the viking way and that gives you the opportunity to uh to learn a little bit about the destinations that we visit and up do it in in a way that fits your interests so maybe you're like me maybe you like to peek in people's houses maybe you like to go to the market maybe you like to cook and maybe you like to learn about what makes those um those local communities tick so local life is something you might really enjoy working world gives you some insight into what makes the economy go in these destinations and privileged access pulls back the curtain and lets you peep behind them to some of the wonderful places that you might not get to see if you're traveling by yourself or in other groups so one of those things for local life is one of the things i got to experience in russia and i loved it this was our our home visit with our host family into a small village and into the home of of a local family in english in russia and here we got to try some of the local cuisine we got to do a little bit of or probably a lot of vodka tasting a lot of toasting and we got to ask questions of our hostess and really get a sense of what it's like to live in russia really give us some insight into the differences between us and the similarities in working world as i mentioned gives you a little bit of information about what makes uh things work what how how people work and what they do and what businesses operate in these countries and one of the examples here is learning how the windmills and the role the windmills play in holland in keeping the country afloat you can take uh you can get a chance to go inside and learn about how they operate what they do you can visit a cheese farm you can visit a tulip farm these are all opportunities that will give you some insight i was even fortunate to go in cognac to learn how the brandy industry works and to blend and bottle my own vintage bottle of brandy so if you're interested in wine tasting or olive oil or any of these things that's what working world gives you that insight for and then we also have that privileged access how many of you like uh music i'm sure many of you do and you might want to meet or enjoy uh one of the performances by the viennese boys choir well in addition to that our privileged access allows us to go in to the residence and actually get to meet them and to have a chat with them and one of the little boys that was performing when i went two years ago was a little boy from calgary he is one of the viennese boys choir and uh he was about nine years old and he was there uh they see from sort of eight to twelve and they get to travel the world so he was pretty excited and it was really cool to talk to him so you might get that opportunity as well maybe he's still there if you're traveling to vienna now what i mentioned what was included and that's virtually everything so you don't you aren't going to get that surprise at the end of your cruise when they post the ransom note on the outside of your cruise door i always hate that day i don't know about you guys but i've always spent more than i thought and i always get that surprise so with biking you're not going to get that surprise we include a short excursion each port of call all your meals of course we have multiple dining options that are all complimentary we have beer one and soft drinks included with lunch and dinner and on our ocean river ships we also have sparkling wine if you'd like a toast at the beginning of your day on your holiday we include bottled water wi-fi the in-room entertainment system is included you won't have to dig into the fine print looking for extra charges for poor charges and government fees those are all included and we also include our alternate restaurants on the ocean ships so there's not a lot of extra and anything that is extra like gratuities optional tours or soft drinks and alcohol between meals can be added on as a prepaid before you go but here's another great tip with biking you we we have a no corkage policy so if you would like to bring on local beer or wine you would like to bring duty-free you can do that and you can bring as much as you like you can take it anywhere on the ship and there's no extra charges we don't take it away from you we don't search your luggage you don't have to smuggle it in in a water bottle uh if you if you don't want to so that's one of the nice things is that there's not a lot of added extra so that surprise is not going to be there you can take care of it with your travel advisor prior to departure so there really is no need to pull out your wallet so let's take a look at where we travel by river i always like to start with a map gives you a little bit of an idea where these rivers are i know i have spent 30 years in the in the cruise industry i spent 20 of those years with a large ocean cruise company and i have sailed all around the outside of countries and it wasn't until i went on vacation and somebody introduced me to river cruising that i got to see the country from a from a ship that's sailing through the heart of it so you can see this incredible river system that runs from the north sea all the way through the central part of europe to the black sea now that only was opened in 1992 up until then this area right in the center was not trans uh you couldn't travel by ship it was closed they bought built a series of locks 40 to 60 locks that take you up over the