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Into the Midnight Sun


Elizabetho55
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I guess if you always take Viking excursions (or any kind of organized excursions, I guess) and want to tip in local money, you might want to get more than $100 worth, especially if you like to shop. (We don't.) What I'm not sure is whether my husband tipped for us mostly in USD (think so) or NOK while in Norway, and what "size" our NOK bills were. If you can't get anything but large bills out of an ATM (or from a bank at home), you may need USD or euros until you can get some change for the NOKs you get.

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We actually requested all small bills for every country but Russia before leaving for our Homelands cruise. We got them from our Wells Fargo Bank. It was easy. No wasting precious time in port looking for an ATM. I know there are fees and higher exchange rates but we think of that as part of the expense of traveling plus it saves us time and gives us peace of mind that we are ready for anything. They bought back any leftovers and we keep all Euros.

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We actually requested all small bills for every country but Russia before leaving for our Homelands cruise. We got them from our Wells Fargo Bank. It was easy. No wasting precious time in port looking for an ATM. I know there are fees and higher exchange rates but we think of that as part of the expense of traveling plus it saves us time and gives us peace of mind that we are ready for anything. They bought back any leftovers and we keep all Euros.

 

Agree. Did the same for Homelands where numerous currencies were in play. Almost don't need any cash in credit card oriented Scandinavia. Used my credit card to buy a coin for one toilet when out of Norway sheckles.

Went to AAA where if you order $100 foreign currency any mix there's no fee. It's thru Wells Fargo. I hate having to even think about finding a bank ATM even though it's often no problem. Put everything in labeled envelopes in the safe & took out appropriate cash (minimal, tour guide, bus driver, postcards) for each country on the cruise.

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Put everything in labeled envelopes in the safe & took out appropriate cash (minimal, tour guide, bus driver, postcards) for each country on the cruise.

 

Exactly how we did it. Each country had it's own bank envelope. We would swap it out at night. It was easy to keep track of each currency and was a fast grab when preparing for the next day. At the end of our cruise we took the leftovers to the bank and it made it easy on them as well.

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I heard several expressions of disappointment about the Trolifjord boat excursion. The Lofoten islands is more about the beautiful beaches, fishing industry and lovely scenic fishing villages and bays rather than fjords.

 

The included excursion (at least on our cruise) was only 2 hours long and with so many hours in port, there was so much more to see.

 

We ended up scheduling a private group tour of six of us who met on CC for the full day.

 

In the Orkney Islands, the most popular excursion was the Orkney's Stone age. It sold out before we could book so we again did a private tour for the day with one other couple we also did the Lofoten private tour. Skara Brae was very interesting.

 

This is a great itinerary and it really is hard to narrow down your choices of what to do. We did a couple of excursions on several days and that tended to be cutting it a bit close getting back to the ship, getting something to eat and then ready to leave on next excursion.

 

In Geirangerfjord, Viking usually tenders so we did not even try to go back to the ship after the morning tour and got something to eat before meeting up with our kayaking excursion in port. We would definifely not have made if back to the ship.

 

I've been searching for Lofoten options because of the brief included tour. Please tell me more about your. Do you have contact info for tour company? Thank you. Jeanne

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On the included excursion in Thomson do you get to go into the arctic cathedral or is just a drive by?

 

We did Tromso with Viking in 2016, the first year they did Midnight Sun. (My travelblog is here, for anyone who is interested).

 

We did the "Portals of the Arctic" tour, which included a visit inside the church. The interior is not as eye catching as its exterior and if the tour you are on does not include an interior visit, you should not feel as though you have missed something that you absolutely should have seen. IMHO, the best views of the church are from a distance.

 

 

enhance

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I've been searching for Lofoten options because of the brief included tour. Please tell me more about your. Do you have contact info for tour company? Thank you. Jeanne

 

See posting #37 in this thread for contact info for Lofoten Lights. We worked with Claudia.

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Is there an address for the Greenwich port where we will collect our luggage after disembarkation? I am trying to book a car to take us to the Heathrow Sofitel and their website requires me to enter a street address. It doesn’t accept “Greenwich Port” as a location. Viking won’t provide transpo for us because we’re not flying out the same day. Seems bizarre to me as they just need to drop us off at T5 with everyone else who is flying that day.

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  • 8 months later...

We doing the "Into the Midnight Sun" cruise this summer (2019) on the Viking Jupiter.   It will be our first Viking Ocean cruise.   Is the timing for the optional excursions set up so you can do the "included" excursion and then one or more of the optional excursions?  Thanks for all your help.

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When you choose your excursions on Mytrip it will show the times for all excursions. There were normally lots of time slots to choose from on the included excursions so that you could both. The exception would be an all day excursion. This was a wonderful cruise!  Enjoy!  

