puppymama1

Thank you erby2283! Love your profile picture… looks just like our baby Katie!

Where did you get the thing for a man to carry things instead of in a wallet?

We booked a private tour to Montserrat… we thought we would enjoy that more than staying in Barcelona. We will be tired too, but we have always forced ourselves to stay awake and tour the first day to help us get used to the new time zone.

We have the same situation and we booked a tour with Barcelona Day Tours. They will pick us up at the airport take us on a tour and then drop us off at our hotel in the afternoon.

When you are dropped off for your 3 hours of “free time”, where do they drop you off? Is is closer to the Vatican museums or to St. Peter’s? Now that I have learned they closed the cut-through between them and we would need to take a taxi to get from one to the other, we are most likely going to pick only one instead of trying to revisit both of them. Thanks!

Well that’s not good news…. We have 3 hours of free time on our Viking excursion and we wanted to use that to go to St. Peter’s for awhile and then wander the Vatican museum with whatever free time we had left… Last time we were there we used the secret short cut to get from the Vatican to St. Peter’s… But if we have to take a taxi between them now, I guess we will just go to St. Peter’s and not the museums…

Did you do the catacombs before the Vatican? I was trying to figure out how long the catacombs portion of the excursion was… thanks!

We will be on the Mediterranean Odyssey cruise in October and are hoping to be able to book this excursion when booking time opens for us… the tour description says there is 3 hours of free time which we would like to use to see St Peter’s and the Vatican museums. We have seen both previously so we don’t need to see everything in the museums. I know we need to prebook timed entry tickets for the Vatican museums.. but I don’t know what time of the day our free time will be…. If anyone has done this tour, can you let me know what time period I should book the entry for? The excursion says it is from 7:45 - 4:15, but I know that includes travel time to/from the port. Thanks!

Does anyone have the website where you can see how many ships are in port on the days you are there? I had one for Alaska this past May, but don’t know if there is one for the Mediterranean ports also…. Thanks!

Our 2021 Israel cruise was canceled by Azamara, and we rebooked it for October 2023… hopefully it will happen then! I saw a post on FB of someone who renewed their wedding vows at Cana and that sounds incredible to me… who did you use for your private tour to Cana? Or what guides would anyone recommend? I was only planning on doing ship excursions but it doesn’t look like any excursion goes to Cana, so I might change my mind about that! Thanks!

Good idea LoveThatCorgi... I will post something on our roll call and see if I can get a tour organized with a different company... Thanks!

I tried booking them for a Florence/Pisa tour in October and got a reply back that due to a shortage of guides and drivers they could not do the tour... Currently looking for another company before we resort to using the ship tour.

YUKON KLONDIKE BUS ADVENTURE

About 3 months... We booked the May cruise in January, (after canceling the river cruise in Europe when the war broke out in Ukraine). I waited and waited for Dyea Dave Tours to decide if they were going to offer their tour, but didn't want to wait too long, so we booked with Chilkoot.. Dyea Dave Tours decided not to offer the tour this year, and the Chilkoot tour was wonderful.. so I was glad we made that decision... I would book it now or at the latest by this fall.. August is a busier month than May is, and if you decide to cancel it they will refund it with a 5% fee, as long as you cancel 48 hours before... If the ship doesn't stop in the port, they will refund in full.

Thanks mapleleaves! Who did you use?

We did the van ride, not the train, since we wanted to go to the Yukon. But it was wonderful… the scenery was incredible, our guide was fantastic and we had a great day!

Tried to book their Florence and Pisa small group tour for October but they are sadly not available. Hopefully we will be able to get on the ship’s tour. 🙏

We were on Viking Orion in may. Our Chilkoot tours trip to the Yukon was the highlight of our trip! I highly recommend them! Ended up with only 4 people on our tour and we stopped at many sights and had a great time!

They didn’t skip anything.. Glacier Bay was on the itinerary when we booked it. And yes, it was the first time a Viking ship had been in Glacier Bay… they announced that on the ship. I know it’s a subjective opinion, but we liked Hubbard Glacier much better than Glacier Bay… but we were very lucky and had sunny, beautiful weather and were able to sail in and see everything perfectly.

We just got off the Viking Orion on the 10 day Alaska itinerary… had one day in Glacier Bay and one in Hubbard Glacier. Had outstanding weather every single day and it was an incredible cruise. The entire cruise was wonderful.. our first time on Viking but we are now spoiled and only want to sail with them!

Chilkoot’s instructions specifically said you could use the same ArriveCAN you used to get on the cruise, but they never asked to see it at the border. But I would have it just in case they did ask for it. We sat in the first row on the side opposite of the driver, since you can see out the front of the bus that way. Since there were only 4 of us on the bus, when the bears were on the other side of the bus, we were able to just get up and go over there. I don’t think it matters which side you sit on, since you come back on the same road, so you will see everything no matter where you sit.

We just returned from the Chilkoot Yukon tour today and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! It was the best day of our cruise so far. We had our ArriveCAN passes ready but never needed it. Just had to show our passports to get into Canada and back. We only had one other couple on the bus with us, so it was basically a private tour. We had Mike as our tour guide and he was exceptional! Has been doing this for 13 years and really knows his stuff. He was so informative and funny. Spotted a grizzly on the side of the road and then spotted a mama bear and cub, and gave us plenty of time for pictures. Took us to so many different spots that were incredibly beautiful. We are so glad we did this tour instead of just the train ride up and back… much more personalized because you can stop and get out of the bus for pictures which you cannot do on the train!