kctwinmommy

Nice! I know others have posted about doing that. I do think you need to let Viking know though, not sure. Just what others have said. Have a great time then, you will definitely enjoy Venice that way I'm sure. I was there many years ago, so I'm good now, I don't need to go back. LOL!

@ural guy - I won't lie, I was totally turned off by our time in "Venice" but that wasn't really high on my list to begin with. But yes, you're right, with the amount of time you spend in that area, it would be nice if there were more Viking options. Of course, we were also there at the beginning of tourist season, as well as the weekend the pope was holding mass that Sunday, so that also affected things for our specific cruise. It was also the 2nd or 3rd day I think for the tourist fee ticket you needed. You mentioned your hotel, are you planning to spend a night in Venice then? Hopefully others have suggestions on ways to get to Venice to spend more time there. We just didn't look into any as we didn't even know our options until we got onboard our cruise. There were NO excursions listed on MVJ for us to pick from. Another disappointment for us.

Yep, paying early didn't bother us. Although, as I've mentioned before, our due date wasn't a full year out either. I still have no idea how it was calculated. We booked in January 2023, the cruise was for April/May 2024. But our paid in full date was June 2023, so like 10 months before. Again, it didn't bother us though. I like having everything paid off early so we're ready to go when it's time without paying then. I know people are different though.

I agree with @The Other Tom Viator will have a bunch of options. And the Rick Steves book is great. We used LimosIn Rome for our private driver for the day, she was awesome. And also Get Your Guide is where we bought our tickets for the Vatican Museum, skip the line.

Oh 100%!!! I was super grateful for that. Well, we technically also got sick on our 3rd day in Venice, but we didn't have much planned anyway. So I slept like 18 hours!!! It knocked out whatever was trying to brew. I also had brought Zicam, which I started taking immediately. I had a little cold for like 2 days early on for our European cruise 7 years ago. Again, that long traveling, and then the cooler weather we had on it, it messes with the body for sure.

