Iceland's Natural Beauty General - 2022

[Mpc524]

10 hours ago, chromatographer said:

Quick question for the group on how to spend out vouchers. We were able to book several excursions using vouchers from last year’s cancelled ocean cruise. Ultimately I was able to spend out my voucher on excursions (only went $35 over) but my partner still has $200 left and there are no excursions left to spend it on. I understand that the residual voucher value cannot be used on board, but am wondering what else we can spend it on without doing something like putting it toward $1000 of Viking Air. Silver spirits package is not a good fit since she doesn’t drink alcohol. 

 

Has anyone been able to get Viking to allow one passenger’s voucher to pay for both passengers’ prepaid gratuities? We called and they said no. I’m expecting airport transfers might be similarly restricted in terms of who’s voucher can be used for which passenger. Anyone have any other ideas on spending out the last $100 to $200 of a voucher? I wish they would just turn it into shipboard credit so we could use it at the spa. Trying to avoid leaving money on the table. 

How about prepaying gratuities?

[TayanaLorna]

1 hour ago, AKexplorer said:

There are a number of tours with drop off at the airport on this site:

https://guidetoiceland.is/book-trips-holiday?page=1&startingLocationId=31&startingLocationName=Reykjavik

 

Thank you.  Will check it out.

[madrone]

1 hour ago, Mpc524 said:

We had no trouble booking with Avis for a 7/10 rental. Have you tried them?

We had no problem booking - we booked with Iceland Car Rental but that was a few weeks ago.  If they are getting bombarded with requests for reservations I just want to make sure they still have OURS!  Of course  i have an email with booking # so I'm not too concerned. 

 

[librarylady19]

6 hours ago, anaco_angler said:

What about post-cruise activity? Our flight doesn't leave until after 5pm and I understand we have to be off the ship early. We have booked transfers with Viking but don't really want to spend eight hours or so in the airport. I did ask Viking if they had any excursions available for disembarkation day and the answer was no. Just curious if anyone else is in the same late flight situation and what your plans may be.

We have the same situation and don’t relish spending the day at Keflavik all day either. It’s a pretty small airport….

[jtwind]

3 hours ago, SantaFe1 said:

Testing at the airport for vaccinated people is to stop on June 15.  See post #1094.

Things are changing quickly.  My bad.  Thank You for correcting me.

[anaco_angler]

Gateway to Iceland responded they have a tour to Reykjanes Geopark and we could be dropped off at KEF by 2:30. Research needed. I wonder if VO would refund the transfers if we don't use them. Based on everything that happened Friday I would doubt it.

[SantaFe1]

5 minutes ago, jtwind said:

Things are changing quickly.  My bad.  Thank You for correcting me.

Not bad, just changing quickly, as you say.  We are hopeful and excited.  Our last best chance to get to Iceland!

[cinwun]

7 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

I used to always prepay my gratuities once our Travel Agent’s refundable shipboard credit appeared in our account on MVJ.  However, after we were turned around mid-Atlantic thanks to Covid and our cruise was shortened by three days it took me many emails and numerous phone calls to get the unused gratuities back. So henceforth, since there is no advantage to prepaying (unless you are trying to use up a voucher) I won’t be doing so anymore. 
 

I don’t believe you can pay the daily service charge in cash but I could be wrong. 

We pay by credit card at the end so if we have any refunds from cancelled/changed shore excursions we can apply them.  And we’ve also used our extra foreign currency towards our bill at the end of the cruise.

[librarylady19]

3 minutes ago, anaco_angler said:

Gateway to Iceland responded they have a tour to Reykjanes Geopark and we could be dropped off at KEF by 2:30. Research needed. I wonder if VO would refund the transfers if we don't use them. Based on everything that happened Friday I would doubt it.

I’d be interested to know too. We had booked Vikings Reykjanes peninsula tour for day 2 but would rather do this on last day than sit at airport all day. 

[cinwun]

15 hours ago, Gojagators said:

We also received the same email from Viking last night.  There's definitely some major damage control going on behind the scenes.  I hope everyone got the excursions  they wanted.  I want to extend a major thank you to @Peregrina651 and the other people on the first 3 sailings for the screen shots, spreadsheets, pdf's and other suggestions you posted before yesterday.  Thanks to all of you we knew prices and some ideas of times and my wife and I knew in advance exactly what we wanted to book when the system was working.   In the end we got what we wanted and I hope the frustrations of yesterday will be a fleeting memory by the time we board on July 20.  Here's to hoping its smooth sailing going forward for all of us.

Those SE screen shots were much appreciated!  Thanks to all who are going before us and sharing information.

[FLORIDA FLOUNDER]

15 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

I used to always prepay my gratuities once our Travel Agent’s refundable shipboard credit appeared in our account on MVJ.  However, after we were turned around mid-Atlantic thanks to Covid and our cruise was shortened by three days it took me many emails and numerous phone calls to get the unused gratuities back. So henceforth, since there is no advantage to prepaying (unless you are trying to use up a voucher) I won’t be doing so anymore. 
 

I don’t believe you can pay the daily service charge in cash but I could be wrong. 

So smart 😉 Thank you, I will never prepay tips ever again! 

[johnnyswitzerland]

23 hours ago, Gojagators said:

We also received the same email from Viking last night.  There's definitely some major damage control going on behind the scenes.  I hope everyone got the excursions  they wanted.  I want to extend a major thank you to @Peregrina651 and the other people on the first 3 sailings for the screen shots, spreadsheets, pdf's and other suggestions you posted before yesterday.  Thanks to all of you we knew prices and some ideas of times and my wife and I knew in advance exactly what we wanted to book when the system was working.   In the end we got what we wanted and I hope the frustrations of yesterday will be a fleeting memory by the time we board on July 20.  Here's to hoping its smooth sailing going forward for all of us.

