Viking Jupiter, South America excursion costs

[annxstitch]

I am taking this cruise Feb 2021.  This will be our 2nd Viking Ocean cruise and we loved the first.  My biggest complaint with Viking is that they will not inform you of the costs of the excursions as soon as you book.  Is there anyone with the information of the current costs of the excursions on the 2020 sailings.  Also if you have had great experiences I would love to hear about them.  Thank you so much in advance.

[Mich3554]

Excursions change from the time you book until you can sign up for them.  So what was available changes from one cruise to the next each season.
 

As I remember our excursions from 2019 Chilean Fjords cruise, they were $0 to $189 pp for the ones we chose.  
 

Also, a lot depends upon your interest.  We chose the Falkland War excursion in the ?Falkland, because DH is a history buff.  It was an excellent tour and our guide was fantastic, but if you have no interest that really won’t matter.  We took the included tour in Buenos Aires, and again lucked out with a most incredible tour guide.  

[CCWineLover]

1 hour ago, annxstitch said:

I am taking this cruise Feb 2021.  This will be our 2nd Viking Ocean cruise and we loved the first.  My biggest complaint with Viking is that they will not inform you of the costs of the excursions as soon as you book.  Is there anyone with the information of the current costs of the excursions on the 2020 sailings.  Also if you have had great experiences I would love to hear about them.  Thank you so much in advance.

 

We were also on the Dec 21 Valpo-Buenos Aires Cruise as Mich3554.   Agree that it all depends on your interest - and it will definitely change from this year to your cruise in 2021.  They do take into account the reviews and make changes in the offerings both in type and cost.  However, if this helps, I did save some of the excursion offerings on our ship.  We did take some independent tours as well.

 

2020 0106 Mon- Buenos Aires.pdf

2019 1222 Sun - Valparaiso.pdf 2019 1227 Fri - Punta Arenas.pdf 2019 1228 Sat - Ushuaia.pdf 2020 0102 Thu - Puerto Madryn.pdf 2020 0105 Sun - Uraguay.pdf

[annxstitch]

That info is a great beginning for me. Are there any you loved, we are a general interest couple. On our cruise from japan to vancouver we went to a russian herbalist and it was fabulous as he was a true "character". He was exactly as listed in the excursion info. Did you miss ports due to the weather? I loved our time at sea  on my last cruise as it was a complete change from our working environment. Again thank you and id love to hear your thoughts on any good excursions.

[Mich3554]

We did not miss any ports, but I believe the same cruise after us did.  It’s pretty much a crap shoot.  
 

I can tell you what we did of above.  
We did the included BA tour with a very good tour guide.  We also spent several days there after, so this gave a good overview as to what to hit on our own.

 

We did the panoramic Valparaiso and winery.  We had an excellent private tour of Valparaiso the day before, which took us places the tour couldn’t.  Winery was pretty good, they had some excellent sparkling wines that we bought and brought back to the ship.  Our tour guide the previous day also took us on a winery tour, so I think we came into our cabin with nearly a case of wine between the 2 days (we brought 3 bottles home).

 

In Ushuaia, we did the end of the world tour and Ensenada Bay.  It was interesting, the biggest problem we had was the Norwegian Star was on the same trek as us so this was a very crowded tour.  It was interesting, but wouldn’t do it again.  We got a good history lesson in how the area was built up.  
 

Uruguay we did the trail of the Admiral Graf Spee.  Not my choice, DH wanted to do this.  Meh....wouldn’t do it again.  
 

In Punta Arenas, we did the Magellan’s Discovery.  It was ok, interesting to see the boat replicas.  
 

We saw penguins in Puerto Madryn Punta Tombo penguin colony.  I very much enjoyed this tour, but it was a very long bus ride and we were late returning be about 30 min.  

We did the Falkland War tour.  The guide was excellent, and I very much enjoyed this tour.  Another of DH’s choices, and he did good with this one.  I want to hit the penguin colony if we are ever here again.  
 

We did a private tour to Iguazu Falls as well.  The tour and transportation was good, hotel kind of meh....it wouldn’t have been my choice, but it was only 2 nights so not a big deal.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[annxstitch]

Thank you for the info.  We are going on the Iguazu Falls pretour, really the main reason I chose this cruise.  The hotel is in the park and it seems the falls can be seen from spots in the hotel.  Thank you again for taking the time

[DaveSJ711]

13 minutes ago, annxstitch said:

Thank you for the info.  We are going on the Iguazu Falls pretour, really the main reason I chose this cruise.  The hotel is in the park and it seems the falls can be seen from spots in the hotel.  Thank you again for taking the time

 

My wife and I visited Iguacu Falls 20 years ago, on our own.  It was an absolutely fabulous experience.  Be sure to visit both the Argentine and Brazilian sides of the falls.

