Our first full day in Paris - and the tour that almost was

Started off our first full day onboard Viking Radgrid with breakfast in the restaurant. Breakfast is served with multiple options that allow you to choose what you want to eat and how much based on your schedule and preferences. There is table service from a menu. There is also somewhat of a buffet option with cold and hot foods available to serve yourself. A chef stands behind the center counter space replenishing the hot food and cooking made to order eggs. 

We opted for table service this morning and you could tell by the dining staff's reaction and delay of service that they weren't too pleased with our choice. I was looking forward to trying out this ship's version of Eggs Benedict. My first thought when this dish arrived was how lonely it looked with only one Egg Benedict. Guess this ship wasn't a believer in the buddy system. The Canadian Bacon was also uniquely presented as a thick slice cut roast beef style that was then folded over onto the English Muffin. I excitedly started to dig in by cutting into the poached egg only for the egg to slough right off and seemingly disintegrate disappearing into the surface of my plate. 

One rule of thumb to keep in mind with Viking Cruises and booking ship provided excursions - If you want to cancel and get a refund for an optional excursion, you must let the ship know 48 hours in advance. This rule proved to be frustrating to us when it came time for the afternoon tour.

The first ship tour we signed up for pre-cruise was the included option called Panoramic Paris. This four hour tour ran from 8:30AM until 12:30PM and was listed as Easy. Here is Viking's provided description for the tour: See the major sights of the romantic "City of Light" with a knowledgeable local guide. Meet your motor coach and drive along the famed Champs-Elysees, viewing the Arc de Triomphe, commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate his victories. Pass many of Paris' classic highlights, including the beautiful Grand Palais and Petit Palais, Place de la Concorde, Bridge of Alexandre III, the celebrated Louvre Museum, and La Conciergerie. Ride along the banks of the Seine to I'ile de la Cite, where you will stroll through the island and marvel at the stately facade of Notre Dame de Paris before reboarding your coach. Continue into the Latin Quarter and view the picturesque St. Sulpice Church, Luxembourg Gardens and the Museee d' Orsay. Conclude your drive around Paris with Les Invalides complex, which houses Napoleon's Tomb and the military school.

Given that we'd already done a Paris highlights tour during a previous visit and realizing that this description included a walking segment, Dad did not feel comfortable attending this excursion after all the walking we did on the London tours. One of the things I found surprising during the first day's excursion briefing (which thankfully worked a lot better when it came to streaming to our cabin TVs than our experience on the Viking Mississippi) was the mention by our Cruise Director Mia that there would be no front seat saving on tour buses for those with mobility issues. I don't know if this was different due to being a European river cruise or a change that was made since we last cruised with Viking. Countless other cruise lines we've used both river and ocean have had at least the first row of bus seats set aside for those with mobility issues. Another mention that surprised me is when Mia mentioned that they won't be caring if you aren't there when it's time to board the bus. There will not be any calls to your cabin or knocks at your door. We've been in the group on the bus waiting to leave when the shore excursion team is scrambling to try and reach that one couple who didn't show up on time in an effort to confirm that they aren't still planning to come. As a cruise line that is required to be all adults on board, I can understand making the cruiser be responsible for being at the bus on time. 

Since there are no tour photos to provide, please enjoy these candid photos I took while the ship was empty:

The unmonitored (besides the ever present cameras) electronic scanners that cruisers were on the honor system to scan themselves in and out when leaving the ship. They did bring a smile to my face when the screen would display "Welcome Back Danielle" to confirm the scan had worked. It may look like it but no, the ship was not listing while this photo was being taken. 

How it looks when your ship is tied up at the dock next to another ship and you need to pass through the second ship to reach the gangway. 

When we boarded the ship on day one, we took the time at the suggestion of past cruisers to visit Guest Services and let them know that we'd like to be in the Leisure Group for excursions. The Leisure Group is Viking's nice way of describing the slow group that might need more time during a walking section and/or might need an alternative option when the other tourgoers would normally be climbing a bunch of stairs or going to a locale with uneven terrain or tight spaces. The crew member at the desk assured us that we would be put on the list for that group. We confirmed with her that this would be the case for All Excursions and she confirmed yes that was true. Our only thought at this moment was that it applied to more than just excursions with walking times. 