continental divide in europe and bring you down the other sides about 1500 feet going up and down over a series of blocks so that's allowed us to do river cruising all the way across europe and actually opened up this industry so you'll be able to do that you can do the full length if you like it's 23 days eight countries we travel from uh amsterdam all the way to bucharest if you want but you can also break it into smaller pieces you can do just eastern europe you can do the central part of europe you can do amsterdam down to switzerland that's a very popular itinerary we go to portugal we go to france we go to russia ukraine we also travel to more exotic places like vietnam and cambodia to egypt and also we go to the mississippi so i thought i would share one of uh just some highlights from one of our most popular itineraries the grand european tour we find that most of our guests are coming for the first time this is the itinerary they choose first 15 days 53 13 guided tours and you get to see four countries you're going to travel through holland through germany through austria and into hungary you can go in either direction it doesn't matter but you'll get a chance to see some of the iconic cities the little medieval towns the castles the palaces the cathedrals the music you'll also get to try all the great wine and the bratwurst and the pastries and don't forget the chocolate all of that is available for you as well so let's start off in amsterdam i always say to people make sure you take a little extra time we do offer pre and post and i highly recommend it the reason is is amsterdam is a remarkable city for for exploring it's a great city to explore by foot you can if you're brave you can take on a bicycle or you can take one of the canal boats that takes you through the series of canals and under all the bridges there's like 200 bridges in amsterdam and uh it's a wonderful city they're also more museums per square mile than any other city in the world so if you'd like to uh if you're an art and for seattle you would love the van gogh museum the reich's museum if you're interested in history and frank house is here where the family was hidden while she wrote her diary there's a music museum a chocolate museum a maritime museum there's a little bit of something for everybody there's even a bowles a bose distillery museum and not to mention the heineken museum which is really fun to explore so there's lots to see and do here if you're interested i highly recommend it if you're not you can arrive and we we dock in the center of the city so you'll be able to walk very easily into the center of the old city and do a little exploring on your own or you can take a walk with our program director after dinner before we sail and he'll take you through the old part of the city and you'll get a chance to see some of the older buildings the little winding streets and also uh maybe get a little spicy view of the red light district as well from there we will start to sail through holland and into germany and one of my favorite stops along the river uh is colonel we dock right where those boats are sitting and you'll get a chance to walk into the city it's five minutes to ten minutes walk to that beautiful cathedral which is really the central part of cologne now cologne um was badly damaged in the allied bombing in the second world war so the cathedral was one of the few buildings that remained standing was pretty much undamaged the reason being is that a lot of the uh the bombers uh the allied bombers were using it as a beacon and uh a navigational point to know where to go next from uh into germany for their bombing raids so this is the uh the cathedral itself is magnificent it's about a thousand years old it's the largest gothic cathedral in europe and is fantastic if you're interested in and not afraid of heights you might want to do our privileged access it takes you right up into the roof and onto the roof of the cathedral right up there with the with the gargoyle so you can check that out as well but it's a wonderful city um we do stay late so if you'd like to do a little pub crawl you can go or have a local dinner you can do that by just across the street from where we dock is all the little cobblestone streets and the medieval part of the town where there's lots of little beer gardens and uh and beer strobes so you can try some of the local polsh beer and also get a little bit of the local culture this is also one of my favorite cities for shopping so ladies if you like shoes this is an amazing city for that uh as well and then we start to sail through the middle rhine now this is a world unesco heritage site and there are 40 castles that dot the hillsides like the one you see that's the cat's castle uh they dot the islands and also the vineyards along the stretch of the river they they were used uh for fortifications but also as toll booths and so they collected tolls for people that were traveling up and down the river so uh many of them are not available for uh for guests to travel into or to get into their privately owned still some of them are in ruins but there are one or two that we do uh have access to as part of the museum system and you'll get a chance to go in and visit now we also visit some of these little medieval towns like milton berg they date back to the 11th and 12th centuries with these beautiful timbered buildings and