True time Shore Excursion and Dining booking time open now

[lkear]

Does any know the true time Shore Excursion and Dining booking time open now? MVJ says Noon Pacific, but my last cruise in May opened sometime in the middle of the night. As when I check in the morning everything was open.

[Tas353]

6 minutes ago, jrkear said:

Does any know the true time Shore Excursion and Dining booking time open now? MVJ says Noon Pacific, but my last cruise in May opened sometime in the middle of the night. As when I check in the morning everything was open.

I started checking at midnight for both and booked at around 2 and 3 am. 

[LindaS272]

There is no “true” time for booking in my experience and in testimonies from other cruisers here on CC. Since resumption of cruising last year, booking times have been all over the map. Just keep an eye out on MVJ  if there’s a stated date and time, sign up for your roll call & someone may announce there when booking has opened, or sometimes folks announce it on the main threads. Good luck!

 

P.S. I live on the West Coast so when they announce the day bookings open and say Pacific time, I always log in around 6:30 am when I wake up, regardless if it says noon or 8 pm. Usually it’s open in the morning. I’ve always gotten what I wanted, but then we are booking PVs exclusively now so have a better shot at getting our choices.

[Pegct]

Yesterday DV 6 category reservations for shore excursions at 3pm EST as scheduled. Popular optional shore excursions sold out by 3:05pm. Seems like dining reservations will be more difficult to make 60 days prior to sailing. Hoping it will be easier to make onboard.

[LunaSeaRetreat]

This what my MVJ says.

 

Shore Excursion booking opens July 26, 2022 starting at 12:00 PM (Noon) Pacific Time.

 

I'll try as soon as I get up. I'll let everyone know when I get in. (after I'm booked 😂)

 

Cynthia

 

[mauimacho]

On my cruise dining and excursions both opened at midnight Pacific time.

[Fieldofdreams]

13 minutes ago, mauimacho said:

On my cruise dining and excursions both opened at midnight Pacific time.

Were you able to get into all specialty dining restaurants and excursions you wanted. Reading other posts seems that Viking get booked in both of these areas with higher category cabins. Thanks

[sugarside]

Here in the UK in the past bookings here have opened at 20..00hrs .Think that may correspond with your 12.00hrs Pacific time ?
 

[mauimacho]

15 hours ago, Fieldofdreams said:

Were you able to get into all specialty dining restaurants and excursions you wanted. Reading other posts seems that Viking get booked in both of these areas with higher category cabins. Thanks

Yes, we're in a PH jr suite so no problem.

[mary_228]

On 7/24/2022 at 11:33 PM, Fieldofdreams said:

Were you able to get into all specialty dining restaurants and excursions you wanted. Reading other posts seems that Viking get booked in both of these areas with higher category cabins. Thanks

I haven't booked my specialty dining yet, but I was able to get all the excursions I wanted (excluding the Sagrada Familia which was already sold out). I spent several hours researching the ports of call and getting additional information from Viking as needed in the days prior so that when the window opened, I knew exactly what I wanted. I recommend you purchase each excursion in your cart as soon as you choose it (and prioritize the most desired trip!). Filling your cart for the entire itinerary's excursions could cause you to miss out as others book the ones you want. This happened to others on our Roll Call.

[formernuke]

5 hours ago, mary_228 said:

I haven't booked my specialty dining yet, but I was able to get all the excursions I wanted (excluding the Sagrada Familia which was already sold out). I spent several hours researching the ports of call and getting additional information from Viking as needed in the days prior so that when the window opened, I knew exactly what I wanted. I recommend you purchase each excursion in your cart as soon as you choose it (and prioritize the most desired trip!). Filling your cart for the entire itinerary's excursions could cause you to miss out as others book the ones you want. This happened to others on our Roll Call.

I wholeheartedly agree! Book your priorities first, then fill out the rest. If you don't get what you wanted in each port, KEEP CHECKING BACK (several times a day)! As soon as an opening shows for what you want, cancel the other reservation for that slot and immediately book the new one AND PAY FOR IT. I went from missing 4 desired excursions to getting everything I wanted in the end.

[LunaSeaRetreat]

On 7/24/2022 at 8:26 PM, LunaSeaRetreat said:

This what my MVJ says.

 

Shore Excursion booking opens July 26, 2022 starting at 12:00 PM (Noon) Pacific Time.