Given that this was our first full day onboard and the excursions had been closed on MyVikingJourney a few days before the start date of this itinerary, we had asked at Guest Services the night before how much walking our afternoon tour, The Palace of Versailles, required. The different gentleman manning the desk confirmed that it would be a good bit of walking. We asked if it was too late to cancel and were told yes, as it was less than 48 hours before the tour. I know this itinerary with four days before the cruise in a hotel was unique but it really seemed wrong to stick to a 48 hour cancellation rule when we hadn't even yet been on the ship for 48 hours. Without the ability to cancel, we decided to try and make the best of it believing at the start of this tour that we would be included in the Leisure Group.

The Palace of Versailles is an optional tour (aka upcharge), to use the terminology Viking includes on the daily schedules, and is listed as moderate. This four hour tour cost us each $209 to book. The description from Viking's website reads: Enjoy a day at the former home of French kings: the awe-inspiring Chateau de Versailles. The palace and its sprawling gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, began as a small hunting lodge. Over the years, it was enlarged by each of its three resident kings - most famously Louis XIV, the "Sun King." A local guide will accompany you to the chateau, where you will marvel at the extravagance and excess of French royalty. See the state apartments of the king, the Hercules Drawing Room with its magnificent painted ceiling and the famed Hall of Mirrors - the glittering corridor of chandeliers and glass in which the Treaty of Versailles was signed, thus ending World War I. Learn about court life in the 18th century, and see the queen's apartments and the chamber of Marie Antoinette. Later, there will be time to explore the vast elaborate gardens. 

Upon arrival at the Palace of Versailles, our tour bus circled around until parking on this large open cobblestone covered space that was being used as a parking lot for visitors. Our guide had us all file off the bus and stand on the uneven cobblestones for a not so brief overview of what we would be seeing during the tour. When he finally finished talking, Dad approached him to ask about the leisure group. The guide declared that there was no such leisure group on this tour. When we mentioned how we had signed up with Viking to be in this group, the guide led us to believe that he was the one choosing not to accommodate such a group. We asked about options like a room to wait in while the walking tour went on or even to stay on the bus until the group returned. The guide refused both options and instead told us we'd have to go find some coffee shop to sit and wait gesturing a couple blocks away across this cobblestone covered parking lot. If that was something feasible, we would have simply walked across the cobblestones to enter the palace grounds as the bus was parked several yards away from the entrance. 

Despite our attempt to continue the conversation, the guide turned and left leading the remainder of the group toward the palace entrance. Dad did offer to make his own way to a cafe if I wanted to participate in the tour but I didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone. Nor, to be honest, did I feel up to a large walking tour myself. We stayed by the bus and asked the thankfully bilingual driver about staying on the bus. He too said that wasn't allowed because they had to move the buses and park elsewhere until it was time to pick the group up. However, he was a lot more considerate and enlisted the other two bus drivers to help us by making a call for a taxi to take us back to the ship. When the taxi didn't show up within the company's estimated 25 minute wait time, the bus drivers called again. This time the taxi company said it would take an hour wait. Our bus driver took the initiative to slowly escort us across the large cobblestone lot to a side street where he knew several taxis sit parked and waiting. He translated for us with the driver and told him that we needed a ride back to the dock. We are so grateful to this kind bus driver for helping us get back to the ship. We did pay out of pocket at the time for the taxi ride.

The few pictures I grabbed of the palace grounds while we were waiting for the first taxi:

Our not zoomed in perspective from in front of the buses: 

A good tip for future Viking cruisers traveling to countries with a different language - Guest Services puts out these cards with the dock address and telephone number on each port day for cruisers to take before getting off the ship. Such a card would have come in handy for us to give to the taxi driver so he could get us back to the ship despite the language barrier.

Once back at the ship, we talked to Guest Services and learned what Viking's real Leisure Group policy meant. What we didn't know beforehand, and thank you to all the social media users who felt the need to chew us out for not automatically knowing this, is that the Leisure Group is only an option for the Included tours that Viking offers. Their philosophy is that it's a choice for you to book the extra cost optional excursions and thus they are not going to offer any accommodations for those cruisers with limited mobility needs. Their stance is that if you can't make do and participate as much as everyone else in these upcharge tours, then you shouldn't participate at all. Had we not been told by the first crew member at Guest Services that All Excursions would feature a Leisure Group, then we would not have attempted this tour. In this case, the crew member should have clarified by saying "yes you will be in the Leisure Group for all included excursions. There is no such group for the optional excursions." We would have also accepted that financially we would not be getting the cost of the tour back. 