5/11 ~ 12 Barcelona (embarkation day/overnight - on our own) Our embarkation day was on the 11th and we had booked a hotel on our own to spend just 1 night. I know people had recommended staying much longer, but alas, we just couldn't. At the end of this, I'm glad we didn't because I was miserable by this afternoon. We left the ship around 8:00 that morning. We hung around the living room, chatting with new friends, before we all had to get off. We grabbed a taxi right outside the port terminal and headed over to our hotel. We were booked at the Catalonia Square hotel. I knew we'd be there way too early for a room to be ready, but we had nowhere else to go. We got to the hotel and checked in, of course finding out it would be at least several hours until our room would be ready. The could of course, take our luggage for us. They put tags, with tickets for each one, on each piece we gave them, which was nice. The hotel was nice, in a good location, and not too far from things. We got a map from the front desk and started to head out to the Picasso museum. Now, as we started to head over there, I was feeling crummy. I'd had a slight cough the day before, but nothing major at all. I mean, I ate breakfast that morning, no issues, and had some cough drops to help. We got to the Picasso museum just after it opened and headed inside. It's nice, even though not totally my thing. Of course, I know I was also just not in the mood at that point. It was cool to see some of his work though. We finally headed outside and I could tell I was just not good. I was chilly, and achy. So, we went back to the hotel, even though it was maybe 11:30 a.m. The lobby is actually on the 2nd floor, so we just sat there for a few hours, I even took a nap. I did get some drugs out of my luggage to help, and they definitely did. I was still just worn out though, so instead of walking to La Sagrada Familia like we planned, we took a cab. I was actually feeling a little hungry and yes, some McDonald's fries sounded great at that time, so got that at the McD's right across from LSF. First time in 28 days we'd had any sort of fast food or something "American," so good for us! LOL! I'm a picky eater by nature, so I'm glad I didn't do it anywhere else. Besides, it was just something quick to fill my stomach. We had 2:30 tour reservations so we got there a little before that. It's pretty chaotic around there, that's for sure! Just a lot of people, which we knew as our Viking walking tour the day before had a stop there. We bought our audio guided tickets through the official website for LSF before we left. We included the Passion tower with ours. The Nativity tower was the original Gaudi one, but the Passion they say has better views. We were pointed in the direction of where our tour started, just outside the doors. The guy organizes various audio tours, in different languages, but it was pretty easy to figure out where to go. Our guide was good, but the audio devices weren't the best, with the amount of people and such. The quiet vox on Viking was better, IMO. Still, we did enjoy our guide and the tour. It was about an hour or so in length. At the end, he explained where to go for each tower, as some in our group had the Nativity and some had the Passion. The guided portion was done at this point and we got in line for our tower. We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes. I could tell my meds were wearing off at this point, so I tried to just take it easy. I was grateful that you take an elevator to go up, and then stairs to come down. The stairs are really tight though! Be aware if you don't like confined spaces, it was definitely tight. And my head getting a little light, yikes! But I made it back down. I do recommend doing one of the towers for sure though! Oh, they don't allow any large items to go up either. But they have lockers there and you use a €1 coin to put your items in, and then you get the coin back when you're done. After we were done, again, instead of walking, we did take a cab. I had hoped with our hotel location we'd spend the time walking around the area, and go back to see the church at night, but that was not to be. Our cab also didn't know exactly where our hotel was, so he dropped us off at THE Catalonia Square, which is like a plaza a block from the hotel. He didn't know the hotel. We found our cabby that morning also didn't know the hotel's location. That was just odd to us, but I guess GPS has made them not NEED to know these precisely. Back at the hotel, I was done! I was exhausted and knew I couldn't do anything else. My husband went to the pharmacy down the block while I slept. He got me some more meds. Once he came back, around 7:30, I had him help me take a shower, which really did help. I just didn't want to try by myself with how weak I felt. I was disappointed that I didn't even get to enjoy our hotel room either. I had booked a room with like a balcony or something (I didn't totally remember), so we had these floor to ceiling windows and a balcony, on the 8th floor! It was beautiful, but I only went out for like 1 minute. I crashed for sleep around 9 p.m. as our car was going to be there at like 7:30 to take us to the hotel. We had booked a car through Welcome Pickups, which I only heard of like 3-4 days earlier. I actually booked it on Friday afternoon while still on the ship. I'm glad we did. It was a nice, large cab SUV, nice driver, and good service. I commented that I would have felt a little uneasy waiting for a cab outside of our hotel though, which was a first. However, all around the area, there were multiple groups of young men hanging around, like 8-10 groups, all in their early 20s, like 4-6 in each group. I just felt that as a woman, if I was by myself, I would have waited inside the hotel or asked for help to get a car. Our driver actually explained that at 7:30 on a Sunday morning, it's very difficult to get a cab, they're not out on the streets. All these young men were trying to get home after the night out, looking for cabs to get home. Anyway, we got to the airport pretty quickly, being early on a Sunday morning. Dropped us off for Delta, took about 30 minutes to get checked in (another airline's line was at least an hour long!). Once we went through security, we then headed to our gate. However, when they had to head through passport control. All US citizens were in one (long) line, other countries had a much shorter line. This was at least another 30 minutes. Once we got to our gate, it was pretty quiet. There aren't a lot of options for snack and such in the area though, so maybe eat before you go through all of that. I don't know if Delta has a lounge at the airport, I couldn't find it when I searched, and I think it's more of a shared lounge. Either way, we just hung out by our gate. Getting on the plane was also a bit crazy and disorganized. Some of that human made. We had some people on the plane who all needed assistance to get on, more than normal it seemed. And some were very rude about it, IMO. We were actually flying Delta One (again, a splurge for us, my first time ever not in economy! LOL!). So we technically were the first group to board after the special assistance. But again even here some people were a bit pushy about getting on first. I mean, we all have assigned seats, so whatevs as I say. LOL! We got all boarded, took some meds (my anxiety meds for flying) so I could take a little nap. The food was the same as our flight over, and not that great for me. Of course, being under the weather made me not that hungry. I did enjoy another ice cream sundae though. 😉 We got all tucked in and off to sleep. Made good time, got to Atlanta where we had a layover of like 5 hours. But thankfully, we did have the lounge here. Grabbed some food, little rest, and then home. I will say, once I got home, I took some Nyquil, poured myself into bed, and crashed out. The next day I went to Urgent Care. They did all the tests - Covid, flu, RSV, and strep and everything was negative! She said just most likely something viral I caught with all the traveling and being around so many people. There was quite a bit of coughing going around the ship. But no biggie, got some meds and I was fine. Picasso artwork Picasso self portrait One of the most beautiful things we've ever seen. None of the pictures I took do it justice. The ceiling A wider view Looking down from the tower You could spend hours looking at all the artwork around the entire church The Lord's Prayer in multiple languages, with A/G door handles for Antoni Gaudi. Overlooking Barcelona The facade on the Passion side. The warm colored side The cool colors side.

