Changing and/or Canceling Paid Shore Excursions

[lastlook]

We're about to book our shore excursions when our window opens this weekend. We are traveling with another couple who asked what the cancellation/change policy is once you book and pay for an excursion where there is a fee involved. Does Viking allow a certain window of time to cancel and/or change a paid excursion? How late can you make changes or cancel if necessary?

 

Thanks very much for any information on this subject.

[Peregrina651]

I found the answer to your question on Viking's "My Viking Journey" website, under Shore Excursions under Terms & Conditions (a link at the bottom of the page in grey letters).

 

This is what it says about cancellations:

CANCELLATIONS AND REFUNDS FOR VIKING OCEAN BOOKINGS:

 

• In order to ensure quality guides and sufficient transportation, we must provide the tour operator with passenger counts at least 36 hours in advance. Therefore no refunds will be given within 36 hours of the tour.
  
  
• Online booking and cancellations will close 7 days before your cruise sets sail.
  
  
• During this 7 day pre-sail period, you can cancel items by calling us.
  
  
• Once you arrive onboard, you will have the ability to manage your Shore Excursions and Dining options again, with one exception—all Shore Excursions that occur during the first two days of sailing will be non-refundable.
  
  
• Please note, whether an optional tour is booked through My Viking Journey or onboard, refunds are only processed onboard and will be applied as credit towards your onboard invoice balance. Should you have a negative credit balance at the end of your voyage, the refund toward your credit card will be processed onboard. Please allow 14 business days for this to reflect on your statement.
  
  
• Tours require minimum participation levels to operate so please sign up as early as possible.
  
  
• Tours operate rain or shine.
  
  

[lastlook]

Thanks very much for finding that for me! I looked, but could not find the information.

[Peregrina651]

Thanks very much for finding that for me! I looked, but could not find the information.

 

I had remembered reading about cancellations somewhere along the way and it was just a fluke that I followed the T&C link. My recollection was that it was a bit easier to find on MVJ but since online reservations have closed for us, a lot of the screens have changed and stuff that was there before is no longer accessible.

 

Forewarned is forearmed: Since you and your traveling companions have different cabins and different reservation numbers--and maybe even different last names--coordinating shorex reservations so that you are all on the same tour when multiple times are available is going to take some effort. Be among the first to sign up. After that, you must keep an eye on your reservations because Viking does change things on you without notification. The word is that most of the time, you can fix this when you board but if it involves other tours that you have made either through Viking or with a private provider, then you will want to fix it as soon as possible. And you will have to double check all of your tour tickets when you board the ship because just because you fix it once doesn't mean they won't change things again. We have one tour that has changed several times since we booked it; fortunately, we don't have multiple tours booked and don't care unless the four of us are not in the same time slot.

[lastlook]

Thanks very much for all the helpful information - excellent advice.

[Lucky Granny]

You will have shorex tickets waiting for you in your cabin when you board, but there will be no time printed on it. Instead, you will have a group number and you will see in the Viking Daily the night before your excursion what time your group should expect to gather. There were four of us in two different cabins, with four different last names, and Viking had us linked somehow so all our excursions were at the same time. You just have to check this with the Shore Excursion people as soon as possible after you board. You will find that they can't believe some of the information you were given by phone before your cruise. And your My Viking calendar is available on the tv in your cabin.

[id4elizabeth]

We went down to the ShoreEx desk when we first got our "group" numbers on the tickets. They were able to tell us the times for each of the groups for the whole cruise. Some of the times had changed from morning to afternoon, or from early morning to late morning, totally messing up our private afternoon plans. (It was NOT due to different docking times.) In one case we had been changed to a totally different tour for no apparent reason. It took quite a while to straighten out, but eventually we were able to get all our original tours and times.

[lastlook]

You will have shorex tickets waiting for you in your cabin when you board, but there will be no time printed on it. Instead, you will have a group number and you will see in the Viking Daily the night before your excursion what time your group should expect to gather. There were four of us in two different cabins, with four different last names, and Viking had us linked somehow so all our excursions were at the same time. You just have to check this with the Shore Excursion people as soon as possible after you board. You will find that they can't believe some of the information you were given by phone before your cruise. And your My Viking calendar is available on the tv in your cabin.

 

Thanks very much for this information - great to know that we'll be able to view our "MyViking" calendar on the the TV in our cabin.