Hotel Director Sven overheard us talking to Guest Services and stepped up to help. He insisted that they couldn't give any amount of refund for the incomplete tour as it was company policy to stick to the 48 hours prior rule. He did however, agree that the guide shouldn't have told us to "go find a cafe and wait" and offered a reimbursement of the cab fare. We took him up on it and submitted the cab receipt to him. Cash was dropped off at our cabin later that evening. 

Cruise Director Mia asked us to share our experience with her as well when she'd heard about our complaint. She too agreed that the guide shouldn't have spoken that way. Mia was not surprised to hear the name when she asked us to tell her which tour guide we had. Others had reported issues with this guide in the past. She asked about our future excursion plans. We told her about having booked Utah Beach and Pointe du Hoc and Paris Cruise by Night as optional excursions later in the cruise. She wanted to make sure we were well informed with enough time to cancel before the 48 hour rule took effect. Mia took the time to show us pictures from the Utah Beach excursion and a map of the area to show the route and terrain that was where we'd be walking. She also told us that she'd assign a guide she knew well to our tour group so that we'd have a guide who would be willing to wait for the slower people and offer alternatives like pointing out shortcut routes so we wouldn't have to walk the entire path. Mia also looked out for us throughout the rest of the cruise making sure that we were doing okay and would drop what she was doing to come over and help Dad make his way on and off the ship. Thank you Mia for all of your help and consideration!

We also learned from Mia that another way to tell if you've been placed in the Leisure Group is that your tour tickets delivered to your cabin the night before will say Group L versus any other letter. We took that tip to heart and checked every included tour ticket for the group letter before deciding whether to participate. 

As seen on our tour ticket for The Palace of Versailles - we were placed in Group 4A which rode on Bus 4A and would have used Channel 1 on our Quiet VoxBoxes to hear our guide's narration. Unfortunately once our guide got past the entrance, we were no longer in range to even hear his commentary should we have decided to wait on site.

Full disclaimer - this tour was paid for with some of our On Board Credit (OBC). With the taxi fare reimbursement and the use of OBC to pay for the tour, we were not out of pocket any cost. The exception being that we would have used the large chunk of OBC for something else like the gratuities that we did end up paying out of pocket for since not enough OBC was leftover. It was also disappointing because this tour was sold out and our dinner table companions had been lamenting that they were hoping to clear the waitlist. We would have gladly handed over our tickets to them had we known about the Leisure Group policy.

To end this post on a more pleasant note, I took the time we wouldn't have had if we'd stayed on the tour to walk up on the bridge and get pictures of the Viking Radgrid and the Viking Kari docked side by side. 

If you turn your back to the ships, it also allows for a great picture of Paris' Lady Liberty.

Stepping out onto the bow after nightfall makes for a great view of the Eiffel Tower lit up as our ships untethered and started to sail away.

Later we were preceded out of the dock by the Viking Skaga and the Viking Kari perfectly framing the lit tower.

And for all my fellow foodies, here's our dinner in the restaurant from this night:

Caesar salad with anchovies from the always available or classics side of the menu. I ended up ordering this many times throughout the cruise. A few times I was surprised to find that the anchovies had a rough underside (bones, scales, abandoned tour tickets?) that scraped against my tongue. 

The NY Strip Steak also from the classics menu. I got this multiple times as well during the cruise. We ended up dining more than once with several of the same passengers by chance. One such couple had dined with us on days that I ordered the steak at dinner and then a hot dog at lunch. Halfway through the lunch, the wife asks "Do you normally eat a lot of plain food or are you just a picky eater?" I was a bit surprised that I was the one being called a picky eater given all that I've tried on my travels. It took me a moment to realize she'd only seen me order from the classics options. I politely assured her that despite my being one of the youngest passengers on this cruise, I was not the picky eater in our traveling party. Then again, the next time I happily ordered escargot for the umpteenth time after trying it on a cruise and loving it, even Dad claimed he'd never seen me try escargot. Must have been his long lost twin I was traveling with all those other times.

Our two different dessert choices:

The Eurostar Experience - Traveling as a Viking escorted group from London to Paris

The Eurostar is a high speed train that travels part of the way underneath the English Channel (a tunnel structure known as The Chunnel) as it travels between London, Paris, and a few other cities in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. It can be an easy option for day trips between these European cities. 

