Tender operation hours in an overnight port (Alta)

[SoBaycruiser]

We will overnight in Alta, Norway on our March NL cruise. I just realized that the itinerary shows Alta is a tender port.  We have already booked an independent chasing northern lights excursion and I assume we might be out quite late.  Will the tender still operate into the early hours of the morning due to the unique excursions hours there?

[Heidi13]

32 minutes ago, SoBaycruiser said:

We will overnight in Alta, Norway on our March NL cruise. I just realized that the itinerary shows Alta is a tender port.  We have already booked an independent chasing northern lights excursion and I assume we might be out quite late.  Will the tender still operate into the early hours of the morning due to the unique excursions hours there?

 

Every port is different with their regulations for tendering. In similar situations, I have seen tenders continue operating throughout the night. Accepting that from say around midnight, the schedule is significantly reduced.

 

In addition to pax you also have crew wanting to go ashore and they work 24/7.

 

Edit - the schedule will be posted in the Viking Daily.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Heidi13

[SoBaycruiser]

44 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Edit - the schedule will be posted in the Viking Daily.

 Unfortunately I have to know sooner because if we can’t get back on the ship, we’ll have to cancel the excursion before getting the schedule.  Hopefully someone from last winter can shed some light. 

[Peregrina651]

1 hour ago, SoBaycruiser said:

We will overnight in Alta, Norway on our March NL cruise. I just realized that the itinerary shows Alta is a tender port.  We have already booked an independent chasing northern lights excursion and I assume we might be out quite late.  Will the tender still operate into the early hours of the morning due to the unique excursions hours there?

 

This is one of those questions that I would pose directly to Viking, especially since you are trying to plan an independent tour.

[LindaS272]

1 hour ago, SoBaycruiser said:

We will overnight in Alta, Norway on our March NL cruise. I just realized that the itinerary shows Alta is a tender port.  We have already booked an independent chasing northern lights excursion and I assume we might be out quite late.  Will the tender still operate into the early hours of the morning due to the unique excursions hours there?

Start with emailing tellus@vikingcruises.com, not agents on the phone. As Peregrina has noted for us many times, TellUs is a higher level of functioning from the main customer number for Viking.

 

We had a poor experience in 2019 when planning to leave and rejoin the ship in SE Asia. Our Viking rep told us we could do so—in writing. Then when informing Viking of our final plans a few weeks before the cruise, we were told “probably not” unless we got approval from the port authority in Vietnam! We had already purchased airfare & booked a hotel for two nights away. Many weeks later and much pulling out of hair, plus getting supervisor after supervisor on the phone, we were given permission to leave the ship. But we ended up being too exhausted by the experience to bother and just ate the cost of our bookings.

 

Your situation is simpler—but I would still caution against any prior approvals. The front staff customer service people shoreside tend to not know much about what happens on the ship. If it were me, I’d book a private excursion that doesn’t require payment upfront and will not charge you if you have to cancel once on the ship if you find out that there are no tenders back late at night.

[Heidi13]

1 hour ago, SoBaycruiser said:

 Unfortunately I have to know sooner because if we can’t get back on the ship, we’ll have to cancel the excursion before getting the schedule.  Hopefully someone from last winter can shed some light. 

 

Since this is an operational issue that encompasses local regulations, any answer you receive may not be definitive, as you always have the potential for local officials making arbitrary decisions.

 

I have also seen a situation where tenders didn't operate on a schedule but were available to call. Viking always try to accommodate pax needs, so if you mention it onboard, advising when you will return to the dock, I have no doubt the ship will endeavour to get you back onboard.

[UWDawg]

31 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Since this is an operational issue that encompasses local regulations, any answer you receive may not be definitive, as you always have the potential for local officials making arbitrary decisions.

 

I have also seen a situation where tenders didn't operate on a schedule but were available to call. Viking always try to accommodate pax needs, so if you mention it onboard, advising when you will return to the dock, I have no doubt the ship will endeavour to get you back onboard.

 

I have to agree.  Viking goes above and beyond to accommodate passengers.  The crew however may have to find an alternative way to get back aboard if they miss the last tender.

 

[molymoo]

Just a caution … weather can also be a factor and rough seas seem to affect the use of tenders exponentially.   Viking is very accommodating but they cannot change the weather.

[SoBaycruiser]

Thank you everyone for your comments and suggestions.  Looking at the port schedule it looks like we are the unlucky Viking cruise that has to anchor instead of being dockside…March being a popular Aurora month for cruise ships.  I have emailed Viking as suggested and will be interested as to what they will say.  I am wondering if anyone has thought of the problem it presents… even for Viking’s own excursions.  They just removed two Norwegian ports from the NL itinerary and if now there will be problems with getting to and from shore for Aurora excursions in Alta there will many unhappy passengers.   But I’ll first wait to see what they say before getting too worked up,

[Peregrina651]

2 hours ago, SoBaycruiser said:

like we are the unlucky Viking cruise that has to anchor instead of being dockside…March being a popular Aurora month for cruise ships.

 

And this could change at the last minute. A number of times we have had ports listed as tender ports only to find ourselves docked -- and vice versa.