kctwinmommy

59 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

Get the Google translate app for your phone.  Pick the languages then aim your camera  at the words on your computer screen.  Read the translation on your phone.  Use same for menus when you travel. 

OK I'll try that too, but my regular Google translate on my phone & computer didn't work. Thanks! I'll have that for our trip anyway.

Thanks @millybess - I certainly will keep searching. And honestly, if I get us booked on the Viking one, then that's fine too.

This is why researching a cruise is important, IMO. When it comes to the way Viking does their cruises, I feel it's good to know that you might be on the "leg" of a longer cruise. I don't know if any other cruise lines do this, so it was one thing that was definitely unique to this trip. Also, when it comes to pre-cruise extensions, I've read quite a bit about them, and many people will say that you can definitely do this cheaper than what Viking offers it for. Still, many will do the Viking offer. We are doing it for our cruise, but that's because we're going to a completely new area & country, and the price is probably only like $200 more than if we did ourselves, and even that I'm not sure on. But ours is 4 days, plus our transfers, and 2 excursions out of the city and 1 day together in the city (the 1st day we're on our own). There's a level of comfort and convenience with ours, that we're willing to pay a little bit more for.

I'm sorry that you were disappointed with things that happened, but hopefully you'll look a little closer at other cruises they offer and be able to use your vouchers. Just make sure you read their terms for those too. Good luck!

I happened to look about 4 months before our cruise, give or take a few days, and they were there in MVJ. I know others have said they got a PDF of the cruise, if it's available from another sailing, but I didn't get it. I have time, I don't mind, so I actually created a PDF of all the excursions listed in the MVJ once they were published. Then I knew the times offered, the length, and the cost. I need all of this to plan our trip. So I have it, it's printed out, and my husband and I are reading over them to decide. Since we can't book for a few more weeks anyway, we've had plenty of time to look it over.

But, I didn't get any email to tell me they were there. I just would randomly check and they were there just before New Year's.

7 hours ago, duquephart said:

 

I wonder if there is such a thing. Been looking.

Same! I've been googling several times, no luck yet.

5 hours ago, millybess said:

I'm not sure if this will help:

 

https://www.vipholidaybooker.com/en/blog/day-falconry-center-dubrava-sibenik

Yeah, that doesn't really give me any private tours for it. It does have their website, which can't be translated according to my browser. So not much help either. I'm going to just cross my fingers that we can get it booked through the cruise. Thank you though.

1 hour ago, nini said:

We did that once and final payment was still due in full a year before boarding.

And ours was due 10 months before sailing, which is strange based on everything else I read.

On a side note, thank you for the replies! Too many times people say "oh, just search it" or "here, read this thing." But to keep things straight in my own head, it's good to have replies to my questions.

42 minutes ago, millybess said:

Excellent advice and I will offer one more thing. If there is something you want and can’t get, check back often. We’ve already cancelled 2 excursions for our April cruise. No doubt there will be more changes to come. 
 

Also, on the cruise we’re on right now, it’s day 4 and we’ve already cancelled 2 excursions. 

Oh yes! I'm not going to freak out if something is sold out. LOL! I'll also be honest, as of right now, I think there's only like 2 things that we really want to do. This is such a big trip for us, a long one, that there's so much to do and see to begin with. We can't do it all... 😃

1 hour ago, CCWineLover said:

Cindy -  I was going to respond, but all the above posters have given you all the very good advice about the logistics of getting excursions.  One more note, however, is that if you have OBC's (or vouchers) that are on your account already for the cruise, Viking will take those off first.  Of course that will make it even faster to execute.

One area to be thoughtful of - pairing an optional excursion in the am or pm with an included in the opposite time slot.  Sometimes it gets a bit tricky - but I'd still do the optional first.

 

We are actually going from Rome to Athens (with Greece extension) in a month.  Looking at your itinerary and ports on Mars for your legs, it appears to be identical to ours and the excursions identical.  We reserved in December.   We have a DV and also have legs 2&3 of 4 legs, so aware of the competition.  If this helps:

We were able to get nearly everything we wanted.   It took 20 minutes to complete - 17 excursions

A couple excursions that sold out quickly were:

-Herculaneaum (Naples) and a bit later Pompeii  (we got Pompeii as first choice)

-Fortification: City Wall Walk (Dubrovnik) didn't get this but we'll do it on our own

But we got every other one of our optional and included choices in each port.

