So, my wife and I just finished 15 days on a Viking death barge travelling the oceans blue. I am 60 and I was easily 30-40 years younger than 98% of the ship. Apparently, the Viking ship is literally a Viking ship, packed with corpses and set off into the ocean to be set aflame and send these geezers to Valhalla, hahahaha. When we got to the airport they had a 100 year old woman in a wheelchair they were rolling towards the gates, she took a 160 day around the world cruise and I doubt she was aware of it.
Here's the story. Several months ago we had friends ask us if we could join them on a cruise, they are nice enough and the husband is a decent enough guy with a slightly cuck relationship with his wife. We had know them for years, she is an over-educated, retired know-it-all from a family of over-educated assholes who have not had success at anything but college classes. She is 15 years older than her husband (it turns out) and has had very little success in any career and she has had three. As she fails, she returns to school and acquires another masters or PHd and heads into another field to be marginal. She is so much smarter than the rest of us that we simply do not understand how fucking brilliant she is, no kidding.
I had speculated to my bride that there may be a reason they have a hard time finding "friends" to cruise with. We wanted to do the first adventure of this sort and figured it would be easier with friends who knew the ropes. Hahahaha, what a mistake. We flew from two separate airports because we live near two different major airports and met them on the ship. Things started going downhill when the Bitch asked my wife what books she had read lately? My wife was finishing a book on Christianity in Great Britian during the early period. Bitch says, "My father said religion is for people with weak minds, you don 't believe that crap do you?" And then she goes into an hour rant on how God is not real.
The next day we tour several museums and enjoy a walk around London. Trouble starts when my step counter on my Samsung phone says I have walked farther than her fucking husband. She believes they walk farther than us and the extra steps I walk when I wander off to look at various displays or admire the view are measured at a higher rate than her husband's shitty Apple watch. Over the course of the next ten days, this becomes a serious problem for her and a source of constant irritation.
It agitates this bitch so much, that before we meet them for the daily excursion, I go walk two laps of the ship before we meet them. This gives me 1/2 mile of additional distance/steps and this fucker cannot catch up, hahahahahaha.
They only go on recommended ship excursions, no shopping, no wandering to see sites unaccompanied. We gladly take the extra bus ride to go see stuff we like or the local shops. We took a side trip to Dover Castle and spent the afternoon wandering the place, hell we saw a Spitfire flying over the castle in what was one of my favorite memories of the trip. Sadly, the plane didn't show up well in pictures. But, an actual Spitfire flying over an actual critical WWII base in actual England, how cool is that???
Two days later, this bitch asks me if I felt we should have nuked the Japanese in WWII? I said, "Yes" and cited the reasons including their refusal to surrender and their plans to fight to the death as a nation. She exploded, she hates Truman, she hates America, she fucking knows they would have surrendered if America had filmed the nuke tests and then sent the film to Japan for them to review. I cited their war crimes, the torture and murder of American POW's and civilians, the enslavement of Koreans and Chinese for labor and sexual slavery, the Japanese habit of beheading prisoners and conduct against cities like Nanking. Essentially, they were evil, violent, racist and unreasonable and they got what they deserved. After a tantrum and admitting she knew nothing of their conduct during the war, she fled the room. The next morning at breakfast she tried to argue with my wife to make her point. My wife declined and told her to try it with me instead, lol.
After she got mad, they started missing us on tours or getting on the other bus, we really did not care. They preferred eating in the restaurant and we preferred the self serve cafe, two different floors on the boat, thankfully. We did join them for dinner a couple of times, they refuse to eat beef, pork, chicken or seafood or whatever the special of the day was at wherever they ate and thus they require something special. They are kinda vegan, they lack some enzymes or some such shit and require extra effort at every meal. Every time the husband got a plate of food, she stole stuff and picked off his plate uninvited.
As a special treat, this fucking woman wears flip flops to the formal dining area and washes her feet with the cloth napkin at dinner. No shit, this one is impossible to make up. She has feet like a dairy cow, being over-educated is no reason for decent hygiene anyway. So during the meal she is complaining how her feet were swelling in her orthopedic shoes from the days walking so she switched to ghetto grade shower shoes for dinner. She then asks the waitress for a cup of ice and when it arrives she uses the napkin to rub the ice on her hooves during the meal. We parted before dessert was offered and headed away from them. From this point on we stayed away from each other as much as possible.