@Peregrina651 thank you so much! I'm glad someone has found it helpful. I really did try to keep my notes and info on things that people often ask. Like the difficulty, the time on buses, the time in town, etc... I know I didn't get it all, but I did remember to write down quite a bit. Except for our last day, ugh, such a crummy way to end our trip, as you'll see in my next post. This really was an amazing trip, especially for being our first Viking cruise ever. I so wish we still had our W. Indies one to go on, I'm so sad. =( I don't know when we'll get on another Viking cruise TBH. We have some other traveling we'd like to do. I'd love to spend 2-3 weeks in Germany/Poland to see WWII sites, but that would be land based and maybe with a tour group that specializes in those kinds of tours. We'll see what the future holds. My husband retired in Nov. 2022, but then just started a new F/T job this month. And our son graduates college in 2 years. We'd like to move out of this state too, hopefully in the next 3-4 years. So, money has to go towards a few things. But hopefully Viking will be in our future again. 😃

As I said, I can only compare it to ours in Athens, and for the $2000 it cost for the 2 of us, it was almost a wash when compared to doing it on our own. We had 4 nights in the hotel, so right there, that's at least $1,200 (as prices for hotels we looked at were around $300/night). We had breakfast everyday at the hotel. Then our first 2 days were both a full day tour to places far outside of Athens. So, places we wouldn't have easily been able to get to on our own either. Both days had lunch included at a sit down restaurant. Our 3rd full day we had completely on our own. So we went to the Archaeological museum, and various other sites in the city. On our last day, embarkation day, we had the bus tour around the city a bit, on top of the Acropolis, and the Acropolis museum. All of the tours were with an amazing guide. We, as well as many others on our extension, agreed that we may have saved like $100 for all that we got if we did it on our own. Oh, and we had the transfers from the airport to the hotel and then the hotel (well after the Acropolis) to the ship. Like we've said, you'll need to decided if this is all worth it to you, for what you'll get. Or if you're pretty capable of doing it on your own. Good luck either way! And enjoy it, I loved Rome!

For those who are curious, this is the write up for it... Day 1 - Rome Disembark your ship in Civitavecchia and head to one of Rome’s exquisite Renaissance gardens. The Italian Renaissance style began during the 15th century and its trademark look expressed symmetry through orderly and manicured landscaping. Learn more about this style during a guided walk around the grounds of one of Rome’s best-kept examples. Afterward, transfer to your hotel and check in. This evening, enjoy a traditional evening meal. (D) Museum Interior, Vatican Day 2 - Rome This morning, enjoy time at your leisure to explore your surroundings on your own, or join an optional excursion. After lunch, set off to Vatican City for a guided tour of the world-renowned Vatican Museums. Stroll through the galleries to admire pieces from Raphael and Caravaggio, and view Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. After, walk to the expansive St. Peter’s Square and view the world’s most iconic basilica before returning to your hotel. (B) Circus Maximus, Rome Day 3 - Rome After breakfast, set out to discover Rome during a morning excursion. This historic city is home to many of the great sights of ancient Rome. By small motorized vehicle and on foot, view the mighty Colosseum—the most important amphitheater in the Roman world—and the Circus Maximus; you will also see Venice Square and Capitoline Hill. Enjoy an afternoon at your leisure or you may join an optional excursion. This evening for dinner, attend a culinary workshop and learn to make pasta. (B, D) Day 4 - Rome This morning, check out of your hotel and transfer to the airport for your flight home. (B) All this is included: 3 hotel nights in Rome (as shown or similar) 5 meals: 3 breakfasts (B) & 2 dinners (D) 5 guided tours: Vatican City & St. Peters Square; Traditional Dinner; Highlights of Rome; Pasta Making Culinary Workshop; Renaissance Garden Fully escorted by your Viking Tour Director All transfers 3 hotel nights in Rome (as shown or similar) 5 meals: 3 breakfasts (B) & 2 dinners (D) 5 guided tours: Vatican City & St. Peters Square; Traditional Dinner; Highlights of Rome; Pasta Making Culinary Workshop; Renaissance Garden Fully escorted by your Viking Tour Director All transfers

@Peregrina651 - awww.... thanks!! I'm said we couldn't take more excursions too! LOL! I'll finish our last days in Barcelona when I get more time (too much to do at work right now. LOL!). It was a letdown though as I was sick! =( But glad it was only the last day. And yeah I went and found the description of the extension online, it's not super specific, which leads me to think that they won't go into a lot of the places listed. And yes! Very hard to see a lot in Rome without getting transportation around. I also recommend, based on our limited experience, that anything you want to do in Rome, do it in the morning when it's not as crowded. If we ever make it back for a few days, I'll plan on hitting 1, maybe 2, major sites in the morning, then more relaxed, sightseeing in the afternoon. I truly hope we make it back!

