Search for the Northern Lights on the Viking Venus

1/31/23 to 2/12/23

Click on the above link buttons that will take you directly to a particular page or area of the review; or you can just click through to the next page at the bottom of each page.
Page 1 – Preface, Pre-trip in Bergen, Ship
Page 2 – Ship (continued)
Page 3 - Entertainment, Activities, Ports of Call: Bergen, Sea Days
Page 4 - Ports of Call: Alta, Norway
Page 5 - Ports of Call: Tromso, Norway, Sea Days, Tilbury, England

Preface

Since I have been to all seven continents and 90 countries in my prior travels, there aren’t a lot of cruises that are on my bucket list. I still love going on any cruise, but to go on one that will provide an exciting new experience is always a goal. Cathy has always wanted to see the northern lights, so when we discovered this cruise on the Viking Venus, especially on a cruise line that I have wanted to try, it was a no brainer. I had been to Norway during the warm months, but this cruise in the cold winter would be a very different experience. Since we live in south Florida, in the months before the cruise, we had to buy some apparel for the potentially subzero Fahrenheit temperatures. Amazon was a great source for everything and at a reasonable price. Since we also needed warm clothes for the previous months Christmas markets river cruise, we were able to use it twice before we would put it in long term storage.

Pre-Trip in Bergen

We had found a good deal on business class flights from Miami to Bergen. Since this would be our first time flying in a pod, we were looking forward to the experience. We were flying Delta, but we were on their partner’s KLM 787-10 for the long leg from Atlanta to Amsterdam. A very nice plane.

Although it was great to have so much room and be able to lay down for a nap, it wasn’t as roomy as I had hoped for my large body. It was still most enjoyable. We had great service along with good food and drinks. I got a kick out of the little Dutch shoe salt and pepper shakers.

After our flight from Amsterdam landed in Bergen, we took the Flybussen to get to our hotel. This is a bus that waits right outside the airport exit. We put our luggage in the compartment and entered the bus. The cost was 150 Kroner per person or about $15 each. We left about 5 minutes after we got on the bus. A very convenient way to get to town.
We were staying at the Radisson Blu Royal hotel right at the very popular Bryggen area very close to where the Viking Venus would be docked. This was the hotel that Viking was originally using for its pre-cruise extension. They were charging $499 per person for a two night stay with breakfast or $998 for a couple. We only booked one night costing $110 for the two of us. Breakfast was $16 each. The Uber to the terminal when we left cost about $17. If it hadn’t been icy, we could have easily walked to the port in less than 10 minutes.

We arrived at the hotel at 10:30 AM. We were very pleased when they told us our room was ready for us. About a week before the cruise, those people that had booked the Viking extension were told that they would be at a different hotel. I am assuming that this was why the room might have been available so early. The hotel itself is an attractive modern building.

The room was comfortable with nice amenities other than USB plugs. That was surprising.

I was impressed with the fold out luggage rack. A great idea!

The bathroom had very little shelf space, only what was around the sink. The only other issue with the bathroom was that the water ran onto the main bathroom floor since there was nothing to stop it.

After getting settled in our room, I wanted to walk around and get familiar with the area. The hotel is right at the Bryggen, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site composed of Hanseatic commercial buildings. The multi-colored buildings are the symbol of Bergen. One of those buildings is the Radisson Blu entrance to their bar.

With it being a partly cloudy day with light rain, it wasn’t the best for taking photos, but I had to take them while I could since it could have gotten worse later in the day. It was a constantly changing climate with rain, snow, sleet, wind and sunshine. It changed so quickly.

I liked the narrow corridors between the buildings. There were lots of photo opps.

I also liked the many statues adorning some of the buildings.

The view across the harbor was also lovely.

I saw the restaurant that we had booked for the evening, Bryggeloftet & Stuene. It is the oldest restaurant in Bergen, and it normally requires reservations well in advance. The building was most impressive.

I headed back to the hotel since we had planned on taking a short nap. Next to the hotel is the Bryggen Museum. It is supposed to be quite interesting, but they had very short hours, so I never got there.

Close by is an attractive church and a statue of Snorri Sturluson, an Icelandic poet, historian and politician.

After our nap, Cathy and I both went out exploring. The sun was shining brightly, and everything looked so much prettier.

Along one of the narrow alleys, we could see where products were lifted to the upper floors of the buildings with a rope and pulley.

We walked into an interesting store along the alley that had lots of fur products. Cathy saw a hat there that she really liked, but passed on it.

We continued our walk looking at all the beautiful buildings and scenery.

I got a kick out of the three faced statue on one of the buildings.

