Strategy for booking excursions

[Dauntless]

44 minutes ago, millybess said:

Just so I understand this correctly, you can’t put your desired time slot in the Wish List, so after you move the Wish List to your cart is when you can choose the time?

 

You can choose the time when you are able to purchase.  The strategy is to put the fee excursions first and get them paid for so your time is secured.  Not 'officially' yours until paid for.  Then choose your included for the times that work for you.

[millybess]

Thank you Dauntless  

[Kylie]

Is there away to know how long we are in each port on Viking Homeland?   Thinking about filling in some time with tours we book ourselves or HOHO.

 

[Dauntless]

1 hour ago, Kylie said:

Is there away to know how long we are in each port on Viking Homeland?   Thinking about filling in some time with tours we book ourselves or HOHO.

 

 

It's on your receipt on page 3 as I remember.

[Raison]

1 hour ago, Kylie said:

Is there away to know how long we are in each port on Viking Homeland?   Thinking about filling in some time with tours we book ourselves or HOHO.

 

On the website in My Viking Journey, go to the My Calendar section and the arrival and departure times are listed on each day.

And I just found if you click on the 'View Trip Summary" option from any page in your calendar it brings up the whole cruise with arrival and departure times all on one page.

Edited March 9, 2019 by Raison
extra info

[Kylie]

56 minutes ago, Raison said:

On the website in My Viking Journey, go to the My Calendar section and the arrival and departure times are listed on each day.

And I just found if you click on the 'View Trip Summary" option from any page in your calendar it brings up the whole cruise with arrival and departure times all on one page.

 

Thanks!   Got it.   The Rodne Tour to Pulpit Rock looks great!  Thanks for the heads up.  Any other tour ideas we could do on our own?

We are going in May on VH.

 

[bad user name]

 How does a world cruse that contains a lot of segments change this?  It seems like a lot more of a daunting task to plan out all of the tours in advance?  Also with regard to the segments  does the entire cruise open up at once, for example 67 days prior to the  12/14/2020 cruise date for Miami to London  (i.e 10/8/2020) for a DV cabin.    Whereas the PS1 (87 day booking window) on the 1/4/2021 LA to London segment would open up 10/9/2020 on day after all of the DV's open?  Is this correct?

 

Also would you book restaurant reservations in advance on a WC?  

 

 

[Heidi13]

8 minutes ago, bad user name said:

 How does a world cruse that contains a lot of segments change this?  It seems like a lot more of a daunting task to plan out all of the tours in advance?  Also with regard to the segments  does the entire cruise open up at once, for example 67 days prior to the  12/14/2020 cruise date for Miami to London  (i.e 10/8/2020) for a DV cabin.    Whereas the PS1 (87 day booking window) on the 1/4/2021 LA to London segment would open up 10/9/2020 on day after all of the DV's open?  Is this correct?

 

Also would you book restaurant reservations in advance on a WC?  

 

 

The excursions & alternative restaurants bookings open based on the boarding date. We are doing the 2nd portion of the 245 day WC from LA to London, so our booking dates are based on embarkation date of Jan 4th 2020. Those booking the entire 245 day WC, regardless of cabin category, will be able to book excursions on our portion well before us.

 

For us it isn't an issue, as I will be comparing private and ship excursions and if the ship ones are fully booked it simply reduces the options.

 

Will we make dinner reservations before boarding - definitely not, since we don't know what time we will have dinner tomorrow night, so no chance of knowing 6 months in advance. On a cruise ship, we schedule dinner around the daily schedule and social events. If we made reservations, most would probably get cancelled and rescheduled.

 

Hope this helps.

[bad user name]

Thanks, that is as I thought!  Looks like we will be getting on the ship in Miami after it drops you off in London. Do you do a lot of private tours on a WC?  We took some in Egypt after a viking river tour and found them to be much less "sanitized" than the viking tours.  However my big concern is the tour runs late and you watch the ship leave the port from the dock. 

 

[Heidi13]

We take only ship tours where the risk of missing the ship is high, or there are security concerns. For overland in India & Egypt we will only use the ship's tours. In some of the Asian ports where we travel a considerable distance from the ship or there is horrible traffic congestion, we again only use the ship.