@Peregrina651 - totally agree! Although reading that extension, it's not giving them much of admission to anything. The Vatican Museum, some gardens, and then it sounds like a lot of "drive by" places, with maybe a short stop to see them, but it seems it's all from the outside.

Wow! Not at $2500/person! You could do a lot, and more, on your own, IMO. We didn't do this, but we spent the day in Rome. Yes, I left wanting to see so much more!! We spent $600 (or close to that) for a private driver to take us to all the sites we wanted to see. We independently bought Vatican museum tickets for like 10:30 a.m. We were there for over 2 hours and truly couldn't even see a fraction of it (you can read about it in my review posted on this page). And it got beyond busy as we went along, so going in the afternoon will be really busy. I'm sure others will chime in, but getting around in Rome I have read is pretty easy and there are a lot of small group type tours you can book. I would honestly look at staying 3-4 nights on your own and booking those kinds of tours. Get tickets to go inside of things too, we just didn't have the time in 1 day to do that. But we still saw Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Vatican Museum, St. Peter's Square, and like 3-4 other stops. For comparison, we spent $1000/person for 4 nights in Athens this past spring. And that included 2 full day tours outside of Athens, one full day on our own, plus the Acropolis in the morning before we were transferred to the ship. Everyone on that extension said it was totally worth every penny. If your cruise isn't for awhile yet, I would get Rick Steves book, look at his suggestions, plot out what you want to see, and find tours or get tickets for those things.

We've never gotten it. And most of our cruises have ported in places that have internet and we can text from there. So I can check in on things if needed, but it's not a necessity. We did have internet on our last cruise, but that's because we were on Viking, where it's included. I used it in the evening when we were relaxing to just play some games. I also used it to post photos to a few friends and close family. It was a 28 day trip though, so definitely needed it more. Have never bought it on Carnival, won't get it on our next RCI one either.

There were a ton of taxis when we got off in May. And I don't remember it taking long at all to get off the ship. It was quite easy & fast!

The shuttle boat docked maybe 10 minutes walking from St. Mark's Square. Just make sure you aren't planning things down to the wire. It gets very busy, so your time to do things might take a little longer than you think. We did a St. Mark's & Doge's Palace tour for our excursion, but we did get like 50 minutes on our own before our tours started. It wasn't enough time to go up in the tower, which I was disappointed, but oh well. The line was quite long and moving very slowly.

@jimbo5544 it says they booked it through the cruise ship, but they didn't get a hold of the right person who could relay that to the ship. But even still, if it was a NCL excursion, then why wouldn't they wait. I know they're getting reimbursed, but man! This one sounds like NCL dropped the ball. I don't how a tour wouldn't have enough room on their bus either, you took X number of people, you bring X number back!

@OneSixtyToOne - and what was your wife's response?!! That's funny though... And as far as laundry, we were on a 22 day cruise, with an extra 6 days before & after, so we had to do laundry. It wasn't a big deal at all. We took our things down, grabbed our books, and read while we waited (not in the laundry room though). We made sure to set timers to be back and change things out, and then be ready when it was done. It truly didn't take much time out of our day at all.

I agree with @shof515 - Viator is a great option for many tours. And you can always contact and work with the tour company directly as well. I had to do that for a tour in Italy. No problems at all.

On our cruise this April/May, there was no shuttle boat going from Chioggia to Venice. So, once you get on the ship, there's no Viking sponsored way to get back to Venice. It's also about 90 minutes each way, so that cuts into your time as well. Chioggia is a cute town. They call it Little Venice, lots of canals and bridges. I wrote up a little bit about it in my trip report (on the page just a short ways down). We didn't do a lot when we went, but it was cute. It will probably grow with possible tours and such if these ships continue to dock here.

