Viking Orion

Viking Orion was handed over by Fincantieri at Ancona on June 7, 2018 and named a week later at Livorno, in the Fortezza Vecchia, by the retired NASA astronaut Anna Fisher. She was announced as Viking Spirit and renamed before delivery. The new name points at the constellation and at NASA’s Orion crew vehicle, which Fisher worked on, and it is not only decoration: she was built with a planetarium, and Viking has not put one in any ship since.

The dome

That planetarium is the whole case for choosing this hull over her sisters. The Star-class ships are otherwise interchangeable, Orion shares her 745 feet, her 94-foot beam, her 465 staterooms and her 930 guests with nine other Viking vessels, and a passenger set down in the atrium would have no way to tell which one she was on. The dome is the exception. It runs astronomy programs and nature films, and on a high-latitude itinerary it does something a lecture theater cannot, which is show you the sky you are under when the sky is overcast.

Be clear about the scale of it. This is one room on a ship where every other room is standard issue. If the planetarium is not worth anything to you, then Orion is Viking Neptune with a different name on the bow, and you should choose on itinerary instead.

What is not aboard

Orion is the senior ship in this group and carries the fleet’s argument plainly. There is no casino. Nobody under eighteen sails, which is a rule and not a hint. There are no photographers on the gangway, no art auction, no surcharge on the alternative restaurants. One shore excursion in every port is in the fare, along with beer and wine at lunch and dinner, Wi-Fi and the spa.

The result is a ship that carries 930 people on 47,800 tons, roughly half the passenger density of a mainstream vessel the same size, and spends the money on space and quiet rather than on attractions. Whether that is a bargain depends entirely on whether you would have bought the excursions anyway.

Vancouver, and what came before it

On this site she is an Alaska ship and nothing else: every sailing on her schedule leaves Vancouver, ten to fourteen nights, running into 2029. Viking put her into Alaska for the first time in 2019, brought her back early from the Pacific in 2020 to do it again, and has now made it her entire year of work in the booking window.

That is a narrowing. Orion used to range: the Caribbean in 2021, Australia and New Zealand in the summer of 2022–23, Japan in 2024. The Australasian season is also where she had the worst week of her career. On January 2, 2023 New Zealand asked her to leave its waters because her hull was carrying too much algae and barnacles, and Adelaide then refused her a berth for the same reason. Viking put divers over the side in international waters to scrub her, and four ports were missed with the passengers stuck aboard. It was a housekeeping failure rather than anything structural, but it was a very public one.

Who she suits

Adults who want Alaska done at the pace of the destination, long port days, an included excursion in each one, and a ship small enough to tie up rather than tender. The lecture program and the planetarium are the entertainment, and on a glacier itinerary that is the right kind of entertainment.

She is wrong for families, since no one under eighteen is permitted. She is wrong for anyone who wants a casino, a water park or a late night. And she is wrong for anyone shopping between Viking ships on the basis of the ship: apart from the dome, she is the same vessel as the rest of the class, and the only real question is where she is going.