Viking Sun passengers (‘guests’) are almost uniformly exceptionally courteous and friendly. Partially responsible, I suspect, is the extreme courtesy and friendliness of every member of the crew (mandated no doubt by management).  Pass any staff member and you are greeted with a variation of “Good morning. Have a very pleasant day” said with conviction.  The ship is also very big on cleanliness.  We are encouraged to wash hands frequently and every entrance to a dining facility includes wash basins & soap plus a sanitizer station.  The crew is constantly cleaning and maintaining everything—washing windows, varnishing railings, etc.

Sea days mean the return of the bridge program.  New cruise ‘guests’ replace those who left—though we don’t, as of yet, have as many replacements as departures.  Still it’s a good crowd. 

Sunday also means another interdenominational service led by our amazingly talented, versatile, and hard-working cruise director Heather.  This Sunday she delivered another excellent homily and led a service of prayers, readings, and hymns to the accompaniment of a Viking pianist. For this segment of the cruise there are two passengers who are Roman Catholic priest on board and they have volunteered to do a mass as well so more opportunity for Sunday worship. (See Chris’ post below.)

Interdenominational Church Services on Sunday seem patterned on an abbreviated version of Episcopal services I’ve taken part in.  These are held for a sizeable group in the Star Theater at 9:30 a.m. Each Service includes a Call to Worship (with a confession of faults); a Responsive Reading (derived from a Psalm); a Hymn; an Affirmation of Faith (a standard Creed); Prayers (of the Faithful) followed by The Lord’s Prayer; a Lectionary Text {so far, a reading from one of the Epistles); a Hymn; a Message (i.e., Homily); and finally, Blessing of Peace & Dismissal. The Hymns and texts are all very familiar, save for the mutual sharing of Peace that curiously entails fist-bumping.  The Service is led by our Cruise Director, who has delivered thoughtful and articulate homilies based on the scriptural readings and with her operatic training leads as well as directs our singing.    

     A Holy Catholic Mass is scheduled for the second leg of the Cruise (from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso).  (What a “non-holy” Mass on a Viking ship full of old fogies would look like or why the interdenominational service isn’t also “holy” escapes me!  Not so, what seems to be clerical insensitivity!)  The Masses are being celebrated at 8 a.m. by two priests from northeastern PA who apparently are on a Sun vacation for that period.  The much smaller gathering of 50 or so fits comfortably in the ship’s nightclub and the backdrop of musical instruments are fittingly over-shadowed by a rear-projected triptych of stained glass windows, which our Cruise Director thoughtfully provided. Of course given their similar traditions, the sequence of prayers in the two services and the sentiments expressed are similar, but even with a shorter homily the Mass lasts a bit longer. It is basically a communion service and features readings from Old and New Testaments (including a Gospel passage) as well as appropriate offertory and sacrificial prayers and ritual. –Chris