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There were a few places that I really wanted to do both and couldn't because they conflicted, even with multiple times for included excursions. Since I wanted to do more that the included and couldn't fit the 1/2 day optional, I found a couple of private excursions to take. They were among the best because they were such small groups (4-7) and we got to do just what we wanted to do.

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Have done 4 ocean cruises with Viking now, and I'd say it's usually not feasible to book two excursions, unless it's a fairly short non-included one with a fairly short included one.  When that's possible, it usually seems to be that the optional excursion you want is offered in the morning and the included excursion is offered at least once in the afternoon.  That works well, as you'll normally be able to take the one you really want (and will pay for, or use shipboard credit for), and then if something goes wrong and you miss the included one, you at least won't be out any money or credit for that one.  

 

Of course the included excursions are very tempting to take, as they cost nothing extra.  However, if there's a lot you really want to see, or specific things you want to see, it's usually best to just arrange your own excursion, especially if you can get some people on your Cruise Critic "Roll Call" to share the cost.  Viking's prices are pretty reasonable, but even so, you'll get more value for your $$ if you book your own tour - and you really don't need to worry about the vendor not getting you back to the ship on time.  Any reputable vendor will be careful to do that.   I also do a lot of exploring on my own, using public transportation, cabs, etc.  If you're comfortable doing that, and you're in a port city which makes going back out on your own feasible, you can do one excursion from the ship and then if time, go back out on your own.  I just plan on getting back to the ship an hour before we're required to do so.  Also, if the itinerary calls for a particular departure time, you'll generally be required to be back on the ship a half hour prior to that.  Keep in mind that your key card has the phone number of the ship printed on it.  If you run into trouble, you can call and let the ship know your situation.  

Edited by roothy123
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Also, sometimes you can stay in the city after an excursion and go back to the ship on your own by cab or whatever  If you do that, though, be sure to tell your guide what you're doing, as they need to make sure they bring everyone back or account for those they don't!

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Highly recommend these two companies at your Scottish Island calls:-

 

Kirkwall, Orkney - http://wildaboutorkney.com/

 

Lerwick, Shetland - https://www.shetlandminibustours.co.uk/

 

Both gave us very small group tours, took us to the main sights at times when the tour buses were elsewhere and allowed us extra time of places of great interest to us.  We loved the Midnight Sun cruise but these two privately booked tours (especially the Shetland one) were the highlight of the two weeks.

 

Janet

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The Midnight Sun cruise is a great itinerary but the included tours were not the best in most places so do look into private tours as mentioned above.  Also in most of the Norwegian ports, you could take a local bus to some of the places the ship tours were going for much less and see some different views.  Anybody who has not been to Edinburgh should think twice about the included tour.  On our cruise, there were problems tendering so that the tours started late.  The included tour had a rest stop at Holyrood Palace (not a visit), a quick ride on the royal mile and a stop at Greyfriar's Bobby before letting those who wanted to stay get off and heading back out of town.  There is so much more to see and do even on a one day tour.  OTOH, the Shetlands were great on included, paid extra ship tours and private tours.  There are at least 2 good threads from last summer-do your research and enjoy.

 

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Edinburgh is a tough place for cruisers, given multiple, spread-out dock locations/assignments, crowds on the Royal Mile, etc.  But we loved Edinburgh.  The first time we were there (cruise) we got transportation to and from where the ship was assigned to dock (not easy/fast).  The second time (Midnight Sun) we just took the included tour, and didn't stay afterwards since it was a little complicated, although I'm sure we could have gone by expensive (due to dock location) taxi.  Edinburgh is definitely one of those cities in which you need to do a little advance planning and figure out what you want to see.

 

We love Lerwick and the rest of the Shetland Islands.  Lerwick itself has lovely things to look at/photograph, and places to eat/shop, but we also loved getting out into the rolling hills of the countryside.    

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It’s interesting to read different experiences of the same cruise. When we were in Edinburgh in 2018 Viking provided a free shuttle from the ship to Edinburgh and back on a regular schedule. We went into the city using it and walked around on our own. It’s hard to see anything in just a day. We thought of it as an intro to see if we wanted to go back. 

We came away with mixed reviews about the included tours. The city walk in Bergen was a great introduction to the layout of the city with some great stops and a couple of really lame ones. The included excursion in Geiranger was very good. We added an optional that went to the top of Dalsnibba (which was amazing!). 

In Molde we opted for the optional Trollstigen and Trollsveggen tour. Very expensive, very long bus ride with some beautiful waterfalls and scenery but IMO not with the time and money. The included lunch was awful. 

In Tromso we did the included tour (bus tour to some tourist sites) and then stayed in town on our own and wandered over to Ølhallen pub. Maybe we missed something but there wasn’t a lot to do here. 