There are three classes of tickets you can purchase where the comfort level and inclusions get better the higher class and thus higher price that you book. A Eurostar Standard ticket gives you the smallest seat space and no included food or beverage service. The highest level, Eurostar Premier, gives you pre-boarding lounge access, the largest seats, and at seat fine dining service. 

Viking included the cost of our tickets and booked everyone at the middle Eurostar Plus level which includes a light meal served at our seats and the more spacious seats. Viking assigned everyone of us a seat with some passengers getting seats around a proper four top table while the rest of us were given seats that were arranged by twos or singles. Each non table seat had a tray table that folded down from the back of the seat in front of it that was wide enough to fit our lunch tray. They did try to accommodate anyone who let them know they were traveling with friends so they could be seated with each other. The seats were fairly spacious even by fluffy standards and we had storage similar to the tour bus overhead our seats for our small carry-on bags. Restrooms that were bigger than an airplane bathroom but smaller than an interior cruise cabin were spaced out enough that every train car had one. It could be very tricky for even those without mobility issues to walk the aisle between the double and single seats to reach those bathrooms while the train was moving. The train ride runs about 2 hours and 20 minutes. Each train car also had a ride time left countdown tracker that would display on an overhead TV alternating with informational messages and fun facts. Free onboard Wi-Fi was available for all the ticket classes.

As with any company's customer service, it's best to ask your questions of a couple different reps. Prior to the cruise, we had read in our trip information that you would be required to walk 300 yards to get to the train seats. Those who could not do so, were to let Viking know so that handicapped seats could be arranged. There was a warning that these would be first come first serve and may not be guaranteed. 

My first attempt to contact Viking customer service to request the handicapped seating (believing that it was simply less distance to walk or some sort of tram to get to the car versus more of a place for parking wheelchairs or transferring from them), resulted in a rep who insisted that to use the handicapped seating I was required to download a form, make an appointment with my local doctor (thus paying for it too), get them to fill it out as proof, submit the completed form back to Viking and wait to see if they decide to approve it. 

My second attempt to contact Viking customer service resulted in a rep who cheerfully assured me that it was as simple as letting the Viking reps at the hotel know that you'll be needing mobility assistance at the train station. No extra forms, no proof signed by our family doctor, no extra hoops necessary. I was glad to see that it was indeed as simple as that when we checked in with our Viking rep at the hotel. We also confirmed the night before that we were on the list for assistance. 

Sticking with the same tour bus #1 that our group had been assigned to all along, we were told to be on the bus ready to head to the train station by 10:15AM as our tickets were for the 12:31PM train. The letter received the night before informed us that we needed to handle checking out of the hotel ourselves by 10:05AM. Since we had charged two on site restaurant dinners to the room, we did have a charge to confirm on our credit card while checking out. We opted not to bother with the hotel buffet breakfast and used the time it would have taken to eat to wait in the long lines to check out. We still made it to the bus in plenty of time.

Once on the bus, our guide shared that while he was made aware of our mobility assistance needs, we would be required to walk with the group for a while just to get into where the mobility assistance desk is stationed. Our guide left the four of us needing assistance with the employee at the desk and started to take off with the rest of the group. When we started checking in, the employee started talking about how she wasn't seeing the mobility requests and was going to refuse to provide it. We called the guide back over and the employee changed her claim to now say that she couldn't provide it because they didn't have enough employees to push the wheelchairs for four people. Each of the more able people in the groups of 2 offered to walk along behind the escort if they could at least provide one person to push the other two people in the provided wheelchairs. 

The employee agreed and I got my power walking in whether I wanted to or not trying to keep up with the very kind employee who came to escort Dad in the wheelchair. She was so considerate and apologetic about our experience with the first employee. She did everything she could to work around the crowds and get us onto the small elevator lift. After checking us in with a desk employee monitoring the reserved handicapped seating around 11:20AM, she promised that someone would be back by 12:20PM to escort us to the train. She ended up coming back herself and spent the entire time apologizing that I had to walk and checking to make sure I was okay. I assured her that I could handle this much intermittent walking since we had over two hours of time sitting ahead of us. Before we boarded the train, she assured us that she had arranged for two wheelchairs to be available when we got off in Paris.