little winding streets and often they have a little castle or a big castle and you'll have a chance to wander through milkenberg is known for a couple different things one it's known for the glass flowing so we we have a glass blower that comes on board and demonstrates but it's also known for the oldest inn in germany so you might want to check that out it's also great for pretzels and beer if you want to try some of the local local snacks as well and then we um also visit paso which is the last city in germany before crossing into austria and actually on the right-hand side you can see that the old part of the city is actually wrapped by three different rivers you've got the ill the inns and the danny all come together right at this point so this city becomes very important in terms of tracking water levels as well if you go to the city hall you can see the markings of the high water over the centuries the highest rate now being 600 uh in 600 years being 2013 when the water levels were over 50 feet high higher than normal but it's the old part of the city you can walk around it's situated in the river and it's about two kilometers so if you want to do a little walk you can also that white cathedral that you see there in both pictures is um has the oldest largest pipe organ in western europe and we have a lovely concert there now i've had some fun in pasau it's a great city for shopping for having great lunch but it's also there's lots of different things to do you can hike up to the castle on the hill you have a hiking trip and i did a um a biking trip that took me up one side of the river we crossed over on a bridge into austria we pedaled back down the other side and back into the city and it was so if you're an active uh traveler we do have um hiking and up and biking experiences you can even go paddling uh in a national park in vienna now vienna is my favorite city in europe i love it here we are looking at the hofburg palace uh right in the heart of the old city it's surrounded by the ringstrasse which used to be the moat and the fortification walls around the old city the hoffman palace spreads over about six blocks and it's now uh was the center of the austro-hungarian empire with uh with six or seven generations of emperors living and and building on this incredible palace it now doesn't house royalty it has some great museums and art galleries but it's also the home of the lipizzan stallion so if you want to check them out if you're horsey like i was when i lived in alberta you can go in and see their stables and you might even catch either a training performance or a full performance we do often on this itinerary we stay overnight so you have two days here so you'll have time to do that to enjoy also you can see the viennese boys choir and one of my favorite things to do here is just to go and drink in the atmosphere try the local cafes eat some of the pastry and the wiener schnitzel and enjoy the atmosphere and the music of vienna of course this is where all the major performers and composers lived uh including strauss and mozart and beethoven uh it's it's an incredible city for music everywhere not to mention beautiful parks and then finally we get to budapest and you can see budapest behind me i am sitting up at the castle overlooking the beautiful danny river as you are in the photograph that i'm showing you we've got the parliament buildings and we dock right nearby you've got walking on both sides you've got a castle on one side and and uh the old city of pashwa the parliament buildings on the other it's filled with pedestrian streets an incredible market for shopping if you want to pick up great souvenirs our chef will be shopping there if you want to go with them to pick up hungarian food to serve you on our on our evening in budapest and we also bring on dancers and entertainers so you'll throughout this trip you'll be able to enjoy some of those cultural activities while you're relaxing on board your ship so it gives you a little taste of some of the places we visit along the river i can tell you that every time i go there's something new to discover and lots and lots of wonderful experiences to be had now if you've already done the grand european maybe there's some other places you'd like to view like france i love this itinerary because it takes two eight day itineraries and puts them together with a train ride so this one starts off in paris and we dock right near the eiffel tower right close to where that picture is taken and you'll be able to step off and walk all along the the the sen river you'll be able to see the champs-elysees and the lube and all of these wonderful monuments that you'll find in paris and then we sail up the sen river we visit little villages like giberni where claude monet painted many of his masterpieces onward to aurora which is where joan of arc was condemned to burn the state and then we spend a whole day visiting the beaches of normandy and as a canadian you can go to the canadian memorial you can go to the uh the landing beaches at aromash and you can also go to uh the canadian cemetery at um cossey and it is an incredible moving experience probably one of the most uh incredible places i've been and uh one of the top five i think of places that i i've been to that really um impressed me and then back to paris we catch a train and we join an identical ship in neon leona is a culinary center