How are the included excursions?

we are considering booking the Viking Homelands cruise for next year and comparing prices. Can’t find out about the included excursions on the Viking website. Are they basically just walking tours of the ports? If so, are the excursions for sale good and comparably priced with other cruise lines? I need to compare apples to apples before making a decision. Also, has anyone booked business class air through Viking? Good experience? Thanks.

We did the following included excursions

Tallin - very good walking tour.

Gdansk - excellent walking tour

Helsinki - very good bus tour with stops that dropped us in town to finish exploring on our own

Aalborg - good walking tour.

Stavanger - excellent walking tour with petroleum museum

In general, we were very pleased with the included tours that we did. We did all other cities on our own.

A description of each of the tours is posted on the Viking website. To find them, go to the itinerary page of the cruise you interested in (in this case Viking Homelands). Scroll down the page until you see Day by Day and the list of ports. Click anywhere in the anyone of the bands and it will take you to a day by day, port by port description of the port and the tours that may be offered in that port. One of the tours will be marked as the included tour; click to see a description (but no prices) of the tour. From here, you can proceed day by day using the Next and Previous arrows at the top of the page.

The port pages are generic and are used for any itinerary that includes that port, thus not all the excursions shown may be offered on your particular sailing; the final selection will be posted to MyVikingJourney (the website where we book shorex, etc.) and will be available about 120 days before sailing.

So for example, a description of the included tour in Stockholm is as follows:

One bit of information about the included tours: The word "panoramic" in the description is code for bus ride. Maybe a brief stop for a photo op, maybe not. We were not a fan of the walking tours as they inevitably move at the speed of the slowest person. As they say, different strokes for different folks. ;p:cool:

There is a little flexibility in the walking tours, as most guides do use the Quiet Vox system (all of them are supposed to do so), and the range is pretty good. The advantage is that you don't have to stay right with the tour guide. I'm usually that person hanging back to get a photo without the large crowd blocking the view. I have never gotten lost, or made the group have to wait for me, so I love that.

In many ports, Viking runs free shuttle service from a designated spot back and forth to the ship. Several times we have stayed behind after a tour to spend some time on our own. That is another bonus.

As a pretty new cruiser, I don't know how prices compare to other lines. For our upcoming Trade Routes of the Middle Ages cruise prices can range from $49 for a seven hour Bruges On Your Own, to $79 for a seven hour Bruges & Local Delicacies to $99 for an eight hour Highlights of Ghent & Bruges. Of course there are some that are even more expensive for more elaborate plans, like the $179 ten hour In the Footsteps of Claude Monet combined visit to Giverney, lunch, and walking tour of Rouen.

With only one exception, we enjoyed all our excursions on our first cruise, both included and optional. The tour guide is an important variable, and the one tour we did not care for was related to a guide we found less than satisfactory.

One bit of information about the included tours: The word "panoramic" in the description is code for bus ride. Maybe a brief stop for a photo op, maybe not. We were not a fan of the walking tours as they inevitably move at the speed of the slowest person. As they say, different strokes for different folks. ;p:cool:

Agreed. The included walking tours we did on Viking Homelands: Tallinn, Arlborg, Eidfjord, we split off from after a short while. They were just too slow and weren’t hitting the places we wanted to spend time. It was easy to get back to the ship in those places. When we look back, the days we remember most fondly are the ones we did on our own.

In Stavenger, we had time to do the Norled Pulpit rock cruise and the included walking tour.

In Bergen, we started the included tour but got off to explore on our own. the Hanseatic musuem is great. The Bergen funicular to MT Floyen, offers a senior citizen discount and is not crowded, no lines in the afternoon.

As someone who has only cruised twice, once with P&O and recently with Viking I can tell you the prices of Vikings optional excursions are very reasonable. We spent about £900 on excursions with P&O. Viking doesn’t fleece you for anything in my experience.

We had not been to any of the cities on the Homelands tour before so we found the included excursions provided a good introduction. All the tours gave us time on our own and it was easy to let the guide know if you wanted to break away at any time. In most cities Viking had a shuttle bus running back to the ship so you could get back to the ship on your own if the dock was not in walking distance. We also did a couple of paid tours that were very good.

Avoid the bus tours; they are generally a waste of time. For us, this was true in Stockholm and Helsinki. The walking tours of Cadiz, Lisbon and Talinn were very good and moved at a nice pace.

Did mostly optional but did the following included excursions:

Bergen - mostly a bus ride, but worth doing: later do the funicular on your own

Copenhagen: traffic slowed bus ride with walk around the palace; we also did 2 separate optional tours which were great

Gdansk - OK walking tour

Tallin - very worthwhile walking tour

Helsinki - mediocre bus tour; best part ends in town where you're on your own by the seashore

Loved all our optional tours except the pricey Pulpit Rock in Stavanger which we should have just done on our own; right next to the ship

As someone who has only cruised twice, once with P&O and recently with Viking I can tell you the prices of Vikings optional excursions are very reasonable. We spent about £900 on excursions with P&O. Viking doesn’t fleece you for anything in my experience.

That’s good to know. We are used to paying much more than that. I’ve rarely seen a ship excursion for under $100 and most are lots more.