So it turns out world cruises sell out very fast and being the end of December 2020 I found out that if we wanted to go in 2023 (seemed so far out) we would have to decide very quickly.
We came up with a list of nice to haves. We wanted as long as possible, lots of new ports, mostly inclusive, a newer ship and we wanted few or no formal nights.
I started the research.
There were a few lines that did world cruises that we eliminated right away. MSC, Fred Olsen and P&O were not our style. Regent, Silver Sea, Crystal and Seabourn were just too much money. Cunard was just too formal and too many sea days. These were eliminated quickly.
So that left Holland America (the early leader), Oceania, Princess and this one I knew little about, Viking Ocean Cruises.
Out came the spreadsheet to compare.
After lots of figuring and cyphering and head scratching it turned out that with one exception the cost per day on all four lines came out very very close, less than 40.00 a day difference from top to bottom. Princess however came out over 100.00 a day less when all was considered. That put Princess at the top of the list.
On to the “inter webs” for more research and the inevitable pros and cons list. Huge thanks to Andy at https://andyandjudi.com and so many others for being an absolute wealth of fantastic information.
Princess
Pros : Cheaper, We liked our previous cruises, mostly inclusive, the world cruise included many perks
Cons: Old ship, formal nights, fewer ports, questionable reviews
Holland America
Pros : We liked our previous cruises, A long history of World cruises
Cons: Expensive, Old ship, formal nights, fewer ports
Oceania
Pros : No formal nights, long cruise, many ports, mostly inclusive
Cons: Expensive, Old ship
Viking
Pros : No formal nights, long cruise, many ports, mostly inclusive, new ship
Cons: Expensive, an unknown to us cruise line
At this point it seemed pretty clear that it was going to be Oceania or Viking
Enter Teresa Skeim from Cruise Specialists. She is wonderful. We had several back and forth conversations around the logic I was using to make a choice and she was patient enough to get me quotes for the options. She also encouraged booking soon as the Viking cabins were selling out quickly by now.
But, I really wanted to see the Oceania itinerary to compare to the Viking one I had in hand. As luck would have it I came across a copy of the Oceania itinerary a bit earlier than publicly available and that made the decision no easier. The Oceania itinerary looked great, but we really wanted to be on a new ship, we really wanted to end in London and Oceania may have been a little too long (if possible) at 214 days.
After watching a lot of You Tube videos, many conversations and soul searching Viking won the day. The popularity of Viking with loyal cruisers, the stance of mostly inclusive, the lack of a casino and high pressure sales and the beautiful new ships and the much lower total cost than the longer Oceania cruise all contributed to the decision.
Through Teresa we booked a deluxe verandah on a ship that has not even started to be built.
This is a great start for your 2022/23 WC blog. Looking forward to reading it throughout your travel – and hope to do one of these one day.
Is there a way I can subscribe so that I get an automatic email notification, or a link, or even the blog itself via email? Or will you post a link on CC each time? IIRC, this is the way Andy’s blog worked for the Cruise to Nowhere, and it made it easy to never miss a posting.
Thanks in any case if this particular blog site doesn’t work that way.
Hello, I will be posting links to updates on CC as I can.
We have a Viking cruise Australia-Bali in early 2023; they have recently dropped Brisbane Australia. We are very disappointed, this was the main reason we booked this trip! They can’t/won’t even tell us why it was dropped. No drop in cost, mind you!! Does anyone have a clue?