Cruise News - Maritime News

Viking Glory was designed to rejuvenate the cruise experience on the Baltic Sea and offer experiences for all passengers.

In two years, Viking Line's flagship has fulfilled its promise and drawn heaps of praise from its passengers. The crew already know what passengers especially like on board the vessel.

Viking Glory was christened with champagne and cast off for the first time from Turku harbour on course for Mariehamn and Stockholm on March 1, 2022. Two years, 1,420 sailings and 2,057,000 passengers later,  Viking Line’s major 225 million euro investment has turned out to be a success from both its passengers' and the company's perspective. Together with Viking Grace, Viking Glory dominates the Turku–Stockholm route, with a market share of more than 70 per cent, and has also got new target groups to take a cruise. Among other developments, the new vessel has attracted far more Swedish passengers to the route and is also a popular vessel for conferences. 

"We designed Viking Glory to give people an experience for all the senses: views of the archipelago virtually pour in through the large windows, out on the deck there are lovely sun terraces, the restaurants serve the best food on the Baltic Sea, and wonderful, specially made mattresses await in the cabins," says Johanna Boijer-Svahnström, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications at Viking Line.

"Key parts of the concept for our climate-smart flagship are to offer our passengers a lot to choose from and to invest in wellness. This has met the expectations of increasingly quality-conscious and demanding customers extremely well. Finns today are prepared to invest in quality, even luxury. Glory’s popularity played an important role in our record earnings for last year."

This is what has taken Viking Glory’s passengers by storm

Luxury cabins with hotel-quality beds

At Viking Line, people have noticed the change in passenger expectations for their cruise experience so the new vessel was equipped with more cabins with windows and double beds.   

"The best cabins and suites on Viking Glory are booked well in advance and are always the ones to sell out first. The top-quality specially made mattresses in our cabins are so wonderful to sleep on that we're asked all the time where people can buy them," says Stig Pernell, intendant on Viking Glory.

Unforgettable dinner in Fyren

According to surveys, food is the most important reason why people take a cruise, and that's true for both Finns and Swedes. On Viking Glory, passengers have ten different restaurants and bars to choose from.

"On the upper level of the restaurant Kobba, which takes its name from the old pilot station Kobba Klintar in the Åland islands, is the Baltic Sea's most luxurious dining venue, Fyren - "The Lighthouse"  – a separate room that rotates 360 degrees. In a short time, Fyren has become a favourite for groups, and it's no wonder: stunning panoramic views of the Baltic Sea are found here. Nearly everyone who enters Fyren for the first time breaks out in a spontaneous 'wow'!"

Large panoramic windows with sea views

With Viking Glory's enormous panoramic windows, the unique landscape of the Baltic archipelagos can be seen everywhere on board. Passengers appreciate being in touch with nature, and they get that on Viking Glory.

"The views have definitely become Glory’s trump card. Customers constantly praise them – in fact, perhaps even more than we may have expected," says Stig Pernell.

Details that many want to share

The Swedish architecture firm Koncept succeeded in designing many places and details on Viking Glory that passengers want to immortalize and share on social media. The features shared most frequently in social media are the glass floor in Vista Room, through which you can look down into the rolling archipelago waters, and the delightful staircase on Deck 9, where one of the works in the artist Stefan Lindfors's sculpture trilogy 'Below the Surface' is located. 

Pleasures in the spa facilities

On Viking Glory, you can also exercise with a view of the archipelago landscape, and Viking Line’s first gym has become an established part of the vessel's wellness services. Special saunas and bubble pools in Archipelago Spa and facial and body treatments using products from Babor and Elemis that are about 20 per cent more affordable than on land entice passengers to visit our spa. The spa facilities have their own group of frequent customers who regularly visit the vessel to enjoy the spa luxury.

"Customers often book luxurious duo treatments, and by far the most popular is our Archipelago Spa treatment, which starts with a back peeling, continues with a relaxing massage and ends with a facial treatment tailor-made for the customer. In the pool facilities, our customers especially enjoy the bubble pools and panorama sauna," says Bettina Rönnblad, Spa Manager at Viking Line.

Unique service

All of Viking Line’s vessels are known for their satisfied customers. According to the EPSI Rating 2023 survey, customer satisfaction on the Turku route is very high and well above the industry average.

"Viking Glory has not just completely wonderful passengers but also a totally unique culture of service! I hear all the time from our guests what fine service they got when they came on board and how the staff endeavour to make the cruise a perfect experience. I recently went through the customer responses from our own department. Of the nearly 200 customer comments, 92.7 per cent were positive – even exuberant," says Tax-Free Manager Jamppe Haakana. 

A summer day on the sun terrace

Viking Glory has two terraces where you can enjoy the summer sun from morning to evening. The glazed-in Viking Terrace with infrared heating on Deck 11 keeps the mood warm well into the autumn. The Vista Deck sun terrace at the rear of the vessel on Deck 10 has been so popular that last summer we expanded and added 50 seats.

www.vikingline.com/