Honningsvåg - we did the included tour. We felt the whole reason in going here was to reach the furthest (well almost furthest) point in Europe and therefore the included tour had what we wanted. 

In Lerwick we did Ancient civilizations of the Shetlands (which we liked a lot) and the included tour in the afternoon. The morning tour included almost everything the included tour had with an additional stop to see and pet ponies in a fenced in area - humans being outside the fence and ponies inside.  In hindsight we would have just done the optional tour. We did see Shetland ponies at one of the stops on the optional tour. They were wandering around in a field. 

In Orkney we signed up for the Orkeny’s Stone Age optional excursion. I was really looking forward to that one!  I heard it was great too. Unfortunately, I was in my cabin very sick. A 24 hour something. 🤢😔

Edinburgh- see above. 

London-we had never been to London and with such a short timeframe we decided to do the optional Classic London Monuments tour. It was a bus tour (which we knew) with some stops and some free time for lunch. We considered it an intro to a city we will definitely go back to on our own. 

We extended in Oslo and Bergen before the trip. We were very glad we did this!  The included tour in Oslo was excellent. We went to the Viking Museum, the famous ski jump (can’t remember the name),  Vigeland  Sculpture Park (amazing!) and a couple of other places. The train ride was great (sit on the left side for a good view of the sites). Get your lunch as soon as the dining car opens. The line gets long fast!  In Bergen we opted to walk up Mount Floien and we took the tram down.  It’s a climb so if you have mobility issues you should take the tram both ways. I believe you can buy tickets online rather than stand in line for them. Viking offers an optional excursion with this site. 

 

There were a lot of people who arranged tours outside of Viking and they enjoyed them and I believe they were less expensive. They were reliable and got people back to the ship in time. I’ve planned many, many trips and decided that on this trip I didn’t want to plan and coordinate things so we decided to go with all Viking options. On the”panoramic city tours” we knew what we were getting. They are bus tours with a lot of drive bys and some stops with limited free time. 

Overall, we loved the cruise. The ship is beautiful and the crew was wonderful. I get sea sick and I never had a problem. The sickness I had wasn’t due to seasickness. 

We had gorgeous weather the entire trip which is very unusual. Sunshine and clear skies everyday. Keep in mind that it rains a lot in Norway and fog can inhibit some viewing. 

One last piece of advice. Get up early for the sail into Geiranger. There were maybe 10 of us on deck that morning and all of the people who slept in missed some amazing sites!  Bring your binoculars with you. 

If you have any questions feel free to ask. I’ll answer as best I can. Enjoy your cruise! 

P.S. Pics below are of our trip up to Dalsnibba in Geiranger. 

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thanks to all the folks with great recommendations ...we are doing this cruise June of 2020.. so have some time to plan.  London to Bergen.  We will do the train to Oslo we just haven't decided if the extra money is worth it for Viking to worry about transfers etc.  Anyone done it DIY and how difficult was it getting from ship with luggage to train and then to hotel.  Unfortunately I have not learned to travel with only a carry on!

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  • 2 weeks later...

We will be taking this cruise at the end of June. A few of the days we will do on our own. Does anyone know if shuttle buses are provided at the Edinburgh port and the Tromso port or if we will need to take public transportation of some kind? Thank you in advance. 

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I don't remember if there was a shuttle in Tromso, but I just walked around a bit and then decided to keep going, and went across the long bridge to the Arctic Church and back. I also took the included excursion.  I know that in researching Tromso, I found out about buses in the city, and saw where at least a few left from.  However, to be useful, you would really need to decide where in Tromso you wanted to go.  I guess the same would apply to a cab!  The tourist info center close to where you're likely to dock can probably help.  I'm the type of person who can have a great day just by wandering, looking at things, and taking pictures.  But obviously some people want something different from that. 

 

In Edinburgh, you can do things on your own once you get to Edinburgh, but getting to Edinburgh can be a little tricky.  If you're assigned to dock at Leith, I think the Hop On Hop Off bus may stop there, making DIY touring a decent option.  If you google a bit, you can probably find a not too helpful guide to the different ports for Edinburgh with port schedules.  (While not too helpful, it's better than nothing!)  We were assigned to dock at a rather uncommon location.  Viking did provide a shuttle to a nearby town, and apparently the town had train service to Edinburgh.  However, we just took an excursion.    

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The good thing about the sail in to Geiranger is that the ship must turn around and go back out the same way.  Therefore, if you miss the sail in, you may be able to see the same things on the way out, assuming dinner doesn't get in the way!  If it does, perhaps dinner in the World Cafe (or outside if not too cold) might be a good option!

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Hi - I did a live blog from this cruise last year and I hope that you can follow this link - p2 starts with Tromso.  On our sailing, there was a shuttle.  But you can read our experience if you want to here: 

This was a wonderful cruise!

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