Iceland's Natural Beauty General - 2022

[Balticsailor]

55 minutes ago, Seaharvest said:

Are some of you getting into MVJ to check your calendar, etc? I can’t get passed the Your booking is closed page? 

After several hours and multiple attempts to pay, I did see the correct shore excursions on our calendar when I was finally able to access the caledar.  I did have to go back and add my self or DH to some of the excersions due to only one person being charged for the excursion, so you  may want to verify that everyone in your party is included.  But finally, it looks like after too much effort and frustration we have the excursions we want to do.  I sure hope everyone else gets happy resolutions also.

[Gojagators]

Well at this point I have no idea if we have the 3 excursions we put in our cart and are showing as charges twice on our credit card are even booked.  When we intermitantly can get into the excursions the ones we want showed in our cart and need payment.  Our cart shows 3 items in it but going to checkout shows our cart as empty.  Our calendar shows the excursions with dotted lines around them.  Beyond frustrating and NOT what I expect from Viking.  

[Balticsailor]

Whoops!  Spoke too soon.  Now the included excursions on the last three days have gone missing.

[cfgrandma]

12 minutes ago, cfgrandma said:

I am finally in a live chat with agent checking my reservations.

Got through to agent.  She checked my excursions and sent me an invoice with them listed.

 

Now I need to work out the double charge for 2 of the excursions that I booked first.

[BlairsvilleCruiseGirl]

Any information on the "Heart of the Glacier" tour in Reykjavik?

 

[Mehroswitha]

Re Heart of the Glacier tour: I was able to book it for the July 13 cruise, or at least I think I did! Got it into cart and--after a delay of a couple of hours--was able to access payment page. Message says payment failed, but as others have experienced, it shows up in my calendar now with a dotted line around it. Assume payment is still working its way through system. Trouble is, it still shows in cart as needing payment. What happens if system starts working and allows me to book more excisions--will Glacier be charged again?  

[LindaS272]

Just so you know, a couple of the Malta/Adriatic ShoreEx for July were posting today too. So it’s not just the Iceland ones. 
 

And we had MDR reservations open today for our Sept. 12 Malta/Adriatic. Not too much trouble, though the last day kept failing but ended up on the calendar as three reservations. I printed the calendar summary out for my proof in case they go missing!

[VI_Lounger]

4 minutes ago, Mehroswitha said:

Re Heart of the Glacier tour: I was able to book it for the July 13 cruise, or at least I think I did! Got it into cart and--after a delay of a couple of hours--was able to access payment page. Message says payment failed, but as others have experienced, it shows up in my calendar now with a dotted line around it. Assume payment is still working its way through system. Trouble is, it still shows in cart as needing payment. What happens if system starts working and allows me to book more excisions--will Glacier be charged again?  

We ha

 

4 minutes ago, Mehroswitha said:

Re Heart of the Glacier tour: I was able to book it for the July 13 cruise, or at least I think I did! Got it into cart and--after a delay of a couple of hours--was able to access payment page. Message says payment failed, but as others have experienced, it shows up in my calendar now with a dotted line around it. Assume payment is still working its way through system. Trouble is, it still shows in cart as needing payment. What happens if system starts working and allows me to book more excisions--will Glacier be charged again?  

We had this happen for our July 3 cruise where it kept rejecting our credit cards. The live chat rep told us it was an IT issue that would resolve in 2 hours. We checked back in 3 hours and it still had the dotted line around the excursion in our calendar and the cart still showed we had payment due. We went into the cart and tried to pay again and then it finally accepted our credit card so it did not resolve on it's own. If you still have items in your cart, keep on it to make sure it clears out or try to pay again. 

[Heartgrove]

"Mange takk" to Perris, at Viking CS, who was able to sooth our anxiety. She was able to straighten out all of the charges and excursions for us. And extremely pleasant and cheerful on a day like today.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Heartgrove

[id4elizabeth]

15 minutes ago, Heartgrove said:

"Mange takk" to Perris, at Viking CS, who was able to sooth our anxiety. She was able to straighten out all of the charges and excursions for us. And extremely pleasant and cheerful on a day like today.

