Viking Ocean Cruises Webpage

The only issue I see is that they are priced in the same range as Crystal, that is a tough segment to crack.

For instance:

Viking Star, 15-day Baltic - from $4999 per person.
Crystal Serenity, 10-day Baltic, from $5770 per person.

That's $333 per person per day versus $577 per person per day. Of course, Crystal provides ALL beverages including wines and spirits but NOT shore excursions and wi-fi for almost $250 more pp/per day.

Viking Star - 15 day Barcelona to Bergen - from $4999 per person.

Crystal Serenity - 12 day Rome to London from $5760 per person.

Crystal is priced much higher but chances are, a Crystal cruiser will not care for Viking and vice versa.

Viking is looking to pull from Holland, Princess, Azamara and Oceania - but largely from their huge base of past passengers for the first two years.

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Originally posted by jetwet1:
Thanks for the correction Tim, I only had time to do a quick search on fares.

So yes, it seems that Azamara and Oceania are the comparable ones, well the hard product certainly seems to stack up well in comparison. I wonder what the soft product will be like.

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The product will be true to the current Viking River product. It is high-value, very comfortable and ticks all the boxes people want -

comfortable, well designed ships

consistently good food and a variety of dining experiences

great destination experiences

high-value for price paid

Viking is known for rigid consistency and that will no doubt translate to the new Oceans product.

In many ways, the best way to characterize it is the new Renaissance. There are many former Ren execs at Viking and chairman Tor has even cited them as his target and inspiration. And ironically, their new Ocean ships are derived from the never-built R9-Class which was designed by Alstom France but never built.

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Originally posted by Tim in Fort Lauderdale:

The product will be true to the current Viking River product. It is high-value, very comfortable and ticks all the boxes people want -

comfortable, well designed ships

consistently good food and a variety of dining experiences

great destination experiences

high-value for price paid

Viking is known for rigid consistency and that will no doubt translate to the new Oceans product.

In many ways, the best way to characterize it is the new Renaissance. There are many former Ren execs at Viking and chairman Tor has even cited them as his target and inspiration. And ironically, their new Ocean ships are derived from the never-built R9-Class which was designed by Alstom France but never built.

Tim

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This was classed as one of the top cruising companies in the 1970's, operating three of the top five luxurious cruise ships, so I doubt if they will have any problems taking on the other cruise lines !

The three original cruise ships remain in service, two of them as the Fred Olsen Cruises ' Black Watch ' and ' Boudicca ' and the other sailing with Phoenix Reisen as the 'Albatros '.

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Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:
It should be remembered that this is the company that in the past operated three deluxe cruise ships under the name ' The Royal Viking Line ' .

This was classed as one of the top cruising companies in the 1970's, operating three of the top five luxurious cruise ships, so I doubt if they will have any problems taking on the other cruise lines !

The three original cruise ships remain in service, two of them as the Fred Olsen Cruises ' Black Watch ' and ' Boudicca ' and the other sailing with Phoenix Reisen as the 'Albatros '.

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Neil,

this is absolutely not the same company that operated Royal Viking Line. Viking's chairman Tor was at the helm for a brief period in the early- to mid-80's and he hired a friend and former RVL and Seadream exec to head up hotel ops.

Regent, Silversea and Oceania actually have stronger RVL ties and lineage due to the number of former RVL staff on their ships and in executive management as well as the market segment they cater to.

And Viking is certainly not in the same class as the now defunct RVL nor do they have any aspirations to be. RVL was the creme de la creme of luxury in the 70's and 80's but Viking Oceans and Viking River are a mid-stream product on par with HAL and Princess.

Did you ever go on one of the Royal Viking Line ships in the 1970's or just quoting from reports ?

I had been on board the Royal Viking Line ' Royal Viking Star ' .

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Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:
Tim

Did you ever go on one of the Royal Viking Line ships in the 1970's or just quoting from reports ?

I had been on board the Royal Viking Line ' Royal Viking Star ' .

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Originally posted by Ernst:

How is that related to the fact that these two brands are not related to each other?

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Thanks Ernst, not sure how that is relative either.

Neil,

to answer your question, no, not in the 70's but did in the 80's and 90's. Did you ever sail with them?

