Quality of "Free" Excursions, price of paid ones?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Hi, I'd like comments on the quality of the included excursions--is there sometimes a choice, or is it always just one available?  How are the prices for paid excursions, and are they of good quality?  

[Dauntless]

45 minutes ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

Hi, I'd like comments on the quality of the included excursions--is there sometimes a choice, or is it always just one available?  How are the prices for paid excursions, and are they of good quality?  

 

The included excursions are intended as an overview of the area.  Some walking, some bus, some a combination of both.  They are usually from 1.5 hrs.  in Venice to 12 hrs in Berlin.  I've done two cruises with these destinations.  If you are looking for something more in depth, then the fee excursions might be more to your liking.  On rare occasions (Berlin), there is a choice of included but that is very rare.

 

If they are not port cities, sometimes the included may not go there, (Florence)  The included will all be noted in the shore excursion section of the cruise description.  Some people either stop reading or don't bother to look at that and assume they can decide which excursion is included.  Not.

 

The quality of the included depend on your expectations.  From the CC boards you will see that a lot of the people that are trying Viking are new to cruising so the included aimed at them.  And I was one when I made my first Viking cruise. We did 8 of 11 included excursions, one 'fee' excursion and three off ship excursions. I got an overview. We arrived in Stockholm 3 days early and saw a lot but there were still areas we saw on the included that we had not seen.  They were 4 hr, excursions with 2 stops, the final being in Gamla Stan with time built in to shop or explore on your own and we opted to walk back to the ship.  The included in Flam was a trip to nowhere and I'm pretty sure that has changed since we cruised.  The included in Bergen was a little walking and then we went to a museum that was so packed with people that it was completely unbearable so we left.  They do not do that any more either.

 

On the last cruise we did  4 of 10 included excursions  All were fine.   In some ports we did 4 "Fee' excursions for various reasons and  and 5 off ship excursions.

 

This is the first time to any of these ports so we wanted to go in as much depth as we could, given the time in port.  Most off ship excursions were priced about the same as 'fee' excursions(except St Petersburg).

 

You need to really read the descriptions before it's time to book.  If it's not what you want, look around until you find something else that suits your fancy.

 

If you are an experienced traveler, you may find them lacking with the included---not my general experience.  If you like to just walk around and 'discover your bliss', then it's a lot of money to put on a cruise if you're not going to take advantage of what is included. 

[Heidi13]

Wendy - When you access the 2021 WC, select "Itinerary", then for each day select "Read More" at the far right. This provides a sample of the excursions that may be provided in each port. Each port normally has one labelled as "Included". The description provides the length, what is included in the tour and a brief summary.

[SM77]

Dauntless described the included excursions well.  It all depends on how much you want to get out of the excursion - most of the included ones are an overview of the port and that may be good enough.  We always enjoy them.  As for the optional excursions, we have experienced excellent ones and felt that they were reasonable.  It's challenging to me to do all the research for each of these ports and so I find it easier just to book what Viking has included or chose one of the optional excursions.  Where I didn't rely on Viking was for St. Petersburg, we went with a third party, SPB Tours, which was excellent, however they now have a minimum of 8 to run a tour and that can be challenging on a cruise line like Viking where most passengers will take the cruise excursions.  Once you decide what Viking cruise you want to take, it's worthwhile to look at the reviews for that itinerary on CC.  Reviewers will give their opinion of the port tours that were taken.

[lackcreativity]

In some ports, Viking offers free shuttle service from a set meeting point back to the ship, and so you can extend an included excursion with additional time on your own. We have done this multiple times and find that works very well for us.

 

On each cruise, we did a mix of included excursions with a few optional ones. Pricing was generally in the $69 - $99 range, though we did pay $179 for an all day excursion in Slovenia with admission to two major attractions and an included meal. As previously mentioned, read the descriptions carefully before making your decisions. Also, even after booking, keep checking My Viking Journey if an excursion you wanted was sold out. Sometimes they add extra groups or people change their schedule and openings turn up.

[PRH]

We’ve taken several optional excursions and found them to be excellent and reasonably priced—especially compared to other cruise lines.  RThe descriptions were accurate for those we took—Madeira (Lavada Walk) and the French Cooking Class in St. Martin.  Sailing with Ocean again in March in the Caribbean so doubt we’ll take the included excursions as we’ve done these islands multiple times.  Debating some of the optional ones.  The description of included tours above is accurate.  Buses and/or walking tours with shuttles to the main town included.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Thanks for all the advice.  I'm looking for people's general impressions, not book descriptions, but it's nice to hear that the descriptions are fairly accurate at least.  Also nice to hear that add-ons are reasonably-priced.  This is not true of a number of cruise lines  

 

But I'm doing this while thinking of a world cruise, so it's tough to try to review excursions for that whole trip.  You see, on Regent, most excursions are included, and some have an added price. You can quite easily do no paid excursions--last time we did 18 days and paid out about $400 for value-added excursions.  

 

It is nice to have this choice, but having excursions *not* included can be good too, especially if you can choose a simple free one if you like, or just roll your own.  We're at the age where many walking tours are out of the question, frankly.  Hiring a cab to be taken around might be more our thing than a busload, or just taking a shuttle into town and wandering a bit with a cafe or pub to people-watch.  With Regent this isn't really an option since the "free" excursions are so temptingly included, it's hard to ignore them and pay for something private.

 

Do Viking "people" tend to get together on roll-calls and book private in some places?  Oceania folks do this all the time, very successfully.

[SM77]

4 hours ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

 

It is nice to have this choice, but having excursions *not* included can be good too, especially if you can choose a simple free one if you like, or just roll your own.  We're at the age where many walking tours are out of the question, frankly.  Hiring a cab to be taken around might be more our thing than a busload, or just taking a shuttle into town and wandering a bit with a cafe or pub to people-watch.  With Regent this isn't really an option since the "free" excursions are so temptingly included, it's hard to ignore them and pay for something private.

 

Do Viking "people" tend to get together on roll-calls and book private in some places?  Oceania folks do this all the time, very successfully.

From my limited experience, Viking folks do get on the roll call & book private, but not to the extent of Oceania folks.  We did the Mediterranean this past Oct-Nov w/ Oceania and our roll calls were full of cruisers organizing private tours.  This was our first Oceania cruise so we kept to the excursions offered by Oceania.  We did a couple of private tours but those were for our pre & post cruise stays.  I haven't seen the same kind of activity on Viking roll calls but I have only been to the Baltic using VO and now, getting ready for our Auckland to Bali cruise.  We signed up for most of the included tours and a couple of optional excursions that we were very interested in.  Most of the included tours on this cruise are drive bys on a bus, giving you a panoramic tour of the area.  If you don't care for riding on a bus w/ 30 plus folks then Viking or Oceania excursions will not work for you.  We love that Viking has done all the planning & for the most part we will get a very good overview of the area.  I personally find it too much to try to figure out what we should do at each port for a trip that covers at least 18 different ports.   I think one of Viking's strengths has been the quality of the excursions and the tour guides.  Sure, on our Viking Homelands cruise, we had one tour guide that wasn't very good compared to the rest, and some were exceptional.  I have cruised with Crystal, Viking, & Oceania and find that they all do an excellent job in planning & delivering excursions.  I pick and chose which ports that I may want to have more input as to what we do but for the most part we just go w/ the flow.  I hope this perspective helps.