 

In NZ, Australia, HK and Europe we will probably mostly use private tours, unless taking the included.

[Pushka]

13 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

We take only ship tours where the risk of missing the ship is high, or there are security concerns. For overland in India & Egypt we will only use the ship's tours. In some of the Asian ports where we travel a considerable distance from the ship or there is horrible traffic congestion, we again only use the ship.

 

In NZ, Australia, HK and Europe we will probably mostly use private tours, unless taking the included.

 

This is our strategy too. In Israel Egypt and Jordan we have booked the whole package through Viking. 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Pushka

[zitsky]

Am I correct, you can move some of your excursions from wish list to shopping cart?  You don't have to move them all?  And just pay by credit card once you have what you want in the cart?  Thanks.

[Dauntless]

8 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Am I correct, you can move some of your excursions from wish list to shopping cart?  You don't have to move them all?  And just pay by credit card once you have what you want in the cart?  Thanks.

 

You put what you want in cart.  Wish list is fine but by the time you reserve, somethings may be full  or not available when your time arrives.  You make your final decision then. I always do paid excursions first and pay for them, as nothing is yours in the cart, until it is paid for.  Then I go back and do the included.

[zitsky]

Cart doesn't show up until the day you can book?  Yes?  We all have different booking times.

[Dauntless]

3 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Cart doesn't show up until the day you can book?  Yes?  We all have different booking times.

 

Right.  Just like you car from the Valet.

[millybess]

When we booked our excursions, we didn’t work with the wish list. DH and I split up the paid excursions between us. We booked 2 each at a time, then moved on to the included excursions. Quick and painless.😊

[Geosez]

And we also discovered that the Trip Summary is printable!  Sometimes nice to have a hard copy.

[zitsky]

1 hour ago, Dauntless said:

 

Right.  Just like you car from the Valet.

 

You're funny and very helpful.  Thank you.

[CharTrav]

Don't know if somebody else has already covered this but Viking has addressed the guessing game we used to suffer under. The dates when you can begin booking excursions and reserve specialty restaurants is provided on your Guest Statement. It's not obvious it's there but it is. It appears after the cruise itinerary and the air disclaimers. The date when MVJ begins to show excursions for viewing only is provided in the excursions section of MVJ. Click on any day that would normally include excursions. If it's before the date your booking window opens, you'll see something like the attached screen shot. Even if the cruise starts far in the future. (Booked a cruise for 2021 this week and it does the same - different date of course). I find this to be a huge improvement over the situation before where all we knew was when the booking window would open but we're left guessing when the lists of excursions with prices and time slots would be revealed so we could start planning for real rather than working off a nominal list built from the main VO site. 

 

Hope this helps. 

[Dauntless]

8 hours ago, millybess said:

When we booked our excursions, we didn’t work with the wish list. DH and I split up the paid excursions between us. We booked 2 each at a time, then moved on to the included excursions. Quick and painless.😊

 

I don't use the wish list either.  Since I'm traveling with a friend and we both pay separately, we are on the phone with each other as we are booking and making sure we're getting on the same excursions.  It's always been fairly simle.

[Dauntless]

6 hours ago, zitsky said:

 

You're funny and very helpful.  Thank you.

 

When I was growing up they called me 'peculiar' but I'll take 'funny'. 

 

Thanks

[ep1919]

Booking Viking Ocean Excursions

 

Just booked excursions using the “Wishlist” function (Jan. 26, 2020).

 

There are many strategies suggested for getting your excursion choices.  The Wishlist feature speeds things up considerably.  I don’t understand why the Viking web site FAQ page doesn’t have detailed instructions on this topic. 

 

I opted for a simple fast strategy by having each of us use separate Wishlists on separate My Viking Journey pages so we could divide up the excursion booking process to speed things up. 

 

When bookings opened up at 3:01 pm EDT I already had my wishlist on the screen.   I did paid excursions, my wife did included tours.  

 

I clicked the “more information” spot on the screen for my first wishlist excursion.  When bookings opened, I could add the tour to my shopping cart by selecting the option.  CAUTION, if there is more than one time, be sure to select the time you want before adding it to the cart because the earliest time is the default choice.  Also, both persons sharing one booking number are booked together by default unless you choose otherwise. 

