One of my first priorities when we boarded the Viking Sky in December was to seek out the ship’s Hotel Manager Ronald Schweighardt to help arrange a space for a reunion cocktail party for the folks who were with us on the much-rerouted 2021/2022 World Cruise.  Because the ship on that first post-covid cruise sailed at half capacity, we got to know a lot of our fellow passengers really well – plus we had the unique “bonding” experience of commiserating about 138 days in a row of Covid saliva tests! 

I’m sure that for many of us, it was the uniqueness of that cruise that made us want to do another.

We’re at almost full capacity this time, but I felt strongly that we just over 80 (!)  21/22 alumni deserved a reunion party.  

To that end, we did our best to connect with folks through Facebook and Cruise Critic. In the hopes that we hadn’t missed too many people, I also asked the Hotel Manager if they could add the reunion event to the Viking Daily so that anyone I missed would (hopefully) see it.

There aren’t a ton of spaces on the ship that are both unused in the afternoon and large enough to hold 80 people, but the Wintergarden is just about perfect. It’s booked every sea day from 4 until 5 for high tea, but then there’s a pre-dinner window of opportunity for a cocktail hour.

Yesterday, the Guest Services Manager, Nico Thiart, confirmed our event for today. As an added bonus, the amazingly talented Ric Agudo (aka “Enrico”), who was the Viking Band keyboard player in 21/22 and has since been deservedly promoted to resident pianist, was booked to play for us – AND we were given a bartender!

But before the festivities, I took in two lectures: one on the Vikings, by Dr. Bryan Babcock, and a second on Polynesian gods, by Patrick Goodness, who is rapidly becoming my favourite lecturer of this leg of the cruise.

And then there was today’s special lunchtime culinary event: CHEESECAKE! We continue to be absolutely in awe of the abilities of Viking’s pastry chef and his team for creating not only delicious desserts, but also incredibly beautiful ones.

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All of the decorations below (exclusing Adrian, in the first photo!) are made of metallic looking sugar. The calla lilies were particularly impressive.

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After all that rich cheesecake, Ted headed off to walk laps, but I decided to park myself in a quiet corner to read. The ocean is rolling today, and the thought of swaying on the outside deck held no appeal.

After an interesting science lecture on “Ocean currents, gyres, and climate” by Dr.Claudia Hackbarth, it was time to change into dinner hour clothes and head to our reunion event!

As always, Viking came through and then went above and beyond, not only giving us a venue, but those aforementioned bartenders, canapés, AND Enrico.

So many familiar faces (even though we spent 80% of the 21/22 WC masked)! So many names I’ve misplaced! I tried to get snapshots of as many folks as possible, and collected a few others from our facebook group (thank you!).

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After that cheesecake lunch, followed by cocktails and canapés, we opted for a light supper in the World Cafe before the evening’s production show “Duets”.

The wind is whistling. The boat is rocking.

Off to bed.