soundcruiser

Here's some good news today:

https://cruisereport.com/cruise-industry-news/viking-floats-out-newest-ship?fbclid=IwAR31hegZDXxzZOlXawhZ1USgcwICafObicGXDM4dILkH8G1Axf28EbzIfzA

Welcome to the Viking forum, Wishing! I'll take a stab at answering your questions. 

1. I would recommend checking either with your travel agent or Viking about the port times.  I have not seen them published until I have booked a cruise, and then the schedule is available with your itinerary. Someone else may have a suggestion on how to find that information,.

2. When you pull up the excursion page for your cruise on the Viking website, clicking on an excursion will give the length of the excursion,  plus other details. Usually the included excursions are labeled as such, up in the left hand corner of the photo of that excursion. The times, prices, and available excursions  are not published until 2-3 months prior to the cruise, as final arrangements with vendors are often not completed until then. That information will populate in My Viking Journey, your personal itinerary site once you have booked. 

3. You are correct that usually excursions will be offered the last full day of your cruise, in this case in Athens.

If you do have  questions about specific excursions, I encourage you to ask on this forum. Someone who has taken an excursion will often be happy to share their experience.

Best wishes as you plan your cruise!

This is excellent news! 

Yes, thank you , Twitchly! We are booked on Trade Routes for September 2022, back-to-back with British Isles.  We will definitely appreciate a sea day or two by then!!

Porcupine, that's quite a mixed marriage! Interesting, indeed!

I received a call last evening in response to my letter to TellUs advocating vaccinations for all.  The ( absolutely wonderful) rep confirmed that while they are currently not requiring vaccinations for the upcoming British Isles cruises, their medical team is still reviewing the policy and may well  adopt such a requirement as they return to their usual operations.   They are strongly encouraging crew to get vaccinated,  and are imposing a 14-day quarantine and daily PCR tests on the crew for these upcoming cruises. Masks will be required for everyone on board, except when pax are in their staterooms or are eating in the dining areas.

It sounded like they are definitely listening to our feedback.  I wish I'd thought to ask about ventilation in the dining areas - even with half the passengers and tables well-spaced, that can be an area of spreading if ventilation blows someone's virus around the room.  

We booked a back-to-back for September 2022 and won't sail unless our current concerns are addressed.  I'm rooting for Viking to do the prudent thing so we can all enjoy sailing on our favorite line!

I don't know if we're blessed or cursed, but we've received 4 Viking Ocean catalogs and 3 River catalogs in the last 6 weeks. They do use a lot of paper!

Those of us planning a voyage on Viking Mars in 2022 got some good news today!

https://cyprusshippingnews.com/2021/02/05/fincantieri-starts-with-dry-dock-works-on-viking-mars/

Thanks, Andy!  When I searched using the "Find Your Roll Call" tab for all cruise lines, it worked! I had just been using the  "Find Your Viking Ocean Roll Call" tab at the top of the VO forum, which had not worked, but does now! Go figure - I swear the computational machines have a good chuckle at my expense every now and then. 

Hi, Andy,

We just pulled the trigger on a B2B on Mars in 2022 - in checking the Viking roll call section I'm not finding either Mars or Neptune.  Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for sharing your extensive seafaring and cruising experience with us - I am an avid reader of your posts!

We are looking at a B2B on the Mars starting in London in September 2022 but haven't pulled the trigger yet! I'll be following her build with interest!

Smokey Robinson! I love that one! Haven't thought of it for years, OTJ! Thanks for the reminder!

CharTrav, you are a marvel! This is sooo helpful - thank you!

They publish it the evening before - it is usually separate from the dailies and is available at Guest Services on Deck 1.  It is not delivered to your cabin with your Viking Daily.

Zitsky, Viking will have a water shuttle from the ship to a dock just east of St. Mark's. If you walk through St. Mark's square in almost any direction, you will encounter many willing gondoliers on the smaller side canals.  We took an evening gondola ride from in front of our hotel, which was just across the Grand Canal from the train station, down a little of the Grand Canal and then into a network of side canals.  At dusk, it was just beautiful!  The lights are coming on all along the Grand Canal, and in the quiet of the smaller canals you could hear snippets of conversation and instruments playing.  You might ask Viking where there ride will take you.

We used Norled on our VH in September 2017 for the same reason - we weren't sure about the Rodne timing.  Norled was a wonderful experience - nice boat and crew.  I think the two companies are pretty similar.  Have a great time on this wonderful itinerary!

Pushka, we did the Flyover Canada several years ago - I was going to suggest it as something fun to do on your long waiting day! Also, the lobby of the Pan Pacific Hotel has a beautiful fountain/pool with outlines of the countries of the Pacific Rim - worth a walk by.  And, if it's a lovely day, walking past the Convention Center so you can watch float planes take off and land at the seaport is interesting.  I'm a pretty cheap date!  I hope embarkation is full of wonderful surprises for all of you!

Before our last cruise with Viking, I contacted the kind folks at TellUs just to let them know that we were celebrating an anniversary, and the date.  A delicious  and beautifully decorated carrot cake (which was the cake we served at our wedding 34 years earlier - how could they know?!) magically appeared on our coffee table in our cabin while we were at dinner. Of course they included the appropriate tableware.  That was the perfect amount of "fuss" for us!

Thanks so much, Peregrina! That does sound pretty easy to accomplish. 

Oh, St. Peregrina, font of all knowledge!😉  When you say get a cab from the ship in Barcelona, do you mean they are literally right where the ship will dock as we disembark?  We are planning to cab to the Sants station to take the 9:30 train to Paris, and I want to plan our timing well.  I'm not sure how to get to the Esplanade taxi rank if there is no ship shuttle on disembarkation day. Thanks in advance!

We are now less than 4 weeks away from our flight to Europe - can't wait!

Viking arranged shuttle was available at: Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Gdansk, Copenhagen, Bergen; not needed ( you dock right in the city center) at Alborg, Stavanger, Eidfjord. Not sure about arrangements at Warnemunde - we took the train to Berlin, and it was just a couple hundred yard walk to the train station. In St. Petersburg we took a private tour that met us at the port - since you need a visa there unless you are with a guided tour, I don't think many passengers ventured into SPB on their own. 

Wow, LongRiver, this is just remarkable! Thanks so much for sharing these photos!

We indeed left included tours and then took the shuttle back to the ship - as Captain_Morgan said, just let the tour guide know that's what you are doing.  And be certain to find out where in town the shuttle departs from before you leave the tour!

My best answer to your question is "usually - " based on our only experience to date on Viking Homelands.  We had (and used) a shuttle to the town center in most ports, I  believe, but in some ports we took an excursion leaving first thing in the morning so I'm not sure about those.  Maybe someone who has been on the Midnight Sun will  weigh in - really all that matters to you is whether Viking provides a shuttle in those particular ports! Have a great trip - we'll be on the Mediterranean Odyssey in May/June and can't wait!

This was just excellent, Clay! Gave me a chuckle!  Thanks for sharing with us!