Viking Alaska Ship Excursions Booking by Cabin Type Question

[bvocruise]

My wife and I are considering the 11 day Alaska cruise. We would have to book a lower class cabin to make the finances work. It is my understanding those who book the higher level cabins have a longer booking period for the most sought after included shore excursions. I'm trying to figure out what types of things might be open when booking is available for the lower category cabins. Is there a place to see what the ship excursions are? I tried searching on the website and could not find them.

 

Viking is expensive but doable for us. I would be heartbroken though if not able to book some of the cooler included excursions.

Edited February 27, 2023 by bvocruise

[duquephart]

I don't believe included sells out but they need you to reserve so they know how many to accommodate.

[Pushka]

21 minutes ago, bvocruise said:

My wife and I are considering the 11 day Alaska cruise. We would have to book a lower class cabin to make the finances work. It is my understanding those who book the higher level cabins have a longer booking period for the most sought after included shore excursions. I'm trying to figure out what types of things might be open when booking is available for the lower category cabins. Is there a place to see what the ship excursions are? I tried searching on the website and could not find them.

 

Viking is expensive but doable for us. I would be heartbroken though if not able to book some of the cooler included excursions.

We booked a DV for our Alaskan cruise, the first one Viking did, in 2019. The only excursion not open to us to book was the Heritage Railway one which obviously had just a couple of carriages. The usual train one was available to book. However we arranged many private excursions including a helicopter to the glacier to see the working husky dogs and which was absolutely fantastic and so much cheaper than Vikings excursion. We ended up booking two through Viking one was the Aleutian Alaska crab one which we loved, but we were tendering that day so we didn't want to risk booking it on our own. We could also have booked that separately as well. We also booked the Kayak tour in Valdez which was fabulous. We booked private whale boat excursions in two ports. The zip line excursion seemed very popular but we weren't interested. 
 

 We ended in Seward and privately booked the cruise that goes out into the Bay and Glacier. We did it last minute at the dock. Viking stored our luggage It was breathtaking. So many whales,  Orcas, seals and birds. And the glacier - way better than  Hubbard. Then at night we took the train back to Anchorage. 
 

It was a fabulous cruise. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Pushka

[Vagabond51]

A while back someone passed along a great tip. If you give Viking a call you can ask if they would email you the Pdf of shore excursions from 2022. It does exist. All may not be offered in 2023, but it would give you a good idea. If they give you an excuse, keep calling a rep until you get one who will send it to you. I was going to PM you but it looks like you have messages off. We lived in SE AK for nearly 50 years. Many ports you can get a cab, see more and pay less. Very competitive in most all AK ports. Would not include flightseeing though. 🙂

[Pushka]

8 minutes ago, Vagabond51 said:

A while back someone passed along a great tip. If you give Viking a call you can ask if they would email you the Pdf of shore excursions from 2022. It does exist. All may not be offered in 2023, but it would give you a good idea. If they give you an excuse, keep calling a rep until you get one who will send it to you. I was going to PM you but it looks like you have messages off. We lived in SE AK for nearly 50 years. Many ports you can get a cab, see more and pay less. Very competitive in most all AK ports. Would not include flightseeing though. 🙂

Yes we received one for Passage to India cruise this May, but for the one that was about to leave in 2022. (It's only done once a year as a repositioning cruise north to south or reverse) It gave us an idea of which ones were likely to sell out. DV for our May cruise opened up this week and the same excursions rapidly sold out on ours as well. 
 

Make sure when your window opens you are at the MVJ before the actual time and keep refreshing. They opened up to the minute. If there's an excursion you really want, pay for it immediately and don't keep it in the basket while looking for others. If not paid for, it can get sold out before you pay. 
 

Within 10 minutes of our booking window opening, many were sold out. 

[bvocruise]

14 minutes ago, Vagabond51 said:

A while back someone passed along a great tip. If you give Viking a call you can ask if they would email you the Pdf of shore excursions from 2022. It does exist. All may not be offered in 2023, but it would give you a good idea. If they give you an excuse, keep calling a rep until you get one who will send it to you. I was going to PM you but it looks like you have messages off. We lived in SE AK for nearly 50 years. Many ports you can get a cab, see more and pay less. Very competitive in most all AK ports. Would not include flightseeing though. 🙂

Thank you for the information. 

[bvocruise]

2 minutes ago, Pushka said:

Yes we received one for Passage to India cruise this May, but for the one that was about to leave in 2022. (It's only done once a year as a repositioning cruise north to south or reverse) It gave us an idea of which ones were likely to sell out. DV for our May cruise opened up this week and the same excursions rapidly sold out on ours as well. 
 

Make sure when your window opens you are at the MVJ before the actual time and keep refreshing. They opened up to the minute. If there's an excursion you really want, pay for it immediately and don't keep it in the basket while looking for others. If not paid for, it can get sold out before you pay. 
 

Within 10 minutes of our booking window opening, many were sold out. 

Wow, I did not know the excursions go that fast. What about the ones they include at each port?

[Pushka]

6 minutes ago, bvocruise said:

Wow, I did not know the excursions go that fast. What about the ones they include at each port?

These have to be provided by Viking. Although in one port, even that is showing as sold out but Viking has to provide it. 

Alaska has so many private vendors providing tours and they know the cruise ship drill well so it's perfectly safe to book privately if you miss out. 

 

If you can get a PDF of the Alaska excursions then you can work out whether they will be enough for you or whether you need some more activity. 
 

The cruise I'm on is quite unique and lots of distance to travel by road (eg 7 hours driving in a day) so people feel safer doing Ship based excursions. 

 

[islandchick]

If you go on Vikings website you are able to go to the itinerary for the date you want. Once you get to that list, go to more info about the port or day and it will give you the possible excursions. 

[duquephart]

OP was asking anout included excursions.