Voyage of the Vikings

Generally, HAL sticks to the same itineraries each year. They may make minor adjustments such as adding a never-before-visited port, but the bones usually stay the same. As such, crew members hear about cruises from other crew members who have done those itineraries. Last year, shortly after I started with HAL, I heard of the Voyage of the Viking, a thirty-five day itinerary that leaves out of Boston and explores Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and Scandinavia each July. I decided that sometime during my time with the company I was going to work that cruise, I didn’t care how much begging it took. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when my contract coordinator asked me to take a contract on the Maasdam, the ship which does the Voyage. I didn’t even have to beg and plead (but trust me, I would have).

This year’s itinerary had a few variations from last year and the ship made a handful of maiden calls (first time ever visiting a port). We made a few more itinerary changes throughout the cruise due to inclement weather, but we stopped in places I had hardly dreamed of visiting and saw scenery that took my breath away.

My parents, who have never met a cruise itinerary they didn’t like, were jealous from the moment I described the cruise. A few weeks before the start of the cruise the stars collided with a combination of my parents’ work schedules and last minute reduced rates and my parents were able to book passage for the first half of the trip from Boston to Amsterdam (about 250 people sailed just the first half, and they were replaced by another 250 guests for the journey back to Boston). This was the first time my parents have sailed with me when I was working and it made the trip even more special.

Even though I have heard from friends how amazing this cruise is, it was much better than I ever expected. Whether or not I am ever again assigned to the Voyage of the Viking, it truly was a once-in-a-lifetime privilege.