For those of you whose excursions opened for booking on Friday, were they the same as the ones detailed by those on the first three sailings?  Did the options in @AKexplorer's spreadsheet (see post #1166) roughly match what's offered on subsequent sailings?

 

Recently booked on the 28 Aug. sailing so just beginning to get organized.

 

Thank you all for the wealth of great information on this thread!

[TayanaLorna]

12 hours ago, anaco_angler said:

Thanks, TayanaLorna, I'm going to send a query to the tour operator and see if we can be picked up at the ship and dropped off at the airport.

When i emailed them they responded in a day.  They also do private if you want to set your sights.  But their stock tours are mini busses and they will go with a minimum of 4 people too.

[TayanaLorna]

16 minutes ago, johnnyswitzerland said:

For those of you whose excursions opened for booking on Friday, were they the same as the ones detailed by those on the first three sailings?  Did the options in @AKexplorer's spreadsheet (see post #1166) roughly match what's offered on subsequent sailings?

 

Recently booked on the 28 Aug. sailing so just beginning to get organized.

 

Thank you all for the wealth of great information on this thread!

No it doesn't match the July 17 recent excursion offerings.  We have some added ones plus that spreadsheet has Akureri and Seydisfjordur somewhat mixed up.  The best list to match our excursion offerings is the Shore Excursion list sent to someone on the July 3 sailing by Viking.  The only added one we got was Heart of the Glacier.ShoreExcursions.pdf

[TayanaLorna]

13 hours ago, AKexplorer said:

There are a number of tours with drop off at the airport on this site:

https://guidetoiceland.is/book-trips-holiday?page=1&startingLocationId=31&startingLocationName=Reykjavik

 

Thank you.

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

JohnnySwitzerland:

If you're cruising late August, be aware that the puffin population could be greatly reduced.  They normally depart the island in August.  If you're very interested in seeing puffins, and puffins are part of an excursion, I'd keep that in the back of your mind as you choose your excursions!  

 

As to the spreadsheet mentioned above, I found it quite like the Viking list someone shared, at least at the time of posting.  But there's no Heart of the Glacier excursion listed on the spreadsheet.  I still haven't figured out if that's available to anyone or not - maybe someone else can comment on that.  And to see the Seydisfjordur and Akureyri on separate pages, you need to use the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet - at least on the original spreadsheet.  And the author made a few minor corrections to the original spreadsheet that he/she posted.  From what someone else very recently posted, there was one price increase, and there may have been a few other changes after both the spreadsheet and the "Viking" list of excursions were shared.  (Thanks to those people for their shares - very helpful!)

 

 

[Mehroswitha]

IWantToLiveOverTheSea:

"Heart of the Glacier" is definitely available on at least some cruises. We were able to book it for the July 13 departure. Really looking forward to it, even though this means we miss "Golden Circle."

[Gojagators]

Heart of the glacier is available on the July 20 departure also.

[TayanaLorna]

12 minutes ago, Gojagators said:

Heart of the glacier is available on the July 20 departure also.

Was on July 17 too

[FoggyEthan]

3 hours ago, johnnyswitzerland said:

For those of you whose excursions opened for booking on Friday, were they the same as the ones detailed by those on the first three sailings?  Did the options in @AKexplorer's spreadsheet (see post #1166) roughly match what's offered on subsequent sailings?

 

Recently booked on the 28 Aug. sailing so just beginning to get organized.

 

Thank you all for the wealth of great information on this thread!

 

I'm on July 13 and I found the spreadsheet to be very close. (Quick note: I only ever used the first tab with all the dates)

 

We were missing the Geobaths in Akureyri and missing the nature boat tour in Heimaey. For some reason they just aren't being scheduled for us. Also exact timings were not always the same but in general close.

 

It was SUPER helpful for us to figure out what we wanted and get us ready for 9AM. Of course, then Viking wasn't ready for a thousand of us to be ready for them at 9AM.

[Peregrina651]

8 minutes ago, FoggyEthan said:

We were missing the Geobaths in Akureyri and missing the nature boat tour in Heimaey. For some reason they just aren't being scheduled for us. Also exact timings were not always the same but in general close.

 

 

Yes, but may be added later, so keep checking MVJ.

[CatefromNH]

The two excursions I was unable to reserve for our July 24th sailing are the included village tour in Isafjordur and the black beach walk in Djupivogur. I was trying to pay for the beach walk when the system went down. Of course, both were sold out when the system was back on line. Happily, I was able to book our most desired choices, so at least my 2+ hours of online frustration wasn’t wasted. I’m still hoping (but not really expecting) we will be able to do some exploring on our own by late July. Fingers crossed! 

[johnnyswitzerland]

Thank you all for your replies, and to @TayanaLorna for the link to the PDF!  This is all extremely helpful.

[Lugar28]

16 hours ago, Mpc524 said:

16 hours ago, Mpc524 said:

 

Hey Mpc524 -

We're on the same cruise.  If you find any options for our return day, can you post them on the Aug 3 CC roll call?  I'm not looking forward to spending 6-7 hours at KEF waiting for our departure flight.

 

[EJLobster]

2 hours ago, CatefromNH said:

The two excursions I was unable to reserve for our July 24th sailing are the included village tour in Isafjordur and the black beach walk in Djupivogur. I was trying to pay for the beach walk when the system went down. Of course, both were sold out when the system was back on line. Happily, I was able to book our most desired choices, so at least my 2+ hours of online frustration wasn’t wasted. I’m still hoping (but not really expecting) we will be able to do some exploring on our own by late July. Fingers crossed! 

I also could not book the black beach walk-  i am hoping more spaces open up!