Lucerne pre cruise timing

[princesspat1]

We are doing the Viking Rhine Getaway, Basel to Amsterdam in August with a pre cruise extension in Lucerne.  Looks like the day we get there is all free time, and the second day is the walking tour in the morning.  We want to do the Mt. Pilates Golden tour on our own, which is about 5 hours long.  Can we fit it in after the walking tour?  On the second day, it says we leave for Basel in the late afternoon.  Does anyone have an idea of what time that would be?  If it's really late pm, we could do Mt. Pilates that day at 8:30.  Certainly wouldn't want to miss the bus to Basel!

[Caucasus and Mercury]

Just an idea: I think you should take a ride on the lake with an old-fashioned steamship. Even though you have days ahead onboard a ship, I still think you would like it, it's lovely. An hour or two, nice weather, a drink on deck and a wonderful, spectacular view. Timetable.

[bafinegan]

On 5/3/2019 at 9:31 AM, princesspat1 said:

We are doing the Viking Rhine Getaway, Basel to Amsterdam in August with a pre cruise extension in Lucerne.  Looks like the day we get there is all free time, and the second day is the walking tour in the morning.  We want to do the Mt. Pilates Golden tour on our own, which is about 5 hours long.  Can we fit it in after the walking tour?  On the second day, it says we leave for Basel in the late afternoon.  Does anyone have an idea of what time that would be?  If it's really late pm, we could do Mt. Pilates that day at 8:30.  Certainly wouldn't want to miss the bus to Basel!

 

We have the exact same timetable only in Sept.  Was wondering the same thing.  A lot depends upon when Viking takes us to the ship from Lucerne.  

 

baf

Edited May 7, 2019 by bafinegan
update

[cruisergrandma]

We did the Lucerne pre-cruise in April 2018. The walking tour was at 10:00 so we had all afternoon free. The bus to Basel the next day was not until 4:00 pm. You have plenty of free time in Lucerne. Lucerne was our favorite town. Loved it so much we went back there for a week in December. Enjoy.

[hcross888]

Lucerne is my favorite city, and Mt Pilatus is a wonderful trip. Taking the boat to catch the cog railroad and then taking the cable car down is really awesome.   It is best to start it early as you are more likely to have better visibility in the AM from the mountain top.  Have you thought about skipping the walking tour and just going off to Mt Pilatus on your second day?  It sounds like you probably could fit it in that last day, but you might be worried about missing the bus.

 

Lucerne is compact and walkable, so you really could do the walking tour on your own.

 

 

[bafinegan]

We have decided to book the  Stanserhorn cable car tour with VIking .  This way we will have all afternoon free the day before to just do some relaxed sight seeing.  I know the Viking tour is a little pricey, but this will give us a chance on those cable cars and not feel like we are wasting an entire day waiting for our ride to the ship.  

 

baf

[margu1241]

Recently got off Einar in Basel and stayed on our own in Lucