Morning versus afternoon excursions

[zitsky]

I'm on the Mediterranean Odyssey cruise September 2019.  It's nice that Viking published the excursions early.  I notice that there seem to be more morning excursions than afternoon.  I'm trying to balance am/pm excursions.  A few that I thought would be afternoon (like a wine tasting) turned out to be scheduled for morning.

 

The good thing is that this gives us time to stay in town and have lunch somewhere.  Then take our time going back to the ship.

 

Anyone else notice that Viking schedules more morning excursions, or is it just me?

[Heidi13]

An interesting observation, which got me thinking. On our cruise the shorter tours are split almost equally AM/PM, but the longer tours are mostly AM, with some in the evening.

 

Thinking back to my days with another cruise line, most tours used to leave shortly after arrival, which gave the shore-ex staff a couple of hours off.

[zitsky]

On a few days I found some good am/pm excursions.  But later it seemed a lot of things were booked am. I found myself going back over the list in MVJ, trying to find more excursions to book.

[moatenote]

Zitsky, can't want to see how you like this cruise--we're doing the same one in September 2020.  We've already been to several of the port cities, but look forward to this cruise  (we're doing British Isles in July 2019).  Love Viking Ocean cruises!

[zitsky]

Yes looking forward to it.  Have been to Florence/ Pisa and Monaco.  Booked some alternate excursions 

[Opi]

What were some of the alternate excursions that looked good to you?

 

[zitsky]

31 minutes ago, Opi said:

What were some of the alternate excursions that looked good to you?

 

 

Example, Corfu, Theotoky Winery, a morning excursion

Naples, Royal Palace of Caserta, morning

Etc.

Etc.

 

I'll still have a good time.  I just wish I could book more excursions.

 

[philw1776]

At Monaco I'd suggest booking excursions to places like beautiful Eze and St Paul de Vance.  Viator. Or taking the short inexpensive train on your own to the other coastal cities like Nice, etc.

We took a tour of the Exotic Gardens in Monaco which has fantastic city & port overlooks as a side benefit. You can walk there (lots of uphill) but a cab would be better.  Viking excursion takes you there and you walk downhill thru the city with the guide and end up at the dock.

At Naples for those who have seen Pompeii & Herculaneum (worth re-visiting) walk off the ship and get a cab to the excellent Archaeological Museum.

Since Rome was on a Sunday with Vatican Museum closed and we'd been to Rome we went to Ostia the ruins of the port of Rome.

Not impressed with Marseille so we took the Viking tour to beautiful Cassis which includes a great boat ride thru the uniquely scenic Calanques.

Edited April 25, 2019 by philw1776

[zitsky]

Thanks for the great advice.  A few places we have been before.  In Marseilles I plan to book Le Castellet excursion.

Edited April 25, 2019 by zitsky

[Dauntless]

5 hours ago, zitsky said:

Thanks for the great advice.  A few places we have been before.  In Marseilles I plan to book Le Castellet excursion.

 

We did that too but chose the morning excursion, figuring the sun would not be as high in the sky and maybe we could avoid sunburn.  It worked out great.

[Clay Clayton]

Can’t speak to your particular cruise but on our recent TA we tried to book late morning excursions. This allowed us to have a leisurely breakfast without the crowd rushing to get to their early morning departures. It also meant we typically had some free time in the afternoon before “all aboard”. 

[zitsky]

I am trying to do that.  Leave ship after 9am.  One excursion starts at 1pm (Herculaneum) so plenty of time.