 

Awesome! Thanks for the info! And yes, sounds like we're on the same things. And I was going to look at any chances we had to double up, when we wanted to. And no OBC's for us.

3 minutes ago, KBs mum said:

25 percent of total, not 25 dollars 

Oh yes, I saw that. I was just saying that we did a $25 deposit sail. I didn't realize that you guys had to do 25%, or that it was different even. LOL!

5 minutes ago, millybess said:

From one Cindy to another.....:)

 

We are on legs 4 and 5 of a 5 leg cruise.  Our leg starts in April.  The 1st leg starts in February.  There were plenty of categories on different legs that booked before us, but we were able to get all the excursions we wanted.  We didn't expect that, and even several days after we booked, there are only a few "sold out"s.

 

We set up the ACH payment ahead of time.  Both DH and I logged in.  We had our excurions prioritized.  He put 3 in the cart, I put 3 in the cart at the same time and then one of us checked out while the other was putting more in the cart. (I'm laughing while reading this because it sounds like an after Christmas sale or something like that.) We had 5 weeks of excursions to choose and we were done in less than 5 minutes.

 

And yes, choose the optional excusions first and the included ones last.

 

Anyway, there are many people here who say that 2 people cannot be logged in at the same time, but this has always worked for us.

Thank you! I'm laughing at the Christmas sale comments!

And yes, I have heard that as long as your logged in, as the "same person" you can use 2 computers. But, my husband is somewhat slower than me on these kinds of things. He'll be like "Wait, what am I doing, which am I picking, how many people, what time..." LOL! So his question will take longer than me just doing it most likely.

4 minutes ago, formernuke said:

You have it about right. You will see all the times, even if sold out. You should see all of the actual excursions for your cruise about 120 days prior in MVJ (Even though they are not available to book until your date).

 

One note on booking the paid excursions: it is faster to use the electronic payment option (ACH) because it will automatically use that to charge your excursions as soon as you purchase it. Remember it is not yours until paid for, so you wan to quickly pay for each if they are popular. If you use a credit card, you unfortunately have to re-enter the credit card info after every purchase, which will slow you down and risk losing an excursion if it sells out before you can pay for it. (I assume they do that since some people might want to split what they want to charge among several cards). 

Yes, I actually created a PDF of all the excursions myself. So I have had the time to print it out and read it with my husband. And thanks for the tip on ACH! We normally use our credit card for everything, but we can do the ACH for this if it makes it faster.

Thanks so much!

On 1/20/2024 at 10:14 AM, FlaMariner said:

We are using them....

 

https://www.italytours.eu/shore-excursions/civitavecchia-rome-shore-excursions/rome-shore-excursion/

Ohh... this is what I'm looking for! Have you used them before? I'd love to hear some reviews.

I actually just looked up reviews and they're really good according to Trip Advisor. Thanks for sharing this. I just sent them an email for some more info on that tour for the day we're in Rome.

I've read about booking excursions before, and now our time is getting close. As this is our first Viking cruise, I want to make sure I've got my ducks in a row before we do it. Since we're getting on the cruise at leg 2 of 4, I'm realizing that we'll be fighting for slots with people that get on at leg 1, even if they're in a cabin level below ours. We're in a DV, which leaves only the V cabins (they book 60 days, we do 67 days out, which basically puts us on the same schedule - if all that makes sense! LOL!). Anyway, I know we need to pick time slots for our included ones, in addition to booking/paying for optional ones. And from what I've read, it's best to select, book, then pay for each excursion, as some can sell out if you wait to do them all at the end. I'm assuming that booking each one is best, then going back and booking our included ones. Also, will it only show available times, or will it show sold out times as well? I'm just thinking in advance, in case we can't get a slot we want, but may be able to once we get on board, it'll be nice to know what other time slots are available. 

I already have a PDF of al the available excursions, I've been reading through it, as is my husband, so that we can pick the ones we want at the top of our list. Right now, we're looking at a lot of the included ones, so I'm hoping we will only need to actually pay for a few excursions. Because our cruise is so port heavy, I don't want to over schedule us either.

Thanks for any tips or advice.

Considering they're still expanding, with multiple ships coming to the fleet in the next few years, I'd say their business model is working just fine for them. Like others have been saying, if it really didn't work, they would change things. And @KBs mum that's interesting the way things work for you guys. I didn't realize there would be such a difference. We did the $25 deposit last year. But, not sure how they calculate it, we had to make our payment in June of '23 for our upcoming cruise (so 10 months ahead). Of course, we only booked it 15 months before sailing. So I guess they gave us 6 months to make final payment then.

