Cruise assignment: Two back-to-back 10-day Caribbean cruises on the Viking Sea

I secured this assignment through the cruiseship enrichment group. When arrangements were first made, the itinerary was from San Juan, PR to Manaus, Brazil (1000 miles up the Amazon River) and back. Nine days before go time, Viking notified us that there was not enough water in the Amazon, so it would still begin and end in San Juan, but we'd be visiting Caribbean ports instead. While two of my presentations would still work, I needed three different presentations. This was a bit of a challenge since Viking wants all the presentations to be white lettering on black background, but everything was ready and practiced by go time: Nov. 22. The cruises had been sold out, but around 300 of the 900 passengers had cancelled for each cruise, so the ship was not at capacity for either of the cruises.

A large tapestry in one of the staircases.

The atmosphere on Viking is a bit different than HAL. The Viking Sea was an elegant ship in an understated way. There were only adults and no casinos, bingo, or art auctions. The presenters were prominent in their programs. On this cruise, there were two other presenters for these two cruises, one was Joe, the resident historian, the other was Olga, a Russian woman who was also a historian and a concert pianist, so her presentations sometimes included her playing a piece or two that related to her topic. The three of us spent a fair amount of time together and each of us was expected to attend all the other presentations. We had dinner in the dining room with them and the captain a couple of times on each cruise.

The presentations were given on the stage in the main auditorium, The Star Theater. The screen was LED, so I had a new mouse-like pointer because laser pointers do not show up on LED. The presentations were recorded so that people could watch them on their room TVs which was good since there was only one sea day in the two back-to-back cruises and the presentations were all given at 6:30pm, so some people were scheduled for dinner at this time.

Each morning, Ryan, the cruise director, would cover the day's events and go over the daily program, which was available on our room TVs and were played endlessly in the Star Theater, while people were waiting to be called for their excursions. Sometimes, he'd feature a guest, so here I was being interviewed for the next day's program.

I gave five presentations, but learned quickly that I had to stand behind or right next to the podium because the recording was broadcast in two frames. One was the slide and next to it was the presenter in a narrow section of the screen. The water cycle slide here was part of my rainforest presentation.

The Star Theater was never full for presentations--mine or the others, but over the course of the cruise, people I'd never seen in the theater came up to me and told me how much they liked my presentations.

Sometimes, there were lots of questions and lively discussions after my talks.

 
The presentation schedules were prominently displayed on monitors around the ship.
When dining alone, we spent our time in The World Cafe, a buffet/cafeteria on an upper deck--deck 7. The food was excellent and beer or wine was available at no charge with lunch and dinner. In the morning, we usually had our coffees while working on our computers and then ate on the outside deck at the rear of the ship.

This is the bar that serves the World Cafe.
Our normal breakfast spot was just outside of of this area.

Each evening, the classical duo played in the Atrium. Later a pianist played there as well.

 
A Christmas train display in the atrium on the first level behind the piano. Looking in the other direction the stairs to the second level had extra wide treads and were sometimes used as an entertainment venue. The image on big screen at the top of the stairs rotated every 15 minutes or so. The Star Theater is on the second level and down the hall from here. Also, on the first level to the left of the stairs, was the door to the crew quarters, where our room was located. We were on the same hall with the other two presenters, the ship's doctor, and the staff captain, the number 2 person on the ship, and other crew VIPs.

There are three levels open to the atrium. The bottom level is called the living room.
The slats behind the tree is where two elevators were located.

And like any good living room, there is a bar where you can get fancy coffee or something stronger.
(I used this photo in my coffee presentation.)

On the second level of the Atrium a model ship forms a wall/partition to the future cruise consultant, who was so busy that people had to make appointments to see him.

Also on the second level, there were some history lessons on Vikings and more.

On the 7th deck overlooking the bow is the two-level Explorer's Lounge.

We spent a fair amount of time here and of course there was a bar with coffee and more, plus there was a small specialty restaurant with some lovely almond cake that we succumbed to a few times. Oh yes, good internet access was provided for all.

Upstairs in the Explorers' Lounge is quite cluby with books and artifacts displayed on open shelves.

Love the explorer feel of the rug.

 
A large globe in the Explorers Lounge. One evening, in the living room, Joe shared some extremely expensive single-malt whiskey with us and Olga and her husband. Very strong! He was to write a review of this for some whiskey connoisseur magazine. He was an interesting guy who seemed to be well-informed on every topic and he gave his presentations without referring to his notes. Since we sat in on both sets of his lectures, he ended up covering different aspects on those same topics.

Our room was good...

with a desk, a table, and window. And as previous mentioned, this was in the crew's quarters and we were on the same hall as the other lecturers, the doctor, and the staff captain.

We escorted a number of the ship excursions along the way and we were to bring our Viking bags which included a first aid kit, extra earphones, and more. Dean also determined that there were tracking devices in the front flaps, which makes a lot of sense, so the excursions people know the exact locations of all their trips.

The mid-ship pool view with a neighboring ship that was much larger, which was the usual case.

And so we're off on our adventures.

To make things simpler, though, instead of a chronological order, I've arranged the pages according to the 11 locations that were visited on these two back-to-back cruises, which had similar, but not identical itineraries. A couple of locations we only visted once, but most of the time, we stopped twice.