We walked toward the other side of the harbor to see what was there. With the sun shining, I walked a little further up the other side to take a photo of the Venus for the photo of the ship for the front page of the review. With the clouds moving in, I had to take photos that had part of another ship at the aft of the Venus. It would have to do, since the sun disappeared shortly after I took the shots. I wish that I could have gotten closer to the ship to get a better one.

While I was taking photos of the ship, Cathy was looking for a restaurant, we hadn’t eaten anything since the plane flight. We decided to get something light at a Bryggen restaurant called Baker Brun. They had some tasty looking items.

We got a different looking cheese sandwich and a tempting pastry. They were both delicious.

As we continued our walk after the sun returned, we passed by a gorgeous wooden framed window.

Further down the street, we could see the Rosenkrantz Tower. Parts of it date back to 1270 AD. It was originally part of the royal castle.

We turned right and went into the Bergenhus Fortress grounds. They looked interesting and there was supposed to be a nice scenic viewing area. We walked around and eventually found the viewing area where there was a statue of King Haakon VII.

With the mound where the statue was located, it did provide nice views of the area, but the main attraction to me was being able to see the Viking Venus close by.

There were other sights in the fortress like some canons and a statue of what looked like a queen.

We tried to see if we could enter a church on the grounds, but it was locked up tight. I liked the stone construction. Quite pretty!

The sun was setting as we got back to the hotel. We had been most fortunate to have a mostly sunny day in Bergen.

When it was time to go the Bryggeloftet & Stuene restaurant, there was a light mist, but not even worth using an umbrella for. The wind was pretty strong making it chilly with the temperature in the 30’s. We were meeting friends for dinner that we had met on our CruiseCritic.com roll call forum, Dennis and Trudy. The restaurant was old world style as would be expected, since it has been there since 1910. The first floor had some lovely wall art.

Our table was on the second floor, which was quite rustic.

The restaurant has a reputation for wonderful large mussels and delicious fish chowder. We ordered both. The fish chowder was good with a very mild flavor. We were very disappointed in how small the mussels were after reading reviews about how they were so large. The broth they were in was very similar to the fish chowder. Fortunately, they did taste good.

We also had some scallops and Wolffish, which is an Atlantic catfish. Both were quite good.

Embarkation

This was the day we would finally get to board the Venus. We were packed and ready to go, but first we needed to have breakfast. We had read very good reviews about the Radisson Blu breakfast buffet. It was an outstanding one. Lots of local items that were so good. We were almost disappointed that we hadn’t booked two nights instead of only one.

When we looked outside, we could see that it had been snowing during the night and still was. I had originally thought that had it been decent weather, we could have just walked to the ship; but not with snow on the ground, plus the cobblestones would make for a more difficult trek with the luggage. We instead just got an Uber for about $17. Much easier! We got to the port about 10:20 AM and were the first ones on the ship ten minutes later. Very fast and easy.

The first thing we were told to do was to go to our assigned muster station to get info on using the life vests. These vests were different from any other cruises I had been on before.

When we were allowed into our cabin, we watched a short safety video on the TV. It was a very fast and easy muster drill process.

Ship

We absolutely loved this ship. The design and furnishings are so attractive and comfortable. There is a very classy Scandanavian touch throughout the ship. There are so many places to relax and just enjoy being on a cruise. Viking found a great ship and has made all of their ocean ships with the same layout and class. Their ocean ships have a maximum passenger count of 930. They also don’t allow any children under 18 years old on their ships, which is very desirable for us seniors. The main reason I hadn’t cruised with Viking Ocean earlier was that they also don’t allow mobility scooters. With my late wife Carol needing to use one, we couldn't cruise on Viking’s ship. I certainly understand why they prohibit them, but it did keep us from trying this fine cruise line.

The various public rooms are shown below by category.

Dining Rooms (Link to Menus) -

I have included copies of the menus for the dining venues along with photos of some of the food items at the Menus link just above and at the top of each page of the review.

The Restaurant –
This dining room is located on deck two at the rear of the ship. We ate there every night except for the four nights we ate in the specialty restaurants and once in the buffet. We thought the service was excellent. The waiters and sommeliers were on the ball and very helpful, while being very friendly. Our expectations for the food on a Viking Ocean ship were very high, which probably led to our disappointment with the some of the food served. The descriptions of the menu items sounded outstanding, but the delivered dinner didn’t always seem like what we ordered. Some of the meat items were either overcooked and/or tough. On some items, the flavors were almost bland due to the lack of spices. It was like the chef didn’t want to overpower the food with too much flavor. The breadbasket had the same four types of bread each night. There were two excellent bread sticks, one corn muffin, two pieces of some type of bread and two rolls of some type. They tasted OK, just not something that you would look forward to seeing what new bread treat we would have each evening. I must also say that the lobster tail was the largest one I have ever seen in a ship's main dining room. For the most part, we did enjoy our meals there.