Here's what I found on their site... It's a private group if you want the 6 people one, for $1,000. https://www.harvandmarvs-juneau-whale-watching.com/tours/harvs/

Read about this on a social med. website. Yeah, it appears they're trying to upgrade security with their log in credentials. But, they didn't really communicate it to customers. Some said they could still log in with their email and password. I haven't even checked as we don't have anything booked now anyway. 😔

We did a whale watching trip when we did a vacation to Boston several years ago. Same thing, no whales spotted. But we did see a basking shark, which apparently was pretty rare. The company gives out a return voucher if there are no whales spotted, which was nice. We weren't able to use it, but we were able to give it to some friends who went out the next year. It was nice that they did that though.

5/10 - Barcelona (Day 1) - Included Iconic Barcelona tour. We got up to head out for our tour on our last full day on the ship. We had originally signed up to do the evening walking tour as well, but ended up cancelling it a week or two earlier. So we just did the included Iconic Barcelona. It was a partial walking, partial bus tour, but really good! We had Oliver as our guide and he was really good! We first did some driving though the city, pointing out various landmarks along the way. A lot of it was Gaudi buildings of course. Our first stop was at La Sagrada Familia to walk around the outside. He explained a bunch of things about it, which was great as we'd be coming back on our own the next day. He also gave us about 15-20 minutes to walk around the area on our own as well. We then went back to the bus and drove over to the area where the Barcelona Cathedral is. As we walked back to the bus, he took us past this mural that showed a bunch of famous people from the city. We did about an hour or so walking through this area of the city. He pointed out various sites along the way through here too. I have to say, I remember seeing a lot of things, but I didn't write down any details as my night turned into an awful next day (more on that later). But we loved the city, so much to see. I had no idea, even though people had said, what a beautiful city Barcelona is! It's no lie, the entire city is a gem!! After we were done there, we did a little driving around the city, he showed us the towers that were used for athletes for the Barcelona Olympics as well as various other sites around the city. After our tour, we headed back with the bus to drop off a few things, and maybe to change. Our weather had been on the cooler side for many ports, so this one was warmer. We wanted to see a little of the nearby area, walking distance, on our own for a bit. We tried to go up in the Columbus statue tower, but it was broken! There's an elevator to go up, and it wasn't working. So from there, we headed into La Rambla area. It was busy, but not packed. We walked for a good distance, there's a lot of booths and little vendors, mostly selling the same things. There's also a lot of restaurant cafes, basically an extension of their main dining room that's behind there, on the street that goes alongside La Rambla. After about 2 hours of walking, we stopped at one of these cafes. It's kind of funny, they also have a guy at each one who's job it really is to hustle and get people to come in and dine. They also have some really cool living statues on the street here too. They are so neat, my husband gave a tip, which then we realized is how they'll take a picture with you and move. After a little more walking, we headed back to the ship to clean up for a bit and do some packing. We did dinner with some friends we made in the restaurant after cocktails in the Explorer's Lounge. Which, I have to say, they ran out of regular peanuts there! We had a wonderful dinner, stayed there until 9 p.m. and then we headed back to our room as we were tired! I forgot to mention, we did the Going Away "party" show on the night before in the theater. Our cruise director, who started as a singer on the ships, performed with the assistant C.D. and they brought in a ton of the staff as well. I guess they did that show each week, as we were technically on 3 legs, but we only went this one time. It was really good, we had 4 great singers. I'll do our last day in Barcelona, off the ship, later... Our tour guide started us from this amazing view of the basilica. Looking up at La Sagrada Familia Us in front of the cathedral There are architectural gems everywhere! A cool building by the Columbus column Columbus statue My husband with Galileo A VERY large glass of sangria, that didn't have the price posted. We should have known it wouldn't be a cheap $4 glass. LOL! With our friends we made on the ship. A beautiful star atop the Virgin Mary spire at La Sagrada Familia The Passion Facade of the church A mural showing a bunch of famous people from here. There's a sign posted nearby to label them all. Barcelona Cathedral Barcelona Cathedral

I typically book when I know what I want, I don't wait. Especially for a cruise like that, where people really want the excursions. I mean, Caribbean cruises, it's a lot of beaches and things you could do on your own. In Alaska, it's much more involved. You can always cancel an excursion, within their window of course (can't remember what their policy is, I can't remember the last time we cancelled one of theirs).

Exactly! Especially based on their very direct screen name they made.