you'll find many of the best chefs in france have restaurants here it's also in the heart of the beaujolais burgundy wine area and it's filled with roman history as you sail along this river you're going to be you'll see um temples that date back to the second century coliseums that are still being used today that are from the roman times aqueducts and you'll also get to taste great food that's famous from provost as well as amazing wine so great itinerary for those who are interested we also have a trip to bergen uh to bordeaux so for those who would like to indulge a little bit more in wine and food you can certainly do that on our shadows rivers and wines itinerary now i'm going to leave you with just one last itinerary this is where we started everything for biking in russia and this is again one of my favorite trips and i think susan you did this trip as well or maybe you did china but this was an amazing trip for me and if you've been to saint petersburg you may be your appetite was wedded to see a bit more of russia and if you haven't you'll love it we spent three and a half days in st petersburg three and a half days in moscow and then we travel through the rural part of russia you'll see the two biggest lakes in in europe and lots of little little towns that are dedicated to preserving the history and the art the culture and the music of russia and you really get a chance to meet the people i love this itinerary because you've got those two uh cosmopolitan cities but you've also got some relaxation and beautiful scenery it's not unlike alberta actually it reminded me a lot of northern alberta and some of the lakes and rivers that i've been on as a kid but it's a beautiful place you see the hermitage down at the bottom one of the largest art galleries in the world with over three million pieces of art so there's lots to see and do and it has great history so we've got lots of other places to explore here you can see all the different itineraries we have for for cruising in um in europe including portugal which is opening up france which is opening up july august and hopefully for all of us canadians will be able to get back there in the fall we also have christmas markets for those who are interested in in those types of experiences as well as southeast asia to vietnam in cambodia and egypt which is a great itinerary that i enjoyed and if you've got your ukrainian history i know many of you coming from the alberta and northern alberta particularly with uh ukrainian history our heritage we also have a visit there now i also wanted to mention that if you want to stay a little closer to home we are launching our mississippi product with one beautiful ship that is not a battle wheeler it's a hybrid between our river and our ocean ships with incredible balcony staterooms and lots and lots of viewing areas this launches in the early part of 2022 and we have as you can see lovely areas for you to enjoy the applebee terrace which is our indoor outdoor dining experience the explorers lounge at the bow with beautiful scenic viewing areas the bow actually which is right at the front of the ship where you can sit unobstructed and enjoy the view and then i love the infinity point plunge pool it makes me feel like tom sawyer can sit there dangle my feet over the edge just like i would if i was tom sawyer and huckleberry thin fishing off the back and then from there we do offer a variety oops i missed it let's go back uh some great itineraries so if you're interested in seeing this part of the world we have four different itineraries that we offer we start off in the winter months down in the south new orleans and southern charms doing a round trip new orleans spending overnight in new orleans you get time to explore we visit the antebellum cities and houses of saint francisville baton rouge and also into natchez up to vicksburg which is the civil war center and then onward um as the weather improves we go all the way up to memphis the home of of uh elvis and great music great barbecue great and the civil rights movement and then we also do that that sailing during the holiday season in december so you can travel and enjoy some of the traditions of the south at christmas and then in the summertime we move north up to saint louis and we sail between st louis and st paul minneapolis so you'll be able to enjoy some of those great cities the quad cities home of the john deere tractor hannibal which is where um mark twain lived and created his whole all his wonderful story so you can see where he walked and and what inspired him so these are just some of the great places that we visit along here and then we also have a 15-day cruise that takes you from one end to the other now those ones are actually almost completely sold out for 2022 and 2023 and we've opened up 2024 already if you can believe it but mississippi is super popular and uh if you're interested in this one don't wait because 2022 sold out 2023 is almost sold out and as a result we've opened 2024. so i wanted to just wrap up with a quick uh overview of our ocean chips a lot of people don't realize that we actually have a fleet of six ships sailing we have eight um that will be in the water by the end of this year and we will have 10 by the end of 2023 so we actually are one of the largest small ship ocean cruise lines that a lot of people don't realize so um and over the past five years