It is an open seating restaurant where we could go anytime between 6:00 – 9:00 PM. We would go to the desk in front of the restaurant, give our cabin number and be seated by a staff member.

The room is attractive with lots of tables. Most of the tables are tables for two that can be made into tables for four or six people groups. Even if they are set up for couples, we normally would chat with the tables next to us, since they were so close. The chairs were also quite comfortable.

There is a small bar area close to where you walk into the restaurant between the two sides. It is handy if there is a wait for your table and you want a before dinner drink.

World Café -

This is the buffet at the rear of deck 7. We ate every breakfast and most lunches at the buffet. The nice part of any buffet is that if you get something you don’t like, it is easy to get something else. The breakfast foods were quite good. My only complaint was that they had the same thing every day. A little variety would have been nice on a longer cruise. For example, the only hot cereal was oatmeal, the most popular choice. They never had cream of wheat or other hot cereal. They also had various types of sausage links, but they never had patties that I prefer. The breads were always the same choices, although they had many; but throwing in something different makes breakfast more interesting. Kind of like the egg’s benedict. Every day they either had the regular with ham or one with salmon. Other lines seem to have many more varieties. I assume that I could have asked for a custom one, but I’m not that creative. I like to see it and choose it.

The lunch items were fine, but once again, I would have liked to have different items other than the main courses. For example, the ship only had four types of cookies every day at every dining venue. There was a chocolate, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip and sugar cookies.

No white chocolate macadamia, peanut butter, cocoanut, or other ones. The cookies they had were good. I think I only had a couple the whole cruise, but it would have been nice to be tempted by others like we had on our Viking River cruise two months earlier. Another thing that I was disappointed in is that they never had egg salad, chicken salad or tuna salad available to make a lunch plate or sandwich with. They would have some of those items in pre-made sandwiches on occasion, but I much prefer to just have it on a plate. They also had the same few types of pizza and ice cream most days. The pizza and ice cream were very good, but variety makes a buffet so much better.

One thing that was extremely frustrating was the saltshakers in the buffet. They were better in the main dining room. For some reason when you ground the salt, it only came out in large chunks. The pepper shaker made the pepper fine, but not the saltshakers. I was able to get different shakers a few times, but most meals the salt was chunky. Not desireable. The waiters tried to make them work properly, but it was frustrating for them too.

Unlike most of the larger ships, this ship still has the food lines rather than food islands that are popular these days. Since they have sections for salads, breads, main courses and desserts, it works very well. With this being a cold weather cruise, people couldn’t use tables that are normally set out on the Aquavit Terrace behind the buffet, so it was more crowded at times. We always had the option to take our meals to the pool area close by where there were plenty of tables in the covered area.

Probably the most popular station was the ice cream one. There was normally a line waiting for their sweet fix. The ice cream was very good. Next to the ice cream were cookies and some other desserts.

They had very nice looking fish at the sushi station. I didn't take a photo of the finished product, but they were quite good.

At the very back of the buffet, right across from the Aquavit Bar, is an Asian section of the buffet. They didn't seem to mix up the Asian items very much. I would check it out every day and they always had Dan Dan soup and a chicken or shrimp item .

In the dining areas and other places around the ship, they had some wonderful sanitizing sprayers. When you put your hand in it, a fine quick drying spray shot out. It was so much better than the gooey stuff most cruise lines squirt on your hands that take a long time to soak in. The buffet also had a nice hand washing station.

Although I have mentioned several items in The Restaurant and World Cafe that I was disappointed with, we still thoroughly enjoyed most meals. Food is very subjective and everyone has different preferences. I have heard wonderful things about Viking dining, so perhaps the food that was available was limited or the cooking staff might have been in training. Every cruise on the same ship can be a different experience. I will still come back to Viking Ocean for another wonderful cruise.

Mamsen’s/Viking Deli -
This restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch. It is in the Explorer’s Lounge near the front of deck 7 on the side of a hallway, so it is very handy for anyone enjoying Explorer's Lounge. I couldn't find it when we boarded the ship, since shutters were still closed. But when opened it revealed the small food venue. This dining room is open for breakfast until 11:00 AM, where the World Cafe closes at 10:00 AM. Very handy for late risers. They also have snacks in the afternoon, as well as late night from 10:00 PM until midnight.

It has a very limited menu. For breakfast, the most popular item is their waffles with several tasty toppings. It was good, but I only had it one day, since I prefer eggs for breakfast. They also had oatmeal and pastries. For lunch they would have soup and a few deli items. To me, it wasn’t that appealing compared to the buffet.