 

Do you have her number?  We were told there was nothing they could do on their end.  I screen printed those shorex that we did get that shows the word "confirmed" so I'm going with that.  I had some ShoreX that early showed up in the calendar and then disappeared  later.  I did get a confirmation email from Viking with our ShoreX as confirmed but they are not on calendar either, but at least I have it in writing from Viking.  Some of the ones we wanted such as the Vox Baths were sold out because our credit card kept failing multiple times and then showed Sold Out.  We did get the major ones we wanted but that took 3 1/2 hours.  Haven't looked at my card statements yet, but that's for another day. 

 

(We did have one customer rep say check back in 24 to 48 hours!  She assured us we'd still have plenty of ShoreX to choose from.  Who trains these people?)

[TayanaLorna]

2 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

It is worse than you think. They only opened up  through July 27.

 

In the meantime, because I am ROTFLMAO and though you all might need a laugh as well, this is part of the content that hit my inbox just 25 minutes before shorex were due to open. It was directed to my husband, because he doesn't have an MVJ account, inviting his to open an account. I get them regularly but I thought the timing on this was guffaw worthy and sometimes when the going is tough, we just need a laugh:

 

LOL Peregrina, we got the same thing for my DH's MVJ account which we had recently reactivated.  It was actually the ONLY account we could account for this shorex booking fiasco.

[bardstowntraveller]

Looks like Vikings entire site is down. I went into reservations and bookings are also down.  Hopefully they will learn from this before making the excursions for the next batch of cruisers available

[eldercruser1]

Posted just now

Note to All:

 

After total frustration of being locked out, unable to log in, seeing "no page available", etc. this afternoon I called our wonderful TA to discuss cancelling the whole thing.  Quitting is not in her vocabulary and after a couple of hours dealing with Viking, somehow she was able to book all six of our requested tours.

 

We are hopeful Viking has learned an important lesson not to provide more than they can deliver (which they have repeatedly done the past several weeks).  Hopefully, the ship and crew will be able to overcome all the roadblocks the shore establishment has put in their way.

[ValarieDennis]

1 hour ago, Balticsailor said:

After several hours and multiple attempts to pay, I did see the correct shore excursions on our calendar when I was finally able to access the caledar.  I did have to go back and add my self or DH to some of the excersions due to only one person being charged for the excursion, so you  may want to verify that everyone in your party is included.  But finally, it looks like after too much effort and frustration we have the excursions we want to do.  I sure hope everyone else gets happy resolutions also.

Same with us.

[MN2Cruise]

We were fortunate to get all our excursions booked as we wanted (paid multiple times also as others have noted).  My sister was locked out, but called and the Viking rep got all hers booked as well.  A huge mess, but the Viking reps are trying really hard!

Best of luck to all who are trying to book excursions still!

Mark

July 17th cruise

[philw1776]

1 hour ago, Doc who loves to travel said:

Mine show in calendar but have dashes around them.  Intermittently showing in cart too.  Of course D7 is totally messed up as expected with excursions before said arrival time. 

has anyone paid be bank transfer?  I’m afraid to do that after this debacle.  What if we cancel later and we paid via ACH?

Viking will (has for me) refunded into my checking account.

[Dukefan]

MVJ and the Viking booking site are now both up and running (at least for me).

[FoggyEthan]

1 hour ago, Mehroswitha said:

Re Heart of the Glacier tour: I was able to book it for the July 13 cruise, or at least I think I did! Got it into cart and--after a delay of a couple of hours--was able to access payment page. Message says payment failed, but as others have experienced, it shows up in my calendar now with a dotted line around it. Assume payment is still working its way through system. Trouble is, it still shows in cart as needing payment. What happens if system starts working and allows me to book more excisions--will Glacier be charged again?  

 

We'll be seeing you on the tour!

[FoggyEthan]

1 hour ago, id4elizabeth said:

Do you have her number?  We were told there was nothing they could do on their end.  I screen printed those shorex that we did get that shows the word "confirmed" so I'm going with that.  I had some ShoreX that early showed up in the calendar and then disappeared  later.  I did get a confirmation email from Viking with our ShoreX as confirmed but they are not on calendar either, but at least I have it in writing from Viking.  Some of the ones we wanted such as the Vox Baths were sold out because our credit card kept failing multiple times and then showed Sold Out.  We did get the major ones we wanted but that took 3 1/2 hours.  Haven't looked at my card statements yet, but that's for another day. 