we have earned the number one spot with uh with travel and leisure with plenty connie nast and a lot of the top rated passenger sites so um it's you know we're very proud of that and what we did was we took that river cruise experience and created an ocean cruise experience so it really is a little bit different than what everybody else offers you won't find casinos on board for all of our products we are adult focused so we don't have children under 18 we know you love your kids and your grandkids as we all do but we don't always like to travel with other people's kids so it is adult-focused and we don't have all the stuff you find on a lot of big ships umbrella drinks photographers art auctions we don't include we include beer winning soft drinks with lunch and dinner uh we have no charge for alternate restaurants we have no charge for wi-fi you can use the lingerettes and we include the soap and tokens there's no entrance fee to use the spa so if you want to go and have a steam or you want to go into the lots of therapy pool you don't have to pay extra you don't have to buy a certain category and you certainly don't have to buy a massage enabled in order to use it we don't have um inside state rooms we don't have we have designated smoking areas but they're on the outside there's no smoking on the interior of the ships no formal nights no butlers it's country club casual it's much more relaxed and you won't have to constantly be you know waiting for that bill at the end of the of the cruise there's so many things nowadays that are not included with cruising and i always am surprised when i get on board big ships now one of the things i love about viking is that you really have that same experience i talked about with river well you don't get that ransom note at the end of the cruise and we do include everything except for gratuities optional tours and soft drinks and alcohol between meals but again we have that same no corkage policy and we also have a beverage package at a reasonable price that can be added in advance everything can be pre-paid so we also have some great itineraries this is one of our signature itineraries our the family we're a single owner and the family is from bergen in norway and when this we were starting our river our ocean experience uh mr hagan decided he wanted to create an itinerary that would welcome people into norway as well as other scandinavian cities in addition to the baltic cities so he created this lovely itinerary which overnights in stockholm overnights in bergen overnight in st petersburg and takes you into some of the other great capitals like copenhagen and some of the smaller ones like arlberg and of course tallinn helsinki berlin if you want to go ida fjord and and the the little fjords of norway it's a beautiful itinerary i've done it myself and something else i want to point out is the ship is 930 passengers it's small enough to dock right in the center of the city so big ships have to dock about an hour transfer or more depending on traffic in stockholm from the center of the old city we dock right in the middle so you can step up and you're right there in addition to that um we sail because we don't have a casino we sail close to the to the shore so it's almost like being on a river ship even though you're on an ocean ship you're not just looking at open water you actually can see the shoreline and you get to see things that you don't always get to see on an ocean ship so that's something else that i really enjoyed we also travel and extensively in the mediterranean and this is where we're going to be starting off and we will be actually um our first sailings will be coming out of malta which is on that map just down uh just a little bit off the toe of italy on the left or on the right hand side of sicily that you see there you see the streets of messina if you went a little bit further out you would um you would hit malta so malta is going to be our port uh our port city for the summer months and we are going to be sailing into greece into italy and also into the croatian coast but this is a wonderful itinerary that will be sailing through the fall barcelona overnight and we dock in the center of barcelona so easy access to the city and then into florence into rome we're going to see the french riviera the italian riviera and also the beautiful cities of the croatian coast ending up in venice great itinerary but we have lots of options in this area for you we also are going to be traveling in the caribbean and this is coming back as well overnight in puerto rico and then into the small caribbean islands and you can see 11 days nine guided tours nine countries we almost stop in a new place or we do every single day so it's not like you're gonna be at sea you're actually going to be able to enjoy the experience now i know a lot of people are worried about being on ships so i wanted to just give you a moment and take a moment and tell you a little bit about what we're doing from a health and safety perspective on both our river and ocean ships we will be doing uh daily pcr testing we have our own labs on board our ocean ships so we can do it easily and effectively and on our river ships we have um we're working with a world a world class uh laboratory that is going to be able to turn our tests around uh within a short period of time we also if everybody everybody needs to be fully vaccinated