Mamsen's is on the starboard side of the Explorer’s Lounge as you enter it. There are tables and chairs in the area. They also have couches with reindeer hides thrown over the backs. It is a nice touch, particularly in Norway.

Chef’s Table -
This restaurant is located at the rear of deck one on the port side. It requires a reservation to eat there. There is no extra cost for it. We found that it was easy to get a reservation at any time, although when booking online in advance, the times were very limited. It was a major disappointment for us. We had two reservations and we made them on the nights that they had Asian menus since we like Asian food and there weren’t that many Asian food choices in the other venues. They have a set five course menu each night. You don’t get to select off a menu, you eat what is listed. The type of food they have runs the same for three days in a row. We had two different Asian menus. They also had a West Indies and California menu. They did have interesting items on the menus and some of the items were quite good, but the main courses for the Asian Panorama and Ziang menus left a lot to be desired. We were so disappointed in that part of the meal. The other items were pretty good.

On the Ziang menu, we actually returned the Wok Fried Beef main course to the kitchen. The beef tasted like big beef stew chunks with no Asian flavor at all. After our meal, we went to the buffet to get something else.

Since we had the Silver Spirits beverage package, we didn’t have to pay $25 for the wine pairing, which was quite good. We did enjoy the wines.

Manfredi’s –
This Italian restaurant is located on the starboard side of Deck one at the rear of the ship, right next to the Chef’s Table. The food there was good, but it wasn’t any better than the other food venues on the ship, other than their ribeye steak. It was much thicker than the steaks in the main dining room. It was also quite tasty.

Wintergarden –
This lovely room just in front of the main pool on deck 7 is used for the daily afternoon tea service at 4:00 PM. It was a very popular function and required arriving early to ensure having a chair to sit in. I went to it one time to get photos and to see what it was all about. It was enjoyable, but with us normally eating dinner around 6:00 PM, it would spoil our appetite for dinner. Just going for tea, would have been OK, but I am not real good at resisting yummy looking food when put in front of me.

It is a lovely room with metal supports that look like trees. The room is nicely decorated with the green statue being a focal point

At night there is some interesting lighting shining around the room giving it a different look.

Pool Grill –
This hamburger/hot dog restaurant is located on the port side of deck 7 between the buffet and pool. It was our favorite place to go. They had several items other than burgers and hotdogs that you can see on the menu, as well as a salad bar to complement what you ordered. The Viking Burger was our favorite, but everything we had there was good.

There was plenty of seating nearby around the pool. The waiters were also quick to take drink orders if needed.

Lounges (Link to Menus) -

Explorer’s Lounge –
This was probably the most popular place on the ship. It is at the front of the ship on deck’s seven and eight. With the cruise being in cold weather, this was the best place to see the outside. There is comfortable seating all around and at most times it was a challenge to get seats near or close to the windows.

The area away from the front are quite pleasant with the reindeer fur throws and the large illuminated fireplace.

They have libraries and interesting things to look at on both levels.

The bar kept very busy. It covered both levels, since deck eight only had seating with no bar.

The second level on deck 8 was a much quieter place to chill. I didn't go up there other than to take photos for the review, since the windows were angled, which made it difficult to take photos through them.

At night, the lighting behind the bar was interesting with the constellations on it. Additionally, the boarder between decks 7 and 8 had constellations projected on to it. A nice touch!

Most evenings a guitar player named Paolo would play to provide entertainment. He was quite good. The only photo I got of him was when he played in the Star Theater one night.

There were two doors on either side of the stairs in the lounge that went to a walkway in front of the lounge. This was a great place to take photos from the front of the ship. It was quite cold on this cruise, but worth it to get some great shots of the terrain. It would be perfect in warmer weather.

Lobby Bar –

This lounge is located midship on deck one. This is the one we normally went to since it wasn’t as crowded as the Explorer’s Lounge, and they had entertainment there nightly. There was more room there since it adjoined the Living Room area. Normally they had a very good piano player, Andras, but sometimes they also added a mediocre violin player to accompany him. It took away from the pianist.

This was also the coffee bar, so they had pastries and other snacks.

The service at this bar was exceptional. The wait staff were amazing in that they seem to remember all their passengers names and cabin numbers. They were also so pleasant to see and chat with.

Aquavit Bar –
This bar is at the very back of deck 7 and is part of the buffet area. They provide drinks for those in the buffet or just sitting near the bar. With doors on either side to walk out onto the Aquavit Terrace, it must be a very popular place in good weather when people are out there.

Pool Bar –
This bar is just across the ship from the Pool Grill on deck 7 on the starboard side. With the pool not being that popular on this cruise, they weren’t very busy.