CHammond

Wow so many good choices! Thanks everyone!

Great photos DrKoob!

Thanks!

Hello, I am on the Italy, Adriatic, and Greece 2 week cruise and am having a hard time deciding on which excursions to take in those 3 ports, if anyone has any recommendations for these ports or any other on this cruise, please chime in. Thanks in advance!

We just did this extension in April and it was simply delightful! Our tour guide was fabulous and so much fun to be around! The morning walking tour in Florence will take you to all the famous places but on the outside. If you want to go in a museum you will have about 2-3 hours after lunch, we had 130 to 4 free. You will need to book tickets in advance for the popular ones. Our tour was unusual because it kept saying sold out, but there were only us and one other couple on the extension so we had the guide almost all to ourselves! Anyway, the other couple really wanted to see the David but tickets were all sold out, but our guide knew a agency that sold tickets and they happened to have some available, so he took us there so we could get tickets, and then walked us to the museum after lunch. Hopefully you will enjoy this extension as much as we did!

I don’t remember if I made the changes before or after 120 days, strange that only the change seat’s button is showing. If you have paid extra for viking air plus then you can just call and have them make the change, if you don’t have air plus you can call the regular line and tell them to send a message to the air department about changing dates

There is a button on the top that says, "Change flights". Click on the button and follow the steps, it will ask what days you want to fly in/out, and then give you options, all with prices next to them. The deviation fee in included in the prices if you choose a different day.

If you would be willing to port it here I would be interested, I am thinking of trying those other 2 lines....

It really depends on where you are going whether you have to do Verifly or not. Our cruises were in Europe so we didn't have to do it, I understand for other places like South America you do.

I just sailed with them in April, you don't have to prove you are vaccinated, they take your word for it. When I checked in they didn't ask to see my card.

I tried to message you but I guess that feature is disabled. My email is carol6296@gmail.com, thanks!

Could you give us the name of the tour company? We are doing a Iceland cruise in 2024 and also thinking of self exploring before, thanks!

Thanks so much for your posts! I am greatly enjoying your trip report. We just got off the Star and I totally agree with you on the lasagna at Manfredi’s, it was really bad, I couldn’t take more than a few bites, but I had a delicious lasagna the next day for lunch at the world cafe. Most of the food was quite good but there was some bad dishes also-room service eggs in particular were bad, the gelato was very dry and crumbly without a lot of flavor, on the other hand we really loved the lobster Thermidor at the restaurant, the lamb, and chocolate amarone at manfredi’s, and the Xiang menu at the chef’s table. Usually at the buffet we found some food we really liked and some we didn’t.

According to online posters on other threads who have done this cruise, there will be pared down excursions available on Day 2 of Venice for those staying on the ship. They won't show up in my viking journey but will be available to book once you are on the ship.

Here is one I got in the mail today: Free silver spirits and airfare on select great lakes voyages: GFA23 valid with May 2023 Canadian Discovery, June 2023 Great Lakes Collection

If you can afford the extra 300 pp, you can switch your cabin to a dv6, all of the dv cabins choose at the same time, and the veranda cabins don’t get to choose excursions until a week later, so it is a significant advantage to be in a deluxe veranda if you are worried about getting excursions. We are doing the same cruise this October and choose a dv6 primarily for that reason.

Thanks so much for coming back and letting me know how it went! It definitely is one of the priciest excursions so sounds like it might not be worth the price!

Thank you that would be greatly appreciated!

We are trying to decide if we want to do this excursion from the port of Livorno on our cruise. Has anyone done this excursion and was it worthwhile? It is quite pricey so we are on the fence!

Thank you so much for posting! I’ve really enjoyed reading your trip report, we are taking the same extension in April and seeing your pictures has made me super excited to go!

We are booked August 2024 on ICM going from Reykjavik to Bergen, all our port times in Norway show arrival at 8 am and departure at 6 pm

My daughter spent 9 months in Japan as an exchange student, one interesting thing she told us was that most Japanese people speak English but will not speak it with a foreigner unless their English is perfect, because they don’t want to make a mistake, we certainly found that to be true on our trip there

South America is showing dates through March 2025 now

I just checked and a lot of cruises now are showing 2025 dates

One important thing to know, whether you get your travel insurance through Viking or somewhere else, it is not refundable, so keep that in mind, you can get viking's travel insurance up to 120 days before sailing, however, if you don't get it in the first 14 days after booking pre existing conditions are not covered. Also, I have successfully changed a cruise with viking's travel insurance to another cruise and the travel insurance was moved to the new cruise successfully so I didn't lose it.