to travel with us at this point and we also have infrared cameras we've got enhanced sanitation uh we even have sanitation robots similar to what they have on uh in the hospitals so when you travel with biking i i'm looking at what's actually there it's almost safer than going to the grocery store these days so uh you can feel safe to come back and sail with us and if you want more detail ask your travel advisor and they can give you access to our site as well as a video showing you just what we're doing on board the ships now a lot of you might be thinking okay i can't decide between river and ocean so we put them together and we actually have a river cruise and an ocean cruise that happen all together so the first group will be traveling along the rhine and they come into amsterdam in amsterdam both ships are docked almost side by side uh the two port facilities are close together and we will swap you while you go on tour we'll move your luggage and you and you'll come back and board the ocean ship and travel into scandinavia and vice versa for the passengers that are coming the other direction so we do have this this is a 15-day cruise if you want to try both products we also have the grand european that i talked about connecting with this viking shores and fjords into norway as well so you've got a couple of different options so as you can see we have lots of different choices for you in scandinavia in the mediterranean we also go into the panama canal we do a circumnavigation of the caribbean so if you want a little bit longer maybe like me you don't want to go for just seven days or eight days you want to go for longer and uh we have uh all of our itineraries are designed to link together so they can be eight days 15 days 21 days all the way up to 131 days for the world cruise if you would like so you've got lots of options and uh the best people to talk to are your travel advisors at expedia cruise ship centers so i know you might still be a little bit maybe a little bit nervous about booking something we do have our risk-free guarantee still available through the end of june so this allows you to cancel up to 14 days prior to departure and you won't lose any cancellation penalties we will convert your the money you've paid us into a future cruise voucher that's good for two years uh so that you can plan uh for a future cruise if you feel a little bit nervous about traveling but insurance is always important so please make sure that you talk to your travel advisor and you have insurance that will cover medical exp medical expenses as well and anything inside 14 days now i also wanted to mention that if you are looking to escape this fall and maybe you haven't got anything booked we are offering a welcome back to the world sale and this is uh including a silver spirits beverage package which is a beverage package that is worth about 25 dollars per person per day and that is available on any of our 2021 river sailings with a few exceptions and on our 2021 ocean fall mediterranean and some of our caribbean sailings you do need to book by june 30th but and you do have to uh make sure that you've got you've reached the health and safety standards that are required which is a minimum of double vaccine so that is something to talk to your advisor about but it is uh something to look forward to and if you haven't got something both take advantage of it talk to your advisor and they can they can get you booked for this fall we do have a little bit of space left not a lot i'll tell you and then we also have free air for our european river cruises grand european european sojourn and waterways of bazaars for 2022 and 2023 and this is a great savings for you i have just booked some flights uh to travel to hawaii and i will tell you something the air tickets have gone up a crazy amount because they are reduced capacity fewer people and they haven't been flying just like we haven't been cruising so and plus uh fuel costs are going up so there's a lot of i'm noticing that the prices on air have really increased so this is a great opportunity for you to lock in free air we don't even know what that air is going to cost us in 2022 or 2023 so we're going to absorb whatever that extra is going to be and you are going to be able to travel uh with confidence so susan i uh hope that i've inspired your people i hope they've uh added some things to their bucket list hopefully some viking cruises and maybe are feeling a little bit more confident and inspired to travel sometime in the near future maybe this fall maybe definitely 2022 and 20-23 so i am happy to answer any questions that you might have and just want to say thank you to you and your guests for taking some time out of this really beautiful evening to join me to uh to think about the future of travel thank you kim that was so great it definitely i have my list of places that i still have to get to and i enjoyed viking on when i went to china it was spectacular um it was a great great experience so if you want to stop sharing so we can see i certainly will awesome and does anybody have any questions for us you could either just unmute yourself oh uh here we go from jim and bev there are free flights are they from canada or connectors from the us great question no no they're all from canada and our prices are all in canadian dollars as well so from um red deer you can fly either out of edmonton or