I'm on Viking's new expedition ship this week, Viking Octantus.
It's been a great cruise... And one of the most extraordinary aspects has been the incredible access that I've had to the chairman of Viking, Torstein Hagen.
He's very personable... very easy to talk to. You see him all over the ship.
And I've already had several opportunities to chat with him including about ten minutes one-on-one one day.
Now to give you an idea of what a interesting charming funny guy Torstein Hagen is...
I want to play a little video clip that I shot at a cocktail party with a bunch of journalists.
Various people were up giving speeches and Torstein Hagen couldn't help but butt in at one point. Watch...
Now that's funny! He's not the chair... he's not a chair... He's the Chairman!
Anyway, he's got a very funny sense of humor.
I was really interested to talk to him. The next day I had about ten minutes with him.
We had a really interesting conversation. One of the things that surprised me was to find out that...
He does not like to stay in the owner's suite when he's aboard a Viking ship.
They have a really fancy high-end owner suite which I always assumed was for the owner...
But when Torstein Hagen's aboard he prefers to stay in the exact same kind of cabin that I'm staying in. It's called a Junior Suite.
And (it's) super comfortable for me... And Torstein Hagen is actually just down the hall from me...
...In a cabin just like this. He's a regular guy when he's onboard.
Very approachable. I've seen him all around the ship. I saw him getting a haircut in the spa.
I've seen him in the buffet several times.
Just a real nice approachable guy.
it was funny when I was talking to him about this I asked him are you staying in the owner's suite? And he said "why would I?"
And I said because you ARE the owner!
But I think as a businessman he understands that it's far better to have a paying passenger pay full price for the Owner's Suite and for him to stay in a Junior Suite.
Now one of the things I asked him about was Viking's future plans. Would they be building any more expedition ships?
Well of course there's the one that's already announced, the Orion that will be coming out later this year.
But after that he said no. He thinks that two is the right number of expedition ships for Viking.
But there will be six more ocean ships...
Like the previous ocean ships... Same kind of floor plan and design. Pretty much identical to those...
Six more of those will be coming out in the future...
And then after that they'll see what happens and see where they are.
Now Viking has had a little bit of a hard time recently, as all the cruise lines have, because of the pandemic...
And then now because of what Torstein Hagen referred to as "The Damn War".
He's talking of course about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Viking has one of their river ships in Ukraine right now and five of their river ships in St Petersburg, Russia, right now.
So, it's a tricky time for Viking, but...
You know, things are definitely better now than they were right during the pandemic when everything was shut down.
Well, I have really enjoyed my cruise on Viking Octantus...
And you'll be seeing lots more videos about it on my YouTube channel in the coming weeks.
The highlight for me was meeting the chairman, Torstein Hagen...
And having a chance to talk to him. He's just a real nice approachable guy.
If you want to learn more about him... Forbes magazine did a really interesting piece about him a few years ago.
Just go to Google, search for Torstein Hagen Forbes and you'll find the article.
You can learn all about the very fascinating Chairman of Viking Cruises