Viking Ocean Med Excursions - Tour Times Inclusive of Transit?

[celacanf]

Greetings all,

 

Our booking shore excursion booking window opens on July 4th and we're preparing our strategy / prioritizing our picks.

 

One thing we can't figure out...are the posted times of the excursion inclusive of transit time? Or are the times listed when you are actually participating in the activity?

 

For example...for the Rome in Brief excursion below...is 7:45 a.m. when you are leaving the ship? Or is that when you'll start the tour in Rome (meaning you'll be leaving the ship closer to 6:30 a.m. given the ~1 hour transit from the port to Rome)?

 

Same question for the way back....are you departing Rome at 4:15 p.m. to head back to the ship? Or is 4:15 when you're back on the ship, meaning you're departing Rome around 3 p.m.?

 

As a follow-on to this...if you want to spend longer in Rome (and not leave with the group at 3 or 4 depending on the answers to the above), can you do that provided you arrange your own transportation back to the port? The embarkation time is listed at 8 p.m., so we would plan to be back at the port no later than 6/6:30 p.m.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Rome in Brief: Colosseum Quarter

INCLUDED

Day 2 – Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy

Sunday, October 20

7:45 AM

8.5 Hours

 

SIGHTSEEING

Explore Historic Sights On Your Own or With a Group

Experience Rome in a unique way during this go-as-you-please excursion to the Colosseum Quarter.

Rome is home to a vast number of important and fascinating historical landmarks. This tour allows you to focus on the area surrounding the famous Colosseum. At your drop-off point, meet your guide and receive your orientation briefing. Then, set out to explore the cobblestone pathways on your own or choose to join one of three guided optional tours that you can book on board your ship: Colosseum & Roman Forum, Basilica of San Clemente or Michelangelo’s Moses. Also, if you would like the opportunity to explore another section of the city, a minivan shuttle will be available at regular intervals to take you to the other Rome in Brief meeting points: the Vatican neighborhood or the Piazza del Popolo. At the designated time and location, meet and return to your ship.

Edited June 29 by celacanf
Duplicated graphic / text in body

[Clay Clayton]

In our experience (which does not include Rome), the departure time is when they expect to leave the ship.  Typically, if asked to meet onboard, the meeting time is 15 minutes prior to the excursion time, if meeting on the pier it will be the listed excursion time. Information on when and where to meet will be on page three of the Viking daily which will be in your stateroom after dinner the night prior to the excursion. 
 

Again, based on our experience (though not in Rome) they expect to have you back to the ship at 4:15. But on daylong tours like this, we have often gotten back later than this posted time due to traffic, crowds, or other factors.  Additionally on at least two occasions I remember, due to traffic being not as bad as expected, we were taken to an unplanned sightseeing location so that the trip took the full amount of time promised. 

 

If you wish to leave any excursion, it is allowed just be sure to tell the guide (and we always tell others on the tour in case the guide forgets) that you’re leaving and will make your own way back to the ship. 

[celacanf]

Thank you, @Clay Clayton! It's good to hear they're making sure you "get what you paid for," so to speak...and that it's likely the advertised tour time is inclusive of travel.

[kctwinmommy]

Yes, it includes your travel time. So, if you're going to Venice, that will include your boat travel time to Venice. We docked in Chioggia, so it was about 90 minutes each way.

 

Also, we saw in our documents that a lot of our ports we'd be there from like 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. However, once onboard, we found out that we had to be back on board by 5 p.m. And there were a few times we left just a little early, obviously because they knew everyone was back on board.

 

I will say, for Rome specific, we did a private tour. We were already seeing sights probably 15-20 minutes after the bus was leaving the ship! We left almost an hour before the first tour left the ship and had much more time in the town. Rome is great, but there's so much to see, so you need a plan and should pre-purchase tickets to major attractions. And you'll most likely only have time for like 2 of them. If your tour leaves at 7:45, you'll get there about 9:15ish I would say. And then have to be back at the bus probably by like 2:45. The bus takes longer than our private van did.

 

This is the tour we did!

 

[CDNPolar]

Both Clay and kctwin are correct.  This includes travel time.  This is important for us because we then calculate if the excursion is 8 hours but we know that the bus ride is 90-120 minutes each way, then we decide if we want to do this excursion and spend as much time on the bus as at the destination.

 

For instance, with Berlin on the Homelands cruise, there is a 2.5 hour train ride each way on a 12 hour excursion which gave us 7 hours in Berlin.  This to us was worth it.

[celacanf]

Thanks, @CDNPolar! That is exactly the type of calculation we're trying to do. Appreciate the feedback.

 

[kctwinmommy]

Exactly @CDNPolar! Our Florence/Pisa one was 10.5 hours. Now, we didn't totally calculate the travel time, but mostly because it wasn't a big deal. We knew we wanted to do that one. But it definitely is a factor on others. Thankfully, we hardly had any excursions with long travel times. I think our longest was to Mt. Etna, and it was totally worth it!!