[CCWineLover]

30 minutes ago, annxstitch said:

Thank you for the info.  We are going on the Iguazu Falls pretour, really the main reason I chose this cruise.  The hotel is in the park and it seems the falls can be seen from spots in the hotel.  Thank you again for taking the time

 

Wonderful!  We did Iguazu Falls post trip (on our own) and stayed at the Gran Melia in the park.  It was fabulous.  And yes, you can see the falls from varioius places in the hotel - especially the huge infinity pool.  Enjoy!!

[SM77]

We were on the Dec 4 - 21 Buenos Aires - Santiago sailing.  I think it was the first sailing of this itinerary on Jupiter.  If you look further back on this board, I did a 'Live from Jupiter' posting in which I described our cruise.  Also a lot of folks commented on their experiences as well when they did the sailing after us.  We were lucky and made it to all the ports, including the Falklands. We did most of the included tours but paid for three that we really enjoyed. Unfortunately we did have bad weather for the Chilean Fjords and Puerto Montt.

 

Puerto Madryn - Definitely worthwhile to go to Punta Tombo Penguin Colony.  It is a long drive and makes for a long day but the rookery has so many Magellanic penguins and the site is set up well for visitors. Also I was advised to book penguin tours at other ports besides the Falklands, just in case the weather was too rough and we would not be able to tender in.  I understand that happened for one of the cruises after us.

 

Ushuaia - We did the bus tour to Tierra del Fuego National Park - it is a bus ride but so interesting to see the area.  It was only $89 pp.  The scenery is really lovely.  I would go to Ushuaia again in a heartbeat - the views of the surrounding Andes mountains are just beautiful.

 

Falklands - we did the Blue Cove Lagoon - saw mostly gentoo penguins but they also have king penguins.  It was not a difficult drive, only the last 15 minutes or so is in a 4X4 over terrain.  The rookery is not huge and you are very close to the penguins.  You have tea and homemade scones afterwards and there is a nice gift shop.  Most folks want to go to Volunteer Point but the drive is much longer and over rough terrain for almost the entire time.  I would not have been able to tolerable that much bouncing.  I heard folks thought it was very worthwhile to see so many king penguins.  We wound up skipping the included Gypsy Cove since we wanted to walk around town a bit and shop.  It would have been nice to have had more time here.

 

We had great tour guides w/ the exception of Montevideo but we really enjoyed seeing this city despite the poor guide. He was bad enough that I did a review and handed it in.

 

It's a great cruise, you will have a wonderful time.

 

 

 

 

[Pat FT]

I second SM77 post that you look at "Live from Jupiter" board.  I found her posts most helpful when we were planning our trip and so after our trip I posted reviews of the excursions we took.  Most of our excursions were optional ones offered by Viking.  I will highly recommend a private excursion we did in Valparaiso.  It is call Patatour Chile and we were able to tour Valparaiso with a local using local transportation and saw many sights that no one else on the cruise was able to see such as the fish market and fruit market.  We also got to meet many locals along the way.  That tour cost $60/person.  

 

We also did the pre tour in Patagonia and the post tour in Galapagos.  The Patagonia tour was fantastic and very much one of the highlights of the whole trip.  The Galapagos was too much traveling for what we saw and I would not recommend it.

 

[annxstitch]

Thank you SM77 and PatFT.  I did go look at the Live from Jupiter board and began printing much of the information.  It will be so very useful in planning.  I thank you all for taking the time to help me.

[SM77]

The roll call may be still out there on the Jupiter roll call - you will read comments from others there too.  I chose to do a 'Live from Jupiter' since it was the first time Jupiter was sailing this itinerary.  Last year someone did something similar for the Orion when it first did its Bali to Sydney run and I had learned so much from the person who posted.  Don't hesitate to reach out again, many Viking Board posters has traveled this itinerary recently and we are more than happy to share what worked best for us.

[annxstitch]

How do I go to roll call. I'm not very proficient with the cruise critic site. Thanks 

[SM77]

Just now, annxstitch said:

How do I go to roll call. I'm not very proficient with the cruise critic site. Thanks 

Click on the Boards on the upper right hand corner, then just scroll down to the Roll Call section of the Boards.  You should see Viking Ocean Roll Calls, click on that, and then it will bring you to roll calls for each ship, Jupiter should be first.  It would be the Viking Jupiter Roll Call for Dec 4 - 21, 2019.  You should also see a roll call for your cruise date.