calgary so you'll be able to set that up and um on the free air for the grand european the european soldier that is the 23-day cruise that goes from amsterdam to bucharest waterways of the czars we do have reduced air on many of our other itineraries so that's it's important to talk to your your travel advisors i know you guys are and you can um you know you can check whatever the add-ons are but there's still some really great uh prices and you know savings as well yeah you always do have really good errors so that's something that of course you're amazing travel consultant jim and bev would make sure that you know all about that so any other great questions from the audience no you just can hardly wait to uh oh are the flights the day of or open-ended um you can do some um deviations what we do is we book it so that you will fly out and fly back within our block based on our itineraries and embarkation disembarkation but we do have what we call a deviation or customization program air plus which allows you to stay up to i think it's four weeks on either side so you can make that deviation there are some additional fees that the airlines impose but they're reasonable there are 100 to 300 depending on it you can also stop over so if you wanted to go for example you were flying to germany to to get on the show or amsterdam to get on the ship and you wanted to stop off in london for a bit of time you could do that as well so that's uh you can talk to your travel advisor and we we tried to for your your vacation travel consultant sorry and um you can you can organize that with them but there is some flexibility which i think really um which makes this air great on top of that the price you see also includes your transfers and your taxes and if you looked at air tickets lately i just even when i was booking my uh my flat my points flight the taxes are crazy expensive they cost me almost as much as my ticket on a free ticket so uh this is a great savings for you it is absolutely thanks guys for asking that question um is there any other ones oh another question are the shore excursions are there listings yes there actually are once you're booked you can see them on my viking journey you can also see them on our website and i know susan's got her own biking website so there you can click on any of the ports and call and if you scroll down on the page you will see all the short excursions that are offered those that are included those that might be optional they don't all have the prices there but they will be available for you if you're booked on your my viking journey sites you'll be able to go in and see those probably a little bit closer to sailing because a lot of us are you know we're still negotiating and everybody's trying to get back to work we're trying to find the guides and the hotels are reopening but you'll be able to see those as we go and it's yeah there there's lots of really fun stuff that you can do and if you've got certain interests you'll find that there's something for everybody i think yeah yeah no um and no thanks jim and beth for asking those questions those are really great questions to ask especially when it comes to river and ocean cruising with viking because it is different than you've experienced before so we really appreciate the questions ed um said is there any consideration being given to clients who are anti-rejection drugs and not allowed to get the vaccines you know it's not up to us this is we have to adhere to the regulation countries that we visit so these are not our regulations these are the regulations and posed by the cdc by the world health organization by the airlines and by the countries that we enter so i that's something you're going to have to check because we um we can only operate if we adhere to the uh the things that are set out by those countries we have the pcr labs we are doing daily uh saliva testing so it's non-invasive um and um and you know the mask the mask requirements vary again they're gonna vary depending on what's going on so we'll see as we go but and that may change too with the double vaccine so keep that up it really just depends on where we are in this pandemic as we move forward so keep an eye on our website because we do update it regularly and if there are any changes you're going to find in there you bet yeah it is still a very fluid situation in kim rate and there is constant changes so if you book for next year well to go tell you one thing and chances are by the time you get ready to go the protocols will be totally different but yeah we know that what cdc sets out um that's the minimum that or that's what uh viking will do plus you will enhance that with more than what you're required to do so it'll be very safe to travel with you guys yeah yeah all right well let's go and enjoy this sunshine for us in alberta we see it often we just don't see it with the heat so we are going to go thank you so much again kim we really really appreciate um your support and you're always here for our clients and i know that many of them already know you as well so thank you thank you for everybody for tuning in stay safe and go and check that passport to make sure it has not expired because you're going to want to be ready to go when those gates open so thanks everyone thanks for attending talk to you later bye-bye

2021-06-17 09:34

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