Neil, the fact of the matter is that Viking Cruises is not the same company nor the same owners as Royal Viking Line. Period. End of story.

Nor is it a luxury line as RVL was.

What it is, is an established and respected river cruise line that is now branching out into deep-sea operations. And one whose owner was the Managing Director for RVL who oversaw the running of the company for a short period in the early 80's.

He also sat on the Board of Directors for Holland America Line along with Klosters A/S, Vard and NCL. But it is none of those companies either.

Thanks for reminding me why I had not frequented this forum in so many years.

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Originally posted by Tim in Fort Lauderdale:

...Thanks for reminding me why I had not frequented this forum in so many years.

Tim

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Thanks for your recent posts Tim and we hope you will stick around.

I am taking a more hands on approach to ensure that the atmosphere remains positive and constructive.

I tried to keep this a forum where a wide range of views were welcome but we have seen too many valuable members stop posting because of a vocal minority.

Reason for asking about the ships was that I thought their colours schemes were rather bland with dark colours in some of the public rooms and corridors.

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Originally posted by rd77:
My first thought when looking at the rendering was "it looks like a blown up R ship", so thanks Tim for confirming that that was indeed the case!

Did anyone else notice that the delivery date of this ship has slipped? She was originally due for late 2014. I did read a few months ago in "International Cruise & Ferry review" that financing for the first two ships still hadn't been completed, so perhaps the delay was due to financing issues? Or was it just for further "tweaking" of the product?

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Ralph,

yes, the delivery date has been pushed back since the initial announcements were made and I believe that it's due to two primary reasons:

1) execution of the financing. Fincantieri provides financing assistance through the Italian Government backed Export Credit guarantees which always take longer than expected because you have the Italian Government, the shipyard unions and any number of international bank syndicates involved.

2) Finalization of the design with FC. Tor is a demanding shipowner/customer and I have no doubt he is equally or more demanding than Oceania's CEO in the design and build of his ships.

He was probably used to the combo of Neptun Werft in Germany and Y&S out of Oslo, both of whom approach any project with a "can do" attitude. And in this instance, you have the Italian yard dealing with SMC out of London whom is new to them along with a land-based interior design firm from LA. I bet there was a lot of tug of war going on.

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Originally posted by rd77:
This was how the Viking Ocean ships were initially going to look (courtesy of the Shippax Facebook page):

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Yes, this was the prototype that Gunnar and his team at Y&S developed but I believe when STX produced the "R Nine" plans, it was deemed quicker and more efficient to work off of an existing set of plans that had already passed muster with DeltaMarin and various regulatory agencies.

Frankly it's fairly normal for any project such as this, that started with that Y&S design three years ago, to end up with something that does not even resemble the initial concept(s).

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Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:
Hi Tim

Reason for asking about the ships was that I thought their colours schemes were rather bland with dark colours in some of the public rooms and corridors.

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Neil,

quite bland in fact but that was all the rage at the time. If I remember correctly, they were decorated mostly in sand and beige tones that was offset by dark walnut paneling and accents in places. Of course, all the furniture was typically sleek and functional in true Scandinavian form. The only room(s) I remember of any color were the obs lounge; even that was slate grey furniture but with bright red carpets - and the nightclub which was tomato red and orange.

When the ships were stretched, they changed in tone, literally, with the colors morphing to pastels of rose, light blue and coral for the most part. But the obs lounges were probably at their best at this point all done up in deep navy and dark brown leathers.

Fort the most part, they were blandly decorated their entire careers under RVL and interestingly, the Star and Sea took on much more character when they were taken over by Royal and pretty much redecorated from stem to stern. Sadly, by the time they actually looked good, Kloster closed Royal down and the ships were flogged off to different owners.

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Originally posted by rd77:
Thanks for your detailed replies Tim! Just out of curiosity, are you now working for Viking Oceans or still for the American Queen Steamboat Company?

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Ralph,

neither actually. I retired from AQSC in March and moved back to my home on the water in Fort Lauderdale. I'm now doing consulting work. And I don't have any association whatsoever with the VO project or Viking in any capacity, I have just followed the project with great interest since its inception.

Best,