[TayanaLorna]

I have all the Shore Excursions that Viking offered with cost printed from our January trip.  If there is any in which you are interested let me know and i can give you info.  They may not be the same next year as Viking tends to tweek based on our reviews but its a start.

[annxstitch]

Thank you so very much for responding, people have been so very helpful. I am really interested in which ones you thought were wonderful. Thank you again

[dwlmg]

Charwing@gmail.com has a thread in this forum with links to his dropbox.  There are very interesting spreadsheets in that dropbox.  He has a listing of all Viking Ocean Cruises in one workbook and a listing of shore excursions and costs in another.  He can only post shore excursion costs if folks provide them to him or he has taken a specific cruise.  I have provided him with a list of costs for my Majestic Fjords and Vibrant cites cruise.  They are included in his latest version of the shore excursion workbook.  The shore excursion workbook is located here.  https://www.dropbox.com/s/j5d3sa891mn0jox/VikingShorexCosts.xlsx?dl=0

[annxstitch]

Thank you dwlmg for forwarding that information.  I offered to scan him the North Pacific Passage so he could add that to his listing.  

 

[Mitina]

On 3/10/2020 at 4:24 PM, TayanaLorna said:

I have all the Shore Excursions that Viking offered with cost printed from our January trip.  If there is any in which you are interested let me know and i can give you info.  They may not be the same next year as Viking tends to tweek based on our reviews but its a start.

 

I would love to have all of them, but primarily interested in Port Stanley (Falkland Islands) and Puerto Montt.  I know the prices may be outdated for our Feb 2022 trip, but it'll help with advance planning.  Thanks.

[deec]

this has been very helpful....70 days and we get to book excursions!!!

Mich3554 would you please share who you used for private excursion in Valpariso?

 

Did anyone use a private guide in Santiago we will have 2 days pre-cruise?

 

We hope to use the private guide? Patrick? to see the penguins.

I sure hope South America is ready for visitors in a year and Viking will allow DIY exploring.

 

[Ranch Cruiser]

deec

I have just booked with Patrick Watts for our cruise.  His email  pwatts@horizon.co.fk   There is no prepayment at all.  Payment is made in cash on the day you meet him.

[deec]

we want to see the Falls has anyone done the overnight excursion?

 

[slewis7]

We are booked on the (late) February 2022 Viking Jupiter cruise.  Thanks to all who have commented on the Viking excursions as, while I have doubts whether the cruise will go, there is a good chance we will be limited to what is offered by Viking.

 

We have looked into private tours of Iguazu Falls, but will wait until much closer to departure to book anything.

[Peregrina651]

3 hours ago, deec said:

we want to see the Falls has anyone done the overnight excursion?

 

 

In 2009, did it on our own, overnight -- first flight out, next to last flight home, stayed at hotel in the park. IMHO, however you choose to go, the falls are magnificent, a must-see.

 

Advantage to doing it with Viking may be that they babysit your luggage. We left ours at our hotel in Buenos Aires and carried just an overnight bag.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Peregrina651

[CCWineLover]

4 hours ago, deec said:

this has been very helpful....70 days and we get to book excursions!!!

Mich3554 would you please share who you used for private excursion in Valpariso?

 

Did anyone use a private guide in Santiago we will have 2 days pre-cruise?

 

We hope to use the private guide? Patrick? to see the penguins.

I sure hope South America is ready for visitors in a year and Viking will allow DIY exploring.

 

 

Hi Dee -

We did several very good free walking tours in Santiago (and this was during the riots).  We got to see a lot and feel the culture.  We used Tours4Tips and Strawberry Tours.   We did the same in Valparaiso and again, well worth it.  We did the Viking included tour in Valparaiso, which I gave a D (bad), which is rare by the way.  We hired a private guide to transfer from Santiago to Valparaiso and he took us to several different boutique wineries with one on one touring and dropped us at our Airbnb.

 

We used Patrick Watts in Falklands.  It was easily the best tour we had (likely also because of the beautiful weather no doubt).   We also used a small tour operator for Puerto Montt for 6 of us - which was extremely worthwhile.

 

For Viking excursions:  we enjoyed immensely the Punta Arenas ride of the ski lift and hike down one, as well as the Ushuaia penguin tour.   A real highlight was the optional Buenos Aires asado lunch and ranch visit - way better than expected.

 

It will indeed be interesting to see how the whole touring aspect goes with Viking.  Will there be excursion "bubbles"?  Will you be required to go with Viking?  What changes will be made to the offerings?  Perhaps more hiking/outdoors things than indoors?  Who knows!