Homelands Port Times - Schedule changes 3 weeks out

I am so disappointed to find that many of our port times have been changed for the June 9th Homelands cruise. I have not been notified of this and the times affect plans in several ports.

I understand that the cruise line has the option to change things but I would have assumed that it would change things only if necessary. If this is all necessary, than it is hard for me to believe that this could not have been done earlier.

Stockholm - departing 1 hour earlier than scheduled.

Helsinki - 3 hours early at 2PM.

Copenhagen - 3 hours early at 3PM

Eidfjord - 1 hour later arrival and 1 hour later departure.

Stavanger - arrival 2 hours later - this was noted a few days ago by someone else.

I am hoping that this is a mistake. I do not understand the lack of notification. I am really sick about this.

Dear aquidneck1,

We’re sorry to hear of you disappointment, and understand how port arrival and departure times are important in your planning process. If you haven’t reached out to us already, we would appreciate the chance to investigate these circumstances in more detail at TellUs@vikingcruises.com.

We hope to hear from you, and wish you a pleasant day.

Kind regards,

Viking Cruises

I am so disappointed to find that many of our port times have been changed for the June 9th Homelands cruise. I have not been notified of this and the times affect plans in several ports.

 

I understand that the cruise line has the option to change things but I would have assumed that it would change things only if necessary. If this is all necessary, than it is hard for me to believe that this could not have been done earlier.

 

Stockholm - departing 1 hour earlier than scheduled.

Helsinki - 3 hours early at 2PM.

Copenhagen - 3 hours early at 3PM

Eidfjord - 1 hour later arrival and 1 hour later departure.

Stavanger - arrival 2 hours later - this was noted a few days ago by someone else.

I am hoping that this is a mistake. I do not understand the lack of notification. I am really sick about this.

I have reached out to the email address that you mention. Will not hear back until next week. Just met tonight with our cruising companions and we are pretty unsettled by this. I certainly hope that Viking is not really cutting this many hours out of our total time in port.

I have reached out to the email address that you mention. Will not hear back until next week. Just met tonight with our cruising companions and we are pretty unsettled by this. I certainly hope that Viking is not really cutting this many hours out of our total time in port.

I am on Viking Sky right now and can tell you that yes the arrival and departure times have changed for the ports you mentioned.

Helsinki departure was 2 pm instead of 5pm. I was surprised and annoyed by this as we had to rush back to the shuttle bus after taking an independent canal cruise. We had anticipated a leisurely time in Helsinki.

Copenhagen departure will be 6pm instead of 9pm.

Stavanger arrival is 12 pm instead of 10 am meaning we have no chance of a quick visit to the Oil Museum prior to our Pulpit Rock Cruise.

Eidfjord has an arrival time one hour later and departs one hour earlier than the original schedule. This does not really affect us as we are on an all day ship excursion

I am disappointed that Viking did not email passengers with the updated times prior to the cruise.

The ship is beautiful and the staff are very friendly. It is a shame that the "back room" staff are not on the ball regarding communications.

Sandytiger

Sent from my SM-A520F using Forums mobile app

Thank you for that update Sandytiger and so sorry that you had no advanced notice. I am glad to know ahead(discovered it by accident) but very disappointed that we can just loose about 10 hours of port time at the drop of a hat. That is not what we signed up for. I was really looking forward to spending a lot of time in Copenhagen and like you wanted to visit some additional sites at a leisurely pace in Helsinki. Gdansk is also an earlier departure for us. Did you leave Stockholm early?

Did they give you any reason for this. The Viking Sea doing the same itinerary departing May 29 has not posted any changes.

We left Stockholm at about the right time.

It was Helsinki that disappointed me most.

If passengers have signed up for Viking excursions the changes may not inconvenience them as much .But passengers who are doing their own thing may have their plans disrupted.

I do not know why the changes have been made. I just assumed my initial itinerary was out of date and the Australian site I was working from had not been updated.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Forums mobile app

We are on the Homelands (Star) on Aug 11 and our port times have all changed to the ones the original poster mentioned. :(

For any of you that are new to cruising or have only been on a few cruises, some information.

For any cruise line, any itinerary that is posted online or in a brochure is just a good faith estimate of arrival and departure times.

The times of arrival and departure in a port can change based upon many factors for the actual date of the port visit. Sometimes the changes may be made within 24 hours of the scheduled port of call.

Some of the factors can be the time given to the ship for arrival and departure, tide conditions, or events in the port affecting the arrival and departure.

In my over forty years of cruising, the arrival and departure times of the ship in port has varied many times from the brochure time schedule.

There are times when the ports have been changed as well.

A rule of thumb is if you MUST be at a port at a certain time or spend an exact amount of time in the port, don't cruise. Book a land vacation.

 

Did they give you any reason for this. The Viking Sea doing the same itinerary departing May 29 has not posted any changes.

Port times can differ from cruise to cruise even on the same itinerary.

