Back from our first Viking cruise

[ural guy]

kctwinmommy-  I'm confused as to why you couldn't book Venice excursion until on boat?  I thought it was # of days out based on your cabin class?

 

In January we're on a 14 night cruise, Rome to Athens, and have that same long block of time in Venice due to it being 2 cruises booked as one trip.    Very interested in hearing about people ideas for that time.  Has anyone taken the ferry from Chioggia to Pellestrina (#11) and explored north along the barrier islands?  

 

Our first Ocean Cruise, thanks for posting this.

[Mitina]

48 minutes ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

9 hours ago, Mitina said:

 

Are you talking about the Astronomical Clock or the bells at the Campanella?

My mistake. Meant the Campanella. We rode the elevator to the top but the bells were behind plywood. That was last Thursday. I didn’t know you could tour the Astronomical Clock.

[OneSixtyToOne]

52 minutes ago, ural guy said:

kctwinmommy-  I'm confused as to why you couldn't book Venice excursion until on boat?  I thought it was # of days out based on your cabin class?

 

In January we're on a 14 night cruise, Rome to Athens, and have that same long block of time in Venice due to it being 2 cruises booked as one trip.    Very interested in hearing about people ideas for that time.  Has anyone taken the ferry from Chioggia to Pellestrina (#11) and explored north along the barrier islands?  

 

Our first Ocean Cruise, thanks for posting this.

On a B2B you cannot book excursions for the overnight between cruise legs until you are on board.

 

As to why, I believe it mainly has to do with Viking’s computer system. It considers the legs as separate cruises. You don’t receive tickets for 2nd leg excursions until the first leg is completed.

Edited May 21 by OneSixtyToOne

[Murt22]

2 minutes ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

On a B2B you cannot book excursions for the overnight between cruise legs until you are on board.

We are on 3 legs of the 4 week cruise starting in Athens on September 1, and when I originally booked our excursions, they had none for those turnaround days- however I checked last week and was able to book for middle day of Venice and for Rome. 

[OneSixtyToOne]

2 minutes ago, Murt22 said:

We are on 3 legs of the 4 week cruise starting in Athens on September 1, and when I originally booked our excursions, they had none for those turnaround days- however I checked last week and was able to book for middle day of Venice and for Rome. 

This sounds like a recent change in their process. Has anyone experienced this on other itineraries? 

Edited May 21 by OneSixtyToOne

[kctwinmommy]

6 hours ago, ural guy said:

kctwinmommy-  I'm confused as to why you couldn't book Venice excursion until on boat?  I thought it was # of days out based on your cabin class?

 

In January we're on a 14 night cruise, Rome to Athens, and have that same long block of time in Venice due to it being 2 cruises booked as one trip.    Very interested in hearing about people ideas for that time.  Has anyone taken the ferry from Chioggia to Pellestrina (#11) and explored north along the barrier islands?  

 

Our first Ocean Cruise, thanks for posting this.

So like others have already commented, for our specific cruise, we booked it as one cruise, it was titled as such. We were new to Viking. We didn't realize it until after we booked, that it was technically 3 legs of a longer 4 leg cruise. This means that the 2 ports where it was a turnover day (Venice & Rome) had excursions that weren't posted before we sailed. When we got on board, we were able to book Venice and then the next day we were given forms for Rome. It was kind of weird that there were 2 different ways for the 2 ports.

 

Now, it sounds like others are saying that they have since changed this process. Maybe they finally figured out how to limit access to those excursions to people who are booked through that port. That would be great if they did!

[kctwinmommy]

Oh, we also learned, in case others weren't aware (like me), when they say you get 1 included at each port, it doesn't matter if it's 3 days that you're there. It makes sense, and it is what they say. I just wasn't totally thinking. LOL! So we could only try to get into one included excursion, and it didn't matter if it was on a day/time that we didn't like. We would have preferred Sunday, but it ended up working out better being on Friday.