 

After booking the first choice I closed each wishlist item by clicking the X at the top right of the description box, and opened the second and subsequent tours adding each one to the cart. 

 

When I finished my paid choices I clicked on the shopping cart icon at the top of the My Viking Journey page and entered my credit card info. As previous posters have noted, your credit info does not display even if you have already entered your card for use for on-board purchases. 

 

My spouse’s choices of free, included bookings did not use the shopping cart.  Instead she reserved each included tour sequentially which took a little longer than adding everything to the shopping cart and paying all at once as I did. We both finished in less than ten minutes. 

 

At the end, we looked at the calendar feature, and are separate bookings were all listed on my calendar. 

[CCWineLover]

46 minutes ago, ep1919 said:

Booking Viking Ocean Excursions

 

Just booked excursions using the “Wishlist” function (Jan. 26, 2020).

 

There are many strategies suggested for getting your excursion choices.  The Wishlist feature speeds things up considerably.  I don’t understand why the Viking web site FAQ page doesn’t have detailed instructions on this topic. 

 

I opted for a simple fast strategy by having each of us use separate Wishlists on separate My Viking Journey pages so we could divide up the excursion booking process to speed things up. 

 

When bookings opened up at 3:01 pm EDT I already had my wishlist on the screen.   I did paid excursions, my wife did included tours.  

 

I clicked the “more information” spot on the screen for my first wishlist excursion.  When bookings opened, I could add the tour to my shopping cart by selecting the option.  CAUTION, if there is more than one time, be sure to select the time you want before adding it to the cart because the earliest time is the default choice.  Also, both persons sharing one booking number are booked together by default unless you choose otherwise. 

 

After booking the first choice I closed each wishlist item by clicking the X at the top right of the description box, and opened the second and subsequent tours adding each one to the cart. 

 

When I finished my paid choices I clicked on the shopping cart icon at the top of the My Viking Journey page and entered my credit card info. As previous posters have noted, your credit info does not display even if you have already entered your card for use for on-board purchases. 

 

My spouse’s choices of free, included bookings did not use the shopping cart.  Instead she reserved each included tour sequentially which took a little longer than adding everything to the shopping cart and paying all at once as I did. We both finished in less than ten minutes. 

 

At the end, we looked at the calendar feature, and are separate bookings were all listed on my calendar. 

Great strategy!

We have just prioritized the excursions we want, based on past experience, people talking about them filling up, etc.   If there is one or two that are very popular, we will just complete the transaction for those immediately and be done in a minute and then go back to the lesser priority ones, where there is more time.  Also helps to have a laptop and have your credit card info in a document file with the number already in copy/paste mode.  It can be quite quick!

[Dark Avenger]

Piggy backing on the topic - where do I find my election (sign-up) date for excursions?  

PV-1 Penthouse Veranda and the Homelands departure date is August 7th / Stockholm

 

Just booked my airfare and I will probably do some private tours this time around.  Does that make me a little anal retentive?  On a related note:  How early is too early for signing up for say St. Petersburg with someone like Alla?    Have not taken the deep dive yet into all the analysis, but I need to prior to the Viking excursion sign up deadline for my cabin class. 

[CharTrav]

32 minutes ago, Dark Avenger said:

Piggy backing on the topic - where do I find my election (sign-up) date for excursions?  

PV-1 Penthouse Veranda and the Homelands departure date is August 7th / Stockholm

 

Just booked my airfare and I will probably do some private tours this time around.  Does that make me a little anal retentive?  On a related note:  How early is too early for signing up for say St. Petersburg with someone like Alla?    Have not taken the deep dive yet into all the analysis, but I need to prior to the Viking excursion sign up deadline for my cabin class. 

The booking windows for excursions and  specialty dining are provided on your guest statement/invoice.  Look on page 3 or 4 after the ship itinerary and the air disclaimers. Before the excursion booking window opens, My Viking Journey provides the date when it will begin displaying excursions with times and costs. To see it open up day 2, basically the first day that will include excursions. By the way, we did Viking Homelands in 2016.