The changes that some are reporting here may not apply to all of the Homelands sailings, so keep an eye on MVJ (and not the main website) for changes to your sailing.

Viking does not always announce changes in advance and they don't always offer explanations to the changes that are being made.

Last minute changes to itineraries are not undertaken lightly and they are not always under the cruise line's control.

Do read more about this in the Term & Conditions (link in the website footer).

I am aware of the terms and conditions. I totally understand that I have no recourse other than to decide whether to book with Viking again. I have cruised many times and never experienced this number of port changes or the lack of notification. Possibly Viking is looking to fill their own excursions as this makes it difficult to plan ones day and forces cruisers to book Viking excursions where they are protected. I suppose that it is one business model. BTW - if you read the Roll Calls, lots of cruisers are now struggling to manage their port days - many who are currently sailing. I think that it is a shame regardless of the rights of the cruise line.

Wow, that would be very disappointing! Did you see the changes in MVJ? we are on the May 29th Homelands and there are no changes yet that I can see with ours.

Yes, I was planning something in Stockholm on the day that we were scheduled to depart and mentioned on the Baltics forum that we departed at 2:30. Someone checked the port scheduled and corrected me. I then double checked the MJV and saw all of the changes. I had a printout of the MJV calendar from the previous week which was totally different. I am lucky to have figured this out before we departed.

Yes, I was planning something in Stockholm on the day that we were scheduled to depart and mentioned on the Baltics forum that we departed at 2:30. Someone checked the port scheduled and corrected me. I then double checked the MJV and saw all of the changes. I had a printout of the MJV calendar from the previous week which was totally different. I am lucky to have figured this out before we departed.

I will keep checking ours and thanks for the heads up. Again so sorry that they are doing this at such short notice. Especially Helsinki 3 hours short of the original time. :(

Renee

Again, this is a common occurrence when cruising.

At least you were notified three weeks out. Would you have preferred to be handed an itinerary change sheet as you boarded or just wait to find out when the day's schedule is handed out (which could also change the morning of the portdepending on the Port Master's decisions)?

Regardless of the reason for changes, getting 3 weeks notice isn't too bad, considering the multitude of reasons that can affect cruise ships - many are also completely outwith control of the company.

On our Baltic Cruise last year, we arrived in Tilbury (London) to find the ship not docked. The harbour authority closed all river navigation on the Thames, due to high winds about 02:00. I checked the AIS for the ship's position, speed, ETA at 22:00 the previous evening, and all was on schedule. We missed Copenhagen, due to the late arrival/departure. During the cruise, one day before Helsinki, we were informed it would be a tender port, as the pilots would not dock due to wind, requiring a change to the times. In addition to arrival/departure changes, we have experienced many berth changes.

With respect to tours - ship tours cost more, but you are always protected against arrival/departure changes and/or cancellations. Booking private tours are cheaper, but some do not provide for schedule changes. It is simply a risk of selecting a cruise.

Two of us on the June 9th cruise have now been told that the me times listed in MVJ are incorrect. They have not updated MVJ so I don't really know if that means all are incorrect or not.

I am currently on the Viking Sky, Stockholm to Bergan, we docked at Stavanger at 11 am. We had enough time for the 12:15 pulpit rock cruise and the included tour..

Thanks for sharing that. We have been informed that the whole thing was a computer glitch - the computer cancelled some tours as well but I don't know if those times will be added back. Now we have a schedule that is closer to the original one but that differs in some crucial ways from the Port Schedules. For example, our schedule says that we leave Stockholm at 2:30 but the port says 1:30 and we are now scheduled to arrive in St. Petersburg 1/2 hour later at 7:30 which will affect the private tours. Despite it saying that we will arrive in Stavanger at 10:30, I am not planning anything for the morning as there are no ships tours scheduled before 12:30

This message was in My Viking Journey under news this morning

Dear Viking Guest,

Due to a temporary system issue during the week of May 21 2018, you may have noticed adjustments to the arrival and departure times for several of your scheduled ports of call. Please note these schedule changes were made in error and have now been corrected.

It appears times are back to what they were except for SPB which has an arrival time of 7:30 as noted by the previous poster.

Thanks for sharing that. We have been informed that the whole thing was a computer glitch - the computer cancelled some tours as well but I don't know if those times will be added back. Now we have a schedule that is closer to the original one but that differs in some crucial ways from the Port Schedules. For example, our schedule says that we leave Stockholm at 2:30 but the port says 1:30 and we are now scheduled to arrive in St. Petersburg 1/2 hour later at 7:30 which will affect the private tours. Despite it saying that we will arrive in Stavanger at 10:30, I am not planning anything for the morning as there are no ships tours scheduled before 12:30

We booked private tours in St Petersburg with Alla and they monitored any changes in arrival time. The first day also had a little later start for docking and immigration. We found the Russian immigration was really quick, as they had lots of booths and all were manned. First day it took us 5 minutes and 2nd day we found no queues.

I wouldn't worry over 1/2 hr change in arrival.