Our assigned seats were two seats on the right side of the train car about four rows from the back. 

Dad is just over six foot and he felt the leg room was comfortable. I had room to keep my backpack in front of my seat. Our row was that in between row where you can see the edge of the window for the row in front of you and I could look just behind my chair to see where the next window started. When you're fully inside the Chunnel, it is pitch black so you can't see anything but your own reflection. For the rest of the time it's a matter of watching grass, trees, and power lines go by so you don't miss much not having full on window views. 

Allergies and dietary preferences were asked about by the train employees before they served our light lunches. While the choices were more limited if you did have a dietary concern, for us it was simply a matter of choosing the protein in these pre-made meals.

We both chose the chicken as I believe the other choices were fish or vegetarian. Our meal choice came as a prepared bowl with slices of seasoned chicken, some spicy roasted cauliflower, kale salad, and some sort of quinoa with carrots mixture. Each meal came with a roll, an individually wrapped chocolate for dessert, and your choice of beverage including soda, wine, tea, and/or coffee. They did come back around near the end of service offering tea and/or coffee a second time. Drink refills seemed free flowing. Dad stuck to the bread and the chicken parts of the meal while I ate most of every item. 

True to the first wheelchair escorting employee's promise, we were met with two wheelchairs and two employee escorts once we arrived in Paris. The crowds getting off the train were much more hectic and it was made more frustrating by our escorts constant repeated queries about whether we really needed the chairs and whether we were really the passengers they were told to pick up. It was clear that they weren't happy with being told to pick us up and were looking for an excuse to bail. I lost count how many times I had to repeat that yes, we indeed were the passengers matching the names you were given. 

Once reunited with the rest of our Viking group, the entire lot of us were being misdirected back and forth by security guards. Finally, our local Paris Viking rep showed up and got security guards to leave us to them. They then speed walked the entire group through the station and across a couple blocks and a busy street to the waiting buses. Thankfully, one of the Viking reps saw Dad struggling to keep up and had him wait with her until she could stop traffic to give him time to get across the street. Once we were settled on the bus, we could see the groups of police officers and security guards that were cornering pickpockets and holding them against the walls of the station. Such a crazy environment that makes it a ripe situation for pickpockets to take advantage of travelers. Always play it smart as a safe traveler being careful with your personal effects and be aware of your surroundings.

The bus ride was fairly chaotic as our driver took to the Paris streets like he was in training for Le Mans. Our new Paris Viking guide tried to keep up with commentary as we drove through the city to our waiting river cruise, the Viking Radgrid. Our ship was docked at such a location that if you looked aft, you could see Paris' Lady Liberty and if you looked forward, you had a wonderful view of the Eiffel Tower. Pro Tip - snag a spot out on the open bow after it gets dark and you'll be treated to a wonderful light show coming from the Eiffel Tower. Check out my social media for a quick video of the show.

Checking in onboard was fairly quick even though only two crew were manning the desk. Unlike our past two Viking Cruises' arrival onboard as a group experience, this time we were soon acknowledged as suite guests once we checked in. The hotel manager, Sven, who was standing nearby, immediately insisted on escorting us directly to our suite cabin personally. Once there, he went over everything in the layout of the cabin and confirmed that we didn't have any needs or questions at the moment. See my earlier posts for photo walkthroughs of our aft Explorer's Suite. We spent the evening tied up with another Viking river cruise ship close enough that we could reach out and jump onto their aft Explorer's Suite balcony if we wanted to. 

On approach to sidle up next to us:

Knock knock fellow suite passenger - do you have any Grey Poupon? The closer brown railing is our balcony and the parallel one is lining the other ship's balcony.

Outside of the option for suites to get room service breakfast, all meals are served at structured times either in the Main Dining Room or starting about 30 minutes later on the Aquavit Terrace with the same menu. All dining is seat yourself and tables are shared. 

Our first meal onboard I enjoyed escargot (though my first time having it served with a pesto sauce), prime rib, and a fruit plate for dessert. Dad also went with the prime rib but chose a sweeter flaky dessert.

A little surprised to see the paired bread option be a long thin crunchy crouton versus a soft breadstick that I usually enjoy to soak up the remaining butter and garlic.

Prime Rib served with a formed mound of au gratin potatoes and string beans.

