kctwinmommy

8 hours ago, Selion said:

I struggle to find value in Viking's short extensions.  Viking wanted $400pp (or was it $600pp?) for a 2-day extension in Athens.  We passed on that.  Booked our own hotel and transfers, and had a wonderful time in Athens at about half the cost of Viking's extension.

Yes, we're doing the 4-day Athens pre-extension, and it was $2000 for the 2 of us, but the 2 day one was like $1300 for the 2 of us and seemed to offer so little. I know many can, and do, end up booking all their own things, but like someone else said, we're doing it for the ease. This is our first Viking cruise, so we just want to get there and have things taken care of from the get go. And, I think we'd only save a couple hundred on our own. Our 4 day one has 3 tours with it (2 of them are outside of Athens), plus the hotel for 4 nights, so not too bad. Although the price did increase since we booked.

14 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

We did Pompeii with Viking and Herculaneum with an independent local guide.  Both well worth it!  We were blessed with good weather in late February.

Yep! I figured if we're going to be there, we owe it to ourselves to see both of them!

7 hours ago, Lemondrops said:

Thank you for this.  You make an excellent point regarding location.  The excursion we were unable to book was in Naples, so maybe we could book another vendor without too much worry. I hadn't even considered that.  Thank you for your response.

That is the one port we are using an outside vendor. We booked a tour through Viator because we wanted to go to both Pompeii & Herculaneum.

Like others said, keep checking, and check again once on board. And as far as booking outside companies, there are definitely reputable ones to use and I would also say, in certain areas, it's not as big of a problem. Those people opted for that in a part of the world that is much more difficult to travel on your own I feel. If you truly can't get it through Viking, I would look through Viator.

5 hours ago, Peregrina651 said:

Sometimes there are photos that I want to save for the photo albums I put together (just in case I don't get a good photo or the weather is lousy). And I like to print the calendar to a pdf file just in case.

Got it! I don't see a way to make it a concise calendar though. Like you can see the daily activities, or the full calendar, but it's got all the pictures and such. I have the PDF they sent us already saved, so I should be good then. Thanks!

I'm trying to figure out if there's anything I need to save from MVJ even? I mean, everything in it has been emailed to us, as far as I can tell. Am I missing something that I might want to screenshot from it? We have our final documents, all our excursions are listed, and our dining reservations too. I'm just wondering if there's anything in it that I might want to save?

On 4/7/2024 at 11:35 AM, Moby_Spout said:

Thoughtful! 
I'm taking notes. Hopefully, the cruise isn't an anticlimax after all the excitement and activity to prepare for it! 😄

You're welcome! I thought it would be helpful for new people, like us.

And I get it, we've done a lot of planning to get to this stage. I can't believe we leave in a week. Once we get there, then I'll be all better. LOL!

Just now, rjp50 said:

I was surprised that our "Into the Midnight Sun" cruise for late June that some of the included tours are "sold out".  Viking makes a big deal about having included tours in each port, yet anyone booking now will apparently not have included tours available in several ports.  Or, do they routinely add tours so that they can make good on their advertised claims?

Yes, they will add more, from what everyone has said in the past. Once you get on board, check with guest services. We also had 1 day that the included ones were booked. That's also because the middle day is a on/off day for cruisers (leg 3 of 4), so they can't post the tours for that day online, we have to book on board. But, because we're there for 3 days, we could pick an included on another day. I did learn that we can only pick one included over those 3 days. We'll most likely switch to something else once on board though.

@CCWineLover - of course! Good point. But yes, some guides are going to be better than others. We are also keeping our options open. If we find other tours to do, we'll switch. Plus, we do like that with our specific cruise, we have long days in the ports. So plenty of time to explore and find other things. I did also get the Rick Steves book to help.

@Moby_Spout - I also tagged you in a post I wrote a few weeks ago that explains how we did our excursion selections. We're new to Viking, so it's basically the step by step on what worked for us.

@Moby_Spout - this might help too. We are first time Viking cruisers, so I took a lot of advice from different people.

Here's an example from our cruise. You can see the Included one (which shows our reservation confirmed for booked). Then there's one that's still open in the middle. And the one on the right shows Sold Out.

On 3/15/2024 at 2:23 PM, CPT Trips said:

  The ship’s WiFi should be available whenever you are aboard. When you are in towns you can find a lot of hotspots. Assuming you have the ability to use WiFi for voice, there may not be a need to activate an international plan. 
 

As an aside to people who have this same question, T-Mobile’s regular plans include free data and messaging and voice is $0.25/minute. We switched carriers to them several years ago and only wish we had done so years earlier. 

When you were on the ship (we'll be on an ocean one), did you turn it onto airplane mode with roaming turned off? I read somewhere else that a person said they got charged for using the ship's WiFi, which seemed odd. I know we had T-mobile in Europe 7 years ago and I know I was posting on FB and such while in towns. Just can't remember what we did on the ship.

@OneSixtyToOne yes I understand we could do that, but not something we really want to spend money on. I get it, I know how beautiful it is, I've actually been there before.

And @Murt22 you would most likely need to schedule your own transportation back to the ship. That's what the people I know who have done it had to do. On another site, someone wrote up their whole trip, day by day, including their overnight stay in Venice. It wasn't cheap, that's for sure.