1 hour ago, millybess said:

We loved the Falconry Center.  It was one of our most favourite excursions on our 3 week cruise.  The Krka National Park was fairly ordinary for us and not worth the trip down and up.  If we were to do it again, we would just book a private tour to the Falconry Center and skip Krka Falls.

 

However, many people here really enjoyed the Krka Falls.  Much has been written on this topic recently and if you search "Krka", I think you will find many opinions from others who have been on these excursions.

 

Enjoy! 

I haven't found a private tour of the falconry center yet! No, I haven't spent hours searching, but in my normal searches, I didn't see anything yet. It's on our list for our cruise, but not sure if it will sell out before we can book.

2 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

Viking is not a member of CLIA and does not follow its guidelines. When dealing with Viking you have to put aside the idea that Viking is anything like the mainstream companies operating in the US.

 

Final payment is not the same as when cancellation penalties kick in. While final payment may be a year or more out, cancellation penalties on cruises (other than grand voyages, spelled out in the contract) don't kick in until 120 prior to the start of the journey. Prior to 120 days, the cancellation fee is $100pp.

 

• Booking Terms & Conditions
• Passenger Ticket Contract

 

What for? They aren't responsible for guests' misconceptions.

 

As for the warning not too book early, my 2024 cruise, brochure price before all discounts (which are no longer available) is up by $1000pp for a DV cabin and is all but sold out while my 2025 cruise is up by $1300pp (DV cabin) and is just a few cabins from sold out. Prices are going up on many sailings right now. Even with a crystal ball, you can't predict where prices are going on which cruises. If  you see something you like at a price you like, book it and forget about second guessing the market.

 

To be fair, it took me a while to figure out how things work with Viking and how to work within their stringent business policies.  However, it took me less than one day on board to know that Viking Ocean was everything I wanted in a cruise ship and that I would be sailing with them as often as I could afford.

 

The good news is that it is still not too late to cancel your cruise and get back all that you paid less the $100pp cancellation fee and whatever you paid for insurance. You still have plenty of time to book on another cruise line for 2025 -- one whose policies and procedures you are familiar with and more comfortable. And if you bought your travel insurance from other than Viking, you might even be able to roll the policy to the new cruise. Why spend the money if you are already determined to be unhappy and dissatisfied?

 

 

Exactly! Well said!

20 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

Also note that for some, 9000ft, with its oxygen thin air is hard on the lungs and circulatory system. 

Yep, that's what my though/comment was too.

Exactly like @LindaS272 said. I read several posts here and did quite a bit of researching before booking our first Viking cruise. And while our payment wasn't quite as far in advance, we knew the terms. We booked our April '24 cruise in Jan. '23 and had to pay it by June '23 (so 10 months ahead of time). Either way, we knew what their terms were when we booked it. We booked early so we could pick the cabin and cruise we wanted. Like others have also said, it's a business model that obviously hasn't hampered their bottom line.

That's one we're considering. I'm guessing it's because of the altitude and potential rocky areas on the mountain.

We've left Carnival for now as well. Just not enjoying the current product they offer. I'm sure we'll sail them again in the future, because of some good deal or another, but not anytime soon. Enjoy your European cruise! We used RC for our European cruise 7 years ago and loved it!

Wow! This whole thing is crazy, and good to know for others. I wonder if he had fraudulent credit cards that he used too. Just sounds like something a scammer like this would do. I hope you can at least clear your name in this and get your deposit back. If you haven't yet, I would also check your credit history and make sure there's nothing else in it.

We booked ours a year ago, our first one, and it's only gone up. Not an expedition, just an ocean. I'm sure like anything else, as it gets closer, they offer deals to sell the remaining cabins, but I truly don't know. We looked around at the options when we were ready to book, took a few days, and then booked it. I don't usually spend much time looking at the prices after it's been done. Either way, it sold out within a few months of our booking, and then it wouldn't matter what the prices were. That's the reason we book when we do, to get the cruise and cabin we want.

I know there was also some weird things with the website this week, and many cruises were coming up thousands of dollars more. Ours was now showing our cabin to be a little over $20K/person! We paid $12K. However, after like 2 days, things were back down to more normal, with a small increase since last year.

So that's totally bizarre!! It did drop back down today and now it's only $1500 more per person. That's just crazy that it was showing $8000 more yesterday. Wow! And there's actually ONE Explorer's Suite open now. Wish I could afford that! LOL!