Fruit plate - most of the pieces were tender and fresh. Pretty impressive for tropical fruit in the beginnings of winter in Paris.

Dad's almond mousse caramel dessert - 

Final day in London - Bletchley Park

Our final day of included touring from our hotel in London had the whole day devoted to Bletchley Park. Each of our London hotel based days featured included tours that were the only tours offered. If you were not interested in visiting these locations, you were free as always to find your own transportation and pay your own way if you'd rather spend the time seeing other things like London's famous city attractions. We did have some group members who chose to do that. If this had been our first visit to London, I would have been tempted to do the same. This itinerary is such an immersive program designed around one theme that it really caters to those who have a deep interest in the history of D-Day. 

This museum complex is spread out over a series of buildings where they have turned the actual dwellings into exhibits. It does require a lot of walking between the buildings but there are benches throughout as well as ramps and elevators. Some areas require walking up hills and steep inclines but is mostly paved asphalt. Tickets cost £28 per adult but our admission was covered by Viking. Our Coach 1 tour time ran from 8:30AM to 5:30PM.

During the drive to Bletchley Park (a good drive away from the city so not something you can easily return early from), our guide told us that we'd be free to roam on our own for the entire time. By the time we arrived, that plan had changed to wanting us to do a guided walking tour with a guide from the museum that we were supposed to meet about halfway up amongst the buildings. Then the rest of the time would be ours to explore on our own. For some reason, only one illustrated map was provided to our guide so he had us all gather around him holding it open once off the bus in order to get a picture to use during our time here. 

After we got pictures of the map, we headed up to where we expected to meet the tour guide. The weather was cold and blustery and by the time we made it up the hill to find no sign of a tour guide, we decided to bow out of the guided outdoor walking tour and start exploring on our own. There were a couple school groups being led around but it was only crowded in the smaller buildings where a lot of the display is in one space.

There were a good bit of video components to these exhibits allowing visitors to sit and take a break from the walking to watch. Plenty of signs and written explanations so you can spend as little or as long at each display as you wanted.

I thought this way of displaying D-Day with a nod to the codebreakers outside of the Teleprinter buildings was really interesting.

Looking at the display from behind:

Large print and "tactile" or braille guides were available to pick up as you entered some buildings.

Hologram images of those who worked in these buildings were displayed on the walls along with quotes about their time here. 

There were also audio features throughout the exhibits where you could listen to the people tell their own stories.

Another section featured an example of the limited information the codebreakers would have been handed and tools for you to try your hand at figuring out the rest of the information like they did.

More geared towards kids was an area where you could learn about all the jobs held by the people who worked here and try on examples of their uniforms.

After touring several of the buildings and ending with their newest exhibit dedicated to the use of A.I. and how Bletchley Park's work was such a precursor to this new technology, I left Dad to rest on the benches while I walked over to see the exterior of The Mansion. I opted out of walking further to see the stables etc.

Once back at the main building, we visited the little cafe on site to grab sandwiches, waters, and a rocky road brownie treat for Dad. He wasn't a fan because it was also rock hard and included cherries so he went back for ice cream. Lunch was on our own and at our own expense.

After lunch, we returned to another movie viewing space inside the main building that we had skipped since there was a crowd and no more seats when we first arrived. After the movie, I browsed the gift shop and picked up a couple puzzle books featuring crosswords and cryptograms. I had visions of passing the downtime on our cruise working to solve the puzzles in these books. They sat in our suitcases untouched so long that I accidentally stored away our suitcases at home before remembering they were in the front pocket! Now I keep them next to the couch and enjoy solving the puzzles at home.

Once we returned to the hotel, we stopped at the Viking desk within the hotel lobby to turn in our Quiet Vox boxes and receive our information and train tickets for the next day's Eurostar transfer to the Viking Radgrid. We were told to keep our earbuds so we could reuse them with the ship's provided boxes but also assured that the ship would provide their own earbuds. We returned back to our room to quickly pack up our suitcases as the luggage pickup from our rooms would begin at 6:30PM. We were sent luggage tags with our transfer stickers in the mail pre-cruise but were also given ones to use when we checked in with Viking at the hotel on the first night. The information letter for this ship transfer step insisted that these new tags were the ones that had to be on our luggage or it wouldn't be picked up from our hotel rooms. I visited the Executive Lounge one last time to grab snacks and we relaxed in the room for the rest of the night.