Here is a promised update:
We received the email with our final docs for our cruisetour starting in Vienna on 15 June on 03 June. (Sorry for the delay in posting as we were away for a family wedding.) Or rather, I should say, we received an email from Scenic with a link to their Express Booking system. We, of course, cannot access that system as it is only for Scenic staff and TAs. (Not sure if that is the fault of our TA or Scenic--putting us into the reservation system as a TA not clients through our TA, that is. Our booking TA had a family emergency last month and left the agency--a very large one--and we've been bouncing between agents since then.)
So, had to call Scenic and after an hour and fifteen minute wait (I considered myself lucky given stories of much-longer wait times) reached a reservations agent at Scenic. She emailed us all the final documents associated with our cruisetour.
In reviewing them, I understood why everyone who has sailed with Scenic was questioning why I wanted the final documents. They provided little more information on the included tours than we had already, i.e., tour descriptions are still only a single sentence with no information on what will be seen on the tour or the duration (or start/stop times for the land portion, which should be information Scenic knows and could provide). Very disappointing. The only additional material was a transfer from the airport to the hotel (included since we are staying at the Scenic-designated hotel although we are flying in a day earlier than the tour start), meeting time with the Tour Director in Vienna (at a time we already have dinner reservations), and transfer time from the hotel in Zurich to the ship in Basel. The latter is a three-hour block of time for a drive that should take about an hour, so not sure if it includes some sort of panoramic tour of Basel since the arrival time there--1600 hours--seems to leave little time for exploration on our own as there is a Welcome Briefing scheduled for 1700 hours.
In going back and forth with the reservations agent at Scenic, I did learn the length of the tours in Strasbourg and Baden-Baden are four hours each and the one in Heidelberg is five hours. (I presume that includes transportation from the ship, which does not seem to provide much free time in cities that are some distance from where the ship will be docked.) She could provide no information on the land portion of our cruisetour.
One final tidbit of information I learned from the Scenic agent. If your TA is gifting you onboard credit for a Scenic cruise or cruisetour, they MUST request it at least 22 days in advance of your tour start date--in the case of a cruisetour this means the first date you come into contact with Scenic, not the start date of the cruise portion. Otherwise, Scenic will not process the request or apply the OBC to the sailing.
Hope this helps and will report any other updates and when we join our tour.