 

I'll try as soon as I get up. I'll let everyone know when I get in. (after I'm booked 😂)

 

Cynthia

 

I tried to book every couple of hours from the time I got up in the morning.  The site opened for booking at exactly at the correct time (3:00 pm my time).  I booked and paid for my 3 most wanted excursions and then went back to book some more. (We are on board for 39 days with 37 port days.). I picked the rest of my optional tours but when I went to the cart and tried to pay, the dreaded wheel just kept going round and round.  I decided to go back and book the times I wanted for the included tours.  Then I tried again--dreaded wheel.  I noticed a "chat box" and used it.  The woman was very helpful and managed to book all but one sold out tour for us.  I paid though the chat box and got confirmation by email.

 

After I received the email, I checked my MVJ and the excursions were still in my cart and showed I hadn't paid. I then deleted the items in the cart.  I check again and magically they appeared as booked in my MVJ. 

Good luck to everyone.

Cynthia

 

[Fieldofdreams]

On 7/26/2022 at 4:01 PM, mary_228 said:

I haven't booked my specialty dining yet, but I was able to get all the excursions I wanted (excluding the Sagrada Familia which was already sold out). I spent several hours researching the ports of call and getting additional information from Viking as needed in the days prior so that when the window opened, I knew exactly what I wanted. I recommend you purchase each excursion in your cart as soon as you choose it (and prioritize the most desired trip!). Filling your cart for the entire itinerary's excursions could cause you to miss out as others book the ones you want. This happened to others on our Roll Call.

Thank you, when you said "Filling your cart for the entire itinerary's excursions could cause you to miss out as others book the ones you want" did that mean that if we booked a paid excursion in each port ahead of the cruise we might limit ourselves by only getting some of the excursions and not others? Thank you for any clarification. As we are booked in a Deluxe Veranda 4 category I believe we can book excursion either 60 or 64 days out from the cruise date. Thanks again

[Fieldofdreams]

On 7/25/2022 at 2:35 PM, mauimacho said:

Yes, we're in a PH jr suite so no problem.

Mauimacho - Thank you for your response

[mary_228]

On 8/5/2022 at 4:45 PM, Fieldofdreams said:

Thank you, when you said "Filling your cart for the entire itinerary's excursions could cause you to miss out as others book the ones you want" did that mean that if we booked a paid excursion in each port ahead of the cruise we might limit ourselves by only getting some of the excursions and not others? Thank you for any clarification.

I don't know if you still have a question, but I will attempt to clarify. On my roll call, others reported that they filled their carts with all the excursions they wanted and by the time they attempted to pay, some of the activites became sold out. They were unable to pay for the remaining activites and had to begin the process again! After more time had passed, they ran the risk of losing out on other excursions as well. 

 

As others have mentioned, you can continue to change your excursions all the way up to a day or two before that port of call, so keep checking for any that you missed out on and snap them up.

[Fieldofdreams]

6 minutes ago, mary_228 said:

I don't know if you still have a question, but I will attempt to clarify. On my roll call, others reported that they filled their carts with all the excursions they wanted and by the time they attempted to pay, some of the activites became sold out. They were unable to pay for the remaining activites and had to begin the process again! After more time had passed, they ran the risk of losing out on other excursions as well. 

 

As others have mentioned, you can continue to change your excursions all the way up to a day or two before that port of call, so keep checking for any that you missed out on and snap them up.

Thank you Mary,  will attempt to book and pay for all we are interested in as soon as they open

[Twitchly]

On 8/8/2022 at 3:39 PM, mary_228 said:

I don't know if you still have a question, but I will attempt to clarify. On my roll call, others reported that they filled their carts with all the excursions they wanted and by the time they attempted to pay, some of the activites became sold out. They were unable to pay for the remaining activites and had to begin the process again! After more time had passed, they ran the risk of losing out on other excursions as well. 

 

As others have mentioned, you can continue to change your excursions all the way up to a day or two before that port of call, so keep checking for any that you missed out on and snap them up.

Thanks to advice from this group, when it comes time to book, rather than putting a bunch of excursions in my cart I select the excursion I want most and pay for it immediately. Then I select my next-favorite excursion and pay for that. And so on down the line. That has worked well for us.

[Squawkman]

4 minutes ago, Twitchly said:

Thanks to advice from this group, when it comes time to book, rather than putting a bunch of excursions in my cart I select the excursion I want most and pay for it immediately. Then I select my next-favorite excursion and pay for that. And so on down the line. That has worked well for us.

We did that too and got the major excursions we wanted.

[WNcruiser]

Ours opened this week for our October cruise exactly at 12:00 PM Pacific as MVJ stated. One tip is that the included excursions did not need to be put in the "cart". You just click reserve and its booked so we did those first. 

 

Some excursions did sell out within an hour but there are still many available. None of the included tours are sold out.