35 minutes ago, Frenchberet said:

Day 3 we did an optional “Secrets of Doge’s Palace with Early Access”.  We had a small group of 8-10 people and a guided tour inside the rooms, hidden passages, and cells within the palace. It was very interesting.  After the tour we had an hour of free time before returning to the ship.  Overall, not a lot of time in Venice.

I'm hoping that shows up on our cruise. We don't have anything for that 2nd full day on the schedule yet. I know we have to wait until we board to find those out. But this is the one I want to do!

Yes like @starstruck05 said, it always depends on the numbers. We were on a cruise in the summer with a lot of kids and they could accommodate a few of them, but mostly because they were all traveling in a large school group together. It was like 2 or 3 who were 14, almost 15, so they let them. But then we've been on cruises where they said no to kids moving up. And other times, it's not been a problem. Simply go on the first night and ask.

51 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

No, Viking is making it such that at the end of the cruise more people will have non-refundable left in their account, that Viking will not have to return to guests at the end of the cruise.  

OK, I guess I'm totally confused then as it says they changed it to refundable, at least, that's how it's worded. The person said they paid using non-refundable, but Viking switched it to refundable, which to me means they WOULD get it back. I do understand that non-refundable won't be given at the end. Oh well... I just don't understand what happened, but whatever... They don't sound like they want to try Viking much anyway, so doesn't really matter.

11 minutes ago, Pam said:

No, the opposite.  They were paid using nonrefundable, and Viking has changed them to using refundable.

That still seems a better deal. If you have non-refundable, then you're not getting anything back. If you have refundable, then they'll give it back to you. I'm guessing you mean that they paid for something with OBC that was supposed to be refundable if the event/excursion/whatever got cancelled. Then they would get their money back. But you're claiming that these people are being told they used non-refundable credits and aren't getting money back.

42 minutes ago, Pam said:

 

But I am reading on both those threads that Viking HQ is changing tours that were paid for with nonrefundable OBC, over to saying they were paid for with refundable OBC and the people are getting very little if any cooperation in their protests.  That is a red flag for anybody  reading along on several cruiselines' WC threads.  Or, that is my opinion.

 

I'm confused. So they used non-refundable OBC to book excursions, which were then cancelled. But Viking is giving them refundable OBC now? That seems like a good thing.

Our son went on his first cruise when he was right around that age and he always went. It was a good way to meet other kids. He didn't always do the programs they had, but the kids would at least meet up there and hang out. Maybe hit the pool together, or get pizza. We always set rules about checking in with us occasionally, and of course, always together for meals. And also, no going into other's rooms, and nobody in ours, staying in the standard public places, etc... But it gave him a chance to have some fun with other kids on sea days. The activities are pretty much the same from cruise to cruise and fairly standard type things. You want to go on the first night as well, to complete the paperwork and meet kids right away. And then after that, if they don't want to go, they don't have to.

@edinburgher - yep we were notified last week we're going to Toulon instead. Still not sure on what the excursions will be like. They were almost all sold out when I went to look, about 25 minutes after the emailed me. We booked the included. However, I have the Rick Steves book though, which talks about the way to get to Marseille pretty easily. So we might try to do that. I'd love to see the fanfare!

2 hours ago, longterm said:

I did! I was ready right at the stroke of 2pm, and I only had 3 optional excursions to book, so I did those first, then grabbed all the included excursions. We've got quite a few private excursions booked, so I only had about 9 excursions total to book.

I did notice that some are already sold out.

Yay! Glad it worked out! We did 7 optional, then like 9 included. We also booked a private one at 2 ports. The only one that's not set is Venice, because we have 2 nights there and we can't book our full day options until we get onboard. It's a turn around day for passengers, so we have to wait.

On 3/16/2024 at 2:19 PM, longterm said:

You're absolutely right--we just tested it. It wouldn't let us use our separate logins into the same MVJ, but so long as we logged in using the same login, it worked fine. Sadly, it appears now that my wife won't be available at that time, so it became a moot point for us. 😞

Did you get your excursions booked? I wasn't sure when your date was to reserve them. Hope you're able to get the things you want.

@OneSixtyToOne - thanks! Good to know!

1 hour ago, CHammond said:

We went with Viking in October to Venice, on our turn around day there was only one free shuttle to Venice which left at 8:30, it gave you about 4 hours in Venice, however, if you want to stay longer you can get back to the ship on your own, you need to ride the water bus up the grand canal to the old cruise port where viking is taking all the passengers getting off their flights, meet up with them and get on the viking bus to the cruise ship. We stayed in Venice until 5 and were glad we did, we were there at a slow time so were able to walk right in to the Doge's palace and do a tour. We were able to buy tickets on the spot, we also waited 45 minutes in line to see St Marks

Thanks! I guess we'll figure more out once we're onboard. I'll be honest, it's the only port that we don't have plans set, out of the 17 we have. LOL! So, that's not too bad.

55 minutes ago, OneSixtyToOne said:

 At the end of our cruise, we also tip generously our cabin stewards and any other staff that have given exceptional service. They usually benefit from any excess cash.

 

Good idea! We just ordered Euro's from our bank yesterday and got 1500 worth (we'll be there a month). But, that's partially because we know we need like 500 of that to pay for an excursion in person. We wanted to have some smaller amounts as needed. I know you said many places are cashless, which is fine too. Just good to know we could use it to tip our stewards at the end as well.