 

(We did have one customer rep say check back in 24 to 48 hours!  She assured us we'd still have plenty of ShoreX to choose from.  Who trains these people?)

 

There was a period where everything was completely down, not just for us but also for them. You probably called at that time. Afterwards things came back, sluggishly. Last I checked there was Vox availability.

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

6 hours ago, EJLobster said:

Maybe more than you ever want to know about puffins:  https://independenttravelcats.com/where-to-see-puffins-in-iceland/

Wow!  Fabulous site.  Thank you. 

[FoggyEthan]

I'll bet that, mostly, they will eventually open up additional availability and most people will get all that they wanted. Then we'll look back at our panic today and remember that Social Media can hype up negativity and anxiety. 8-)

 

It seems like everything is functioning again, for now. If you had problems earlier and are trying to figure out *****, may I make a few quick suggestions?

• Log out of myvikingjourney completely. There's a little triangle in the upper right that drops down a menu.
• Log back in.
• Go to your cart and take everything out.
• Go look at your payments history. I have several credit card charge attempts where it said that the charge failed, but you can see them in the history. They were not lost. They're in your account.
• Go look at your calendar and note what you have and what you're missing.
• Now with a clean slate, try booking everything again.

Sadly the Geobaths are missing from Akureyri. No idea why.

[Heartgrove]

1 hour ago, id4elizabeth said:

Do you have her number?  We were told there was nothing they could do on their end.  I screen printed those shorex that we did get that shows the word "confirmed" so I'm going with that.  I had some ShoreX that early showed up in the calendar and then disappeared  later.  I did get a confirmation email from Viking with our ShoreX as confirmed but they are not on calendar either, but at least I have it in writing from Viking.  Some of the ones we wanted such as the Vox Baths were sold out because our credit card kept failing multiple times and then showed Sold Out.  We did get the major ones we wanted but that took 3 1/2 hours.  Haven't looked at my card statements yet, but that's for another day. 

 

(We did have one customer rep say check back in 24 to 48 hours!  She assured us we'd still have plenty of ShoreX to choose from.  Who trains these people?)

 

I wish I did have it to give to you! Sue was the one talking to her while I was continuing to still  log in. Definitely luck of the draw getting Perris to help us as Sue did a chat yesterday about switching to the re-positioning cruise to Malta. The rep on that helped her but made it clear that in the future to use the "Already Booked" chat line. What??? We are inquiring about a new cruise. They have different Chat Lines? Not on my screen.

 

Husavik Geo Baths are now $319.00 per person.

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Heartgrove

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

1 hour ago, TayanaLorna said:

LOL Peregrina, we got the same thing for my DH's MVJ account which we had recently reactivated.  It was actually the ONLY account we could account for this shorex booking fiasco.

 

1 hour ago, LindaS272 said:

 

Just so you know, a couple of the Malta/Adriatic ShoreEx for July were posting today too. So it’s not just the Iceland ones. 
 

And we had MDR reservations open today for our Sept. 12 Malta/Adriatic. Not too much trouble, though the last day kept failing but ended up on the calendar as three reservations. I printed the calendar summary out for my proof in case they go missing!

And other Iceland slots opened today, too.  I made Manfredi and Chef's rezzies.  No problems. And spa treatment slots opened also. 

[FoggyEthan]

6 minutes ago, Heartgrove said:

Husavik Geo Baths are now $319.00 per person.

 

Weird that they aren't available for July 13th sailing. Also the Heimaey boat nature tour (not the whale one) is also missing.

[Dukefan]

23 minutes ago, FoggyEthan said:

Weird that they aren't available for July 13th sailing. Also the Heimaey boat nature tour (not the whale one) is also missing.

Yes, I noted some Excursions aren't listed on every cruise.  For example, the "Heart of the Glacier" is not avaiable on our cruise (July 10).    As this thing goes along through August, I suspect other Excursions will be added or not available on different cruises based on what Viking can get on such short notice.