Fast forward five days to the last night of the trip. I get a text from the husband that says, "Sorry you turned out not to be compatible travel friends, good luck on your future travels, we have canceled any future plans with you." I replied, "Yes, we decided to do the same thing and I canceled our future plans a week ago." And blocked them.
The trip was fun when they were not around, people talked to us when they were not around. We had dinner with people other than them and had a wonderful time. We did excursions with people other than them and had fun.
Now, what about Viking? They were great at the airport and we got a cab to the ship. The downside was the van driver had no idea Viking was a cruise line and he was looking for a boat. He drove around for an extra hour before he got the courage to ask if we were going to a hotel.
Viking does include damn near everything in the total cost, nothing was extra except tips and selected tours. The restaurants serve versions of the food in the "World Cafe" so there is no reason to go to them unless you have brought to many nice dress shirts, they are filled with the same elderly people as everything else. They even had an old drunk bastard who loved dressing like Joe Biden and talking leftist politics to loudly.
The room was nice, smaller than you might think and the balcony was great for sitting watching the boat leave port or whatever. They kept it spotless and we tipped our stateroom attendants extra since they went the extra mile. I had them do a little laundry, socks washed 50 cents each, lol. It came back clean, folded and in a gift box.
Viking is also a great cruise if you have dementia, are crippled or aged or have serious mobility issues. We saw several people who probably had no idea why there was an ocean so close to their bedroom. If you are aged and no space is available in the retirement home, for the same, $8-10K a month you can ship granny on a trip around the world. About 50% of the ship cannot walk at 2 miles per hour or climb stairs. So you have to sift thru them to find people who can enjoy the walks and trips and maybe chat with over dinner.
The most entertaining part of the trip is the elevators, there are two sets of four elevators, so when you stand waiting for a ride, any one of them will ding. 90% of the time it is behind you. We had an old guy on our deck who missed his elevator EVERY single time. "DING!" and he starts looking for the door to open, it opens behind him to the left, he looks behind him to the right, the door closes and elevator moves on. He pushes the button, a min later,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"DING!" and he looks front left, it opens front right and closes before he moves. Every morning he was stuck at the elevators. We said, "Good Morning" and held the door for him when he was trapped there and we saw him. It became a habit to get this poor guy to breakfast before he starved.
Update: There are two or three videos of the cruise on YouTube now. There was a weird couple of "bloggers" with 156 followers filming their every adventure and making the crews life a hell by constantly asking for access to people or places on the boat or walking around with that stupid "selfie stick" poking it thru the crowd to film themselves. And a guy who lives on the Thames and videos ships coming and going. Canceling the next trip was as easy as booking it, maybe more so. While more travel in retirement is still the plan, these miserable people have really put my wife off cruising. It will take some time to repair that problem. After a month to think about it, I still enjoyed the cruise. The cabin was smallish, but I enjoy my truck camper and it was bigger than that.
The longest line I waited in was maybe 8-10 people long the entire two weeks. The food was very nice all the time. Every meal had something different to try, they always had good sushi and baked goods. Tea time was handy if you got back to the boat in time and were starving. There were several groups of people who all came from the same city or state and had become fast friends so they had plenty of fun together. We met two retired Air Force navigators who lived a few miles away from us at the Greenwich Observatory. We were all polite, but they were officers and I retired a SNCO so they had zero interest in even dining together, it was mutual so no worries.
Viking does a great job getting you off the ship too. Busses to the airport were on time and they had staff in the dozens to get you and your luggage to the check-in on time. There was one single south Asian guy who reeked of dry piss and stale unwashed pussy so bad he would gag people. He about choked a few people at lunch one day and I was making a face and looking away when an older guy asked me, "Can you smell that?" I nodded, he said, "My wife is turning green." and chuckled. Then he mentioned it to a ship's officer who came by. The next day the stinker was odor free. No drama, it was just addressed and corrected.
If you hate long miserable lines, do not require a casino, orgy, drunk young people and Vegas style entertainment to travel they are a good choice. Everything you needed to enjoy the trip, except the post trip tip, was really included. Except travel companions and you need to choose them carefully.
The things you learn about people when you spend time with them are surprising, lol.
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