Viking Sky change of departure port

[glenr]

 

We are booked for the Iconic Western Med on June 4th. Barcelona to Rome. We arrive in Barcelona and have hotel booked. Assumed we could spend some time in town before boarding the ship. Now Viking sends a notice that ship is departing from Tarragona, 60 miles away. Aside from the aggravation, and the fact that Tarragona was already the 2nd day stop on the cruise, this will probably cost me upwards of $200. Should Viking be taking care of this cost?

[millybess]

18 minutes ago, glenr said:

 

We are booked for the Iconic Western Med on June 4th. Barcelona to Rome. We arrive in Barcelona and have hotel booked. Assumed we could spend some time in town before boarding the ship. Now Viking sends a notice that ship is departing from Tarragona, 60 miles away. Aside from the aggravation, and the fact that Tarragona was already the 2nd day stop on the cruise, this will probably cost me upwards of $200. Should Viking be taking care of this cost?

That’s confusing. Are they offering any excursions in Barcelona at all, or only from Tarragona?  Regardless, you won’t be sorry that you have planned to spend time in Barcelona. 

 

Tarragona is about a 1 hour train ride from Barcelona and the cost is around €10. 

[duquephart]

19 minutes ago, glenr said:

 

We are booked for the Iconic Western Med on June 4th. Barcelona to Rome. We arrive in Barcelona and have hotel booked. Assumed we could spend some time in town before boarding the ship. Now Viking sends a notice that ship is departing from Tarragona, 60 miles away. Aside from the aggravation, and the fact that Tarragona was already the 2nd day stop on the cruise, this will probably cost me upwards of $200. Should Viking be taking care of this cost?

 

Should and will are two different things.

[glenr]

1 minute ago, millybess said:

That’s confusing. Are they offering any excursions in Barcelona at all, or only from Tarragona?  Regardless, you won’t be sorry that you have planned to spend time in Barcelona. 

 

Tarragona is about a 1 hour train ride from Barcelona and the cost is around €10. 

Thanks Millybess but this is a vacation, we have lots of luggage and a train isn't going to cut it. Either way I'm hiring a car but this is my first Viking cruise and probably my last. 

[deec]

One of the other times Viking changed from Barcelona was because of civil unrest.  Hope that is not the case.

We enjoy Barcelona every time we are there!

[Jammy Bun]

Following with interest as we should have been on this cruise, but cancelled a couple of months ago due to the uncertainty of Covid protocols.  

Tarragona is a lovely place, but it's not Barcelona!  

Hope you enjoy your trip.

JB

[Blue willow]

Something similar happened to us last month on Viking.

 

The departure port was changed from Venice to Ravenna, 90 miles away. 

We had flown into Venice two days prior to departure, staying at a hotel on our own. 

 

Viking advised us we could return to the airport on departure day during a specified time and meet Viking reps in baggage claim.

They would then transport us by bus to Ravenna. 

Or, we could arrange travel to Ravenna on our own.

 

We chose to meet Viking at the airport. 

We checked in with the Viking reps, waited about two hours, and were taken by bus to the ship at Ravenna, along with many others.

 

Yes, it was a minor hassle.

Yes, our visit in Venice was abridged by the port change. 

But, it was beyond Viking's control. 

For environmental reasons Venice had denied docking to cruise ships. 

 

Viking compensated each of us with $150 on board credit and a $250 further cruise credit. 

The bus trip through the Italian farmland was pretty. 

 

 

 

 

[Jim Avery]

It's a pain but if you read all the small print on the ticket you will see they can do these things.  As Duquephart said they "can" give you some compensation or arrange transport but "will" they?  It is a constantly moving target trying to cruise these days.  

[longterm]

Having toured for 20 years with recording artists, I developed a few rules that still apply to vacation travel today:

 

1. When you step out your door, there's no certainty that your itinerary will remain unchanged. I apply this same rule to vacation travel; flights can change, get canceled, get delayed; hotels can have issues; trains can get delayed; traffic accidents can delay or close routes.
2. A good traveler learns to adapt to the changes and take it in stride; otherwise, inconveniences can ruin what would otherwise be a great vacation.
3. What might seem like an unfortunate occurrence can often lead to wonderful surprises; a friend of mine had a rental car break down in the middle of France on his way to Paris; they spent the afternoon with a great family at a farm in the middle of nowhere, and he told me it's one of his favorite memories from that trip.

4. Anytime you're part of a large group (as I always was when touring with bands), there are almost always "inconveniences." Most of us learned to take them in stride.

5. When you're traveling and at the mercy of airlines, trains, buses, cruise ships, you're NOT in control, so go with the flow.

We were just in Italy in March on a Viking cruise; the ship couldn't enter the canal, so berthed 45 minutes away, necessitating a bus ride back and forth. It turned out to be just fine, and didn't diminish our enjoyment of Venice. Other cruises have had to berth even farther away, so I suppose we were lucky by comparison.

I hope you don't let this tarnish your trip, and also hope you'll keep in mind that Viking probably had no choice in the matter. The change in itinerary may end up being a good thing.

 

 

[Clay Clayton]

While I can’t speak for what Viking will do, it wouldn’t surprise me if they put some shipboard credit on your account. 
 

Upon boarding Orion in Tianjin (for Bejing) in 2019 I noticed an unexpected $150 pp on our onboard account.  I looked through my documents thinking it was something from our TA or another perk I had forgotten about.  When I couldn’t find anything, I went to Customer Services as I didn’t want to spend it and then them discover it was accidentally on my account and have them claw it back. Turns out it was to compensate us for the inconvenience of touring during China’s National Week. Given that anyone who had done any research knew that we were going to be in China at the busiest week, I found it crazy that Viking was giving us this compensation. What I found even stranger (and discussed to no avail) with the GM was that Viking never told us why they were giving it to us.  

Anyway, good luck -enjoy Barcelona and here’s hoping you don’t let this hiccup ruin your vacation. 

[glenr]

Having just returned I thought I would update this post. Just before I left I spent an hour on the phone with Viking who eventually relented and offered a $150 shipboard credit. Our cost from Barcelona to Tarragona was slightly more but that part worked out. There was much debate on the ship as to whether Viking was responsible or the port. A few people said the bigger ships pay more and Viking didn't want to ante up for Barcelona's fees. No way to know. Anyway, the cruise itself was great.

[Heidi13]

10 hours ago, glenr said:

Having just returned I thought I would update this post. Just before I left I spent an hour on the phone with Viking who eventually relented and offered a $150 shipboard credit. Our cost from Barcelona to Tarragona was slightly more but that part worked out. There was much debate on the ship as to whether Viking was responsible or the port. A few people said the bigger ships pay more and Viking didn't want to ante up for Barcelona's fees. No way to know. Anyway, the cruise itself was great.

 

The larger vessels always pay more in berth fees, as ship's length is used as a factor by many ports. Viking ships are frequent callers at Barcelona, so not wanting to pay the fee's is yet another rumour.

 

While the port fees were probably lower at the alternate port, I'll suggest Viking incurred additional costs for transferring stores, bunker delivery, crew changes, etc.

[stu52]

We were booked on that same cruise last September and cancelled for several reasons.  There is a direct train from Barcelona to Tarragona that takes from 30 min to 1 hr and costs as little as $8/person. 

 

We always travel light, so a train is no problem for us.  But you said you had a lot of baggage....hence renting a private car.

Edited June 16, 2022 by stu52