My husband and I chose this cruise because it was an affordable way to check out Viking, and we hadn't taken a holiday cruise previously. We are experienced cruisers but not with Viking. We picked up the cruise partway through in Lisbon, so we had no time to explore before embarkation. The first 48 hours were rough. There were maintenance problems with our cabin (a blocked drain caused disgusting material to come into the shower) and the table on our verandah was unusable because it rocked back and forth. We also waited over an hour for our food at lunch in the restaurant on the first full day. Once the maintenance issues were fixed, things improved. The food was amazing; we ate most of our meals in the cafe and the service there was wonderful. We thoroughly enjoyed the ship's entertainers and musical productions. We went to movies and many ship lecturers' presentations. There was always something interesting to do if we wanted, and plenty of places to sit quietly and read a book if we wanted down time. The seas were very rough and due to rain we were unable to visit the scheduled ports of The Azores and Hamilton, Bermuda, so that was disappointing, but safety comes first. A stop in Madeira, Funchal was substituted, and the included excursion there was an excellent overview of the island. I found the cabin to be cramped compared to the other cruise line we have sailed most often. Storage was especially poor and there were several ways it could have been improved if the cabin had been designed better. We were especially impressed with the friendliness and accessibility of the ship's officers. We had never been on a ship where the captain made a point of stopping to talk with folks in the public areas; the cruise directors, hotel manager, and others did the same thing. While I would not recommend a Trans-Atlantic cruise in December, I highly recommend Viking and the Viking Sky!! It was a wonderful vacation. We now have two more Viking cruises booked for 2020 and 2021.
Spacious bathroom, wonderful shower (once it was fixed), loved the no-fog mirror. Hated the heated floors. They hurt my feet and made the room too hot. I had to block the door open to reduce the temperature and couldn't go in there in my bare feet. The cabin itself was smaller than similar cabins on other ships but it was comfortable enough. Good selection of movies and TV shows on demand. The verandah was nice although I didn't get to use it as much as I wanted due to the bad weather. Storage was poor, too few drawers and a small closet, and we are light packers! The cabin was actually the weakest link in the whole Viking experience.
We didn't arrive in Lisbon until early evening and had to go directly to the ship. The drive through the city with all of the Christmas lights was beautiful!