lackcreativity

So far, we have always used the TripMate insurance through Viking, and before that even with Globus land based tours. Yes, I have learned there are multiple good reasons why that may not be a good choice. We had an excellent experience with TripMate during a case of food poisoning in Venice that interrupted a land based tour. However, that was ten years ago and fortunately we have not had a similar experience since. My recommendation may be out of date. In the past, the voucher associated with a CFAR claim was acceptable to us. We love Viking, and always figured that we would book another cruise. We also figured we would never cancel except for a cover reason. Experience has led us to realize that neither of those predictions are guaranteed! Since we are now closer to the end of our travel days than to the beginning, and since we have learned about the possible pitfalls with the vouchers, we are more leery. We accepted and used a voucher one time without issue, and were grateful to have the option. However, I am not sure we would want to do so again. Sorry if my mixed message does not help your decision. I guess I am saying that you have to consider all your circumstances. Hope you enjoy Viking as much as we have!

On the web page with the possible excursions in each port, you can click on each excursion for more details. You may well find that out on your own, but I remember when I was here for our first cruise. What seems obvious later isn't always clear on first view!

We actually like Viking's food! Our issue is the repetition of ports in the itineraries, especially in the Mediterranean. We have been exploring the idea of Oceania, which has a much more varied selection of stops in that region. However, I am having a hard time making the change. We have loved each of our Viking cruises, and the ships and crew are practically perfect in our eyes!

We do the same. It is also valuable to us that we receive the same lovely service that everyone else receives. Dinner reservations in advance are never a concern for us, and being the final ones to book excursions has had limited impact. We do remain flexible on excursions, and would use an outside vendor if there was ever something we missed that was super important for us. The only time we ever chose that path was in St. Petersburg, but we made those plans well in advance.

Sadly, I must agree. As much as we enjoyed Tea Time, it just seems difficult to add it in to any day that include breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Even if we just have a salad for lunch and then go to Tea, I am not hungry at dinner time. Such a dilemma!

Did you know that on the Viking website Itinerary for an individual cruise, when you view the display of potential excursions in each port you can click on each excursion for a more detailed description? The Empires of the Mediterranean with Viking was our first ocean cruise. We used the included excursions in most of the ports, supplemented with time on our own and the use of Viking shuttles to return post excursions. For example, in Dubrovnik the included excursions was very good, but we remained after the tour to have lunch and walk the walls on our own. We did select the optional excursion in Athens to be able to go up to the Acropolis, and an optional one in Koper to go the Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle. Both were good choices for us, in particular because of a personal obsession with castles. Your choices may vary. The included excursion in Zadar was less than satisfactory, but it was seven years ago and I thought our guide was disappointing. If you like Old Towns and churches (and I do) that is a location very easy to do on your own. If you like natural beauty, the optional excursion to Krka National Park from Zadar seems to be highly regarded on Cruise Critic.

It is possible to view the likely offering of excursions for a given cruise before your exact ones are listed in My Viking Journey. On the Viking website, find your cruise and on the Day by Day listing of ports, click Read More (no excursions on Day 1). Scroll down for a list of possible excursions. One will be labeled Included. You can click on each option for a more detailed description. All the ones shown may not be offered on any given cruise.

Sold Out Excursion Question - Viking Ocean - Cruise Critic Community Excursion booking - Page 2 - Viking Ocean - Cruise Critic Community Here are two more, again I didn't preview them, just copied them for you. There are several tricks of the trade for booking excursions, most likely you will find them in these links above, as the Viking crowd is generally a helpful bunch. Just a few highlights: Spots on an optional excursion are not yours until paid for, just putting them in your cart does not complete the process. Sold out excursions frequently have places that open up, so check back frequently. Even from our Veranda cabins (last to book), we have always been pretty satisfied with our bookings. We missed out on a couple over our five cruises, but overall good. Read excursions carefully to determine if you will be mostly on a bus for a panoramic tour, or will there be a walking portion. Also, note the difference between "see" a sight versus "visiting" the sight. See most often means from the outside, Visit usually means go inside. For example, you might see the Colosseum from the outside, or you might go inside. Enjoy your first Viking cruise!

Thanks for great tips and advice on booking optional excursions! - Viking Ocean - Cruise Critic Community The link above I found just a page or two later than this first page. I didn't really scan much of the thread, but I did want to offer you one example. This is a pretty frequent question, and if you scroll through a number of pages of the Viking thread I am sure you will find a number of others.

I do that all the time. It's easy enough to do with Google Maps. Enter the destination of your excursion, click on directions, add in the cruise port as the other location and enter. It should come up with the driving time. I use this also to gauge how far it is to walk from one place to another in a city. You just need to click on the little walking person figure to switch from driving distance. I don't walk as fast as the little Google person, so I always add some time!

Viking does offer an option to past customers to delay the pay-in-full timing when you have another cruise already booked or when you book onboard. Be certain to request it when booking, as sometimes it is not directly offered, but it will be honored when requested. Final payment will be 6 months from sailing in those cases. If you wait until 2025 and find the availability you want with Viking, then keep that in mind going forward. Many of us use that strategy to manage our payment dates. In our early days with Viking interest rates were so low it didn't seem like such an issue. Now, a year's worth of earned interest is worth some effort!

Since Malta was supposed to be an overnight, will you at least get to spend Christmas Eve visiting there? I was originally tempted by this itinerary, but the winter scheduling, the four sea days, and the uncertainty over the North African ports made me decide this was not the one I was hoping to find. This is really an unacceptable circumstance in my opinion.

My advice is based on instinct, not experience, so hopefully others will have more specific advice. If you encounter this problem when your scheduled booking time arrives, immediately call Viking to have an agent handle it for you over the phone.

Flyer Talker, Thanks for your input on my comments regarding Viking Air and our upcoming trip from Baltimore to France. Honestly, I was aware of much of what you said. In the past we would drive to Philadelphia or Washington to improve our flight options, but that became very tiresome in itself. I know well that for us there is only one preferred flight to Europe daily from BWI, and it is that British Airways flight to Heathrow. That was what I meant by our "usual" flight. I know how much some people complain about LHR, but to us, it is familiar. I knew about the long layover, but had planned to check in to the adjacent hotel at the airport for a shower and maybe a nap. That might be less tiring that the three flight itinerary we were assigned by Viking. However, the upcharge of $500+ per person along with the cost of the hotel room was not acceptable for us. We are not frequent flyers outside of one international trip a year and a couple of trips to Boston. To claim that air travel is in turmoil was an overstatement on my part. Supply and demand is certainly at play in the market now. It may be naive of me to expect to see prices from five years ago in the future!

We have always purchased Viking Air, but for the first time I felt we did not get any value from it for our trip this June. For the itinerary I wanted, from our usual gateway on our usual British Airways through Heathrow, they wanted to charge us another $500 to $700 pp depending on when we called. The flights they picked seemed ridiculous: outbound we fly from Baltimore to Detroit to Paris to Lyon, and the return leg is similar to our preferred route (Marseille to LHR to BWI). The only reason we accepted that is based on favorable timing. The trip to France will take place during daytime hours, departing at 10:50 AM. I will accept some inconvenience to avoid those overnight flights in coach! My overall point is that since Covid (I know, tired of hearing that) air travel just seems in turmoil. Even our routine trips from Baltimore to Boston are much more expensive than they used to be.