 

Well, the only one I can think of with poor travel time was Sorrento & Pompeii, but that wasn't our actual choice. I went into it in my review posted on this page, but it was a last minute change. Anyway, TOO much wasted time because it's just too far, too much to do, in the amount of time given.

[CDNPolar]

16 hours ago, celacanf said:

Thanks, @CDNPolar! That is exactly the type of calculation we're trying to do. Appreciate the feedback.

 

 

For us, this train time was worth the 7 hours time that we had in Berlin.  We had no idea when we might be back with the option to visit Berlin AND Viking had about 400 or so passengers going on one of I think three excursions in Berlin and Viking chartered a train just for Viking.

 

We have made the decision however when travel is 1.5 + hours each way and you only get 2-3 hours in the destination that it was not worth it.

[Tas353]

On 6/29/2024 at 12:24 PM, celacanf said:

Greetings all,

 

Our booking shore excursion booking window opens on July 4th and we're preparing our strategy / prioritizing our picks.

 

One thing we can't figure out...are the posted times of the excursion inclusive of transit time? Or are the times listed when you are actually participating in the activity?

 

For example...for the Rome in Brief excursion below...is 7:45 a.m. when you are leaving the ship? Or is that when you'll start the tour in Rome (meaning you'll be leaving the ship closer to 6:30 a.m. given the ~1 hour transit from the port to Rome)?

 

Same question for the way back....are you departing Rome at 4:15 p.m. to head back to the ship? Or is 4:15 when you're back on the ship, meaning you're departing Rome around 3 p.m.?

 

As a follow-on to this...if you want to spend longer in Rome (and not leave with the group at 3 or 4 depending on the answers to the above), can you do that provided you arrange your own transportation back to the port? The embarkation time is listed at 8 p.m., so we would plan to be back at the port no later than 6/6:30 p.m.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Rome in Brief: Colosseum Quarter

INCLUDED

Day 2 – Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy

Sunday, October 20

7:45 AM

8.5 Hours

 

SIGHTSEEING

Explore Historic Sights On Your Own or With a Group

Experience Rome in a unique way during this go-as-you-please excursion to the Colosseum Quarter.

Rome is home to a vast number of important and fascinating historical landmarks. This tour allows you to focus on the area surrounding the famous Colosseum. At your drop-off point, meet your guide and receive your orientation briefing. Then, set out to explore the cobblestone pathways on your own or choose to join one of three guided optional tours that you can book on board your ship: Colosseum & Roman Forum, Basilica of San Clemente or Michelangelo’s Moses. Also, if you would like the opportunity to explore another section of the city, a minivan shuttle will be available at regular intervals to take you to the other Rome in Brief meeting points: the Vatican neighborhood or the Piazza del Popolo. At the designated time and location, meet and return to your ship.

I wonder if you could tell me if one of the excursions available to you was Panoramic Rome and St. Peter's Basilica? When were the excursions available to you to review?  Our booking window opens July 15 and I'm wondering when we will see them  in My Viking Journey. 

[Tas353]

On 6/29/2024 at 12:24 PM, celacanf said:

Greetings all,

 

Our booking shore excursion booking window opens on July 4th and we're preparing our strategy / prioritizing our picks.

 

One thing we can't figure out...are the posted times of the excursion inclusive of transit time? Or are the times listed when you are actually participating in the activity?

 

For example...for the Rome in Brief excursion below...is 7:45 a.m. when you are leaving the ship? Or is that when you'll start the tour in Rome (meaning you'll be leaving the ship closer to 6:30 a.m. given the ~1 hour transit from the port to Rome)?

 

Same question for the way back....are you departing Rome at 4:15 p.m. to head back to the ship? Or is 4:15 when you're back on the ship, meaning you're departing Rome around 3 p.m.?

 

As a follow-on to this...if you want to spend longer in Rome (and not leave with the group at 3 or 4 depending on the answers to the above), can you do that provided you arrange your own transportation back to the port? The embarkation time is listed at 8 p.m., so we would plan to be back at the port no later than 6/6:30 p.m.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Rome in Brief: Colosseum Quarter

INCLUDED

Day 2 – Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy

Sunday, October 20

7:45 AM

8.5 Hours

 

SIGHTSEEING

Explore Historic Sights On Your Own or With a Group

Experience Rome in a unique way during this go-as-you-please excursion to the Colosseum Quarter.

Rome is home to a vast number of important and fascinating historical landmarks. This tour allows you to focus on the area surrounding the famous Colosseum. At your drop-off point, meet your guide and receive your orientation briefing. Then, set out to explore the cobblestone pathways on your own or choose to join one of three guided optional tours that you can book on board your ship: Colosseum & Roman Forum, Basilica of San Clemente or Michelangelo’s Moses. Also, if you would like the opportunity to explore another section of the city, a minivan shuttle will be available at regular intervals to take you to the other Rome in Brief meeting points: the Vatican neighborhood or the Piazza del Popolo. At the designated time and location, meet and return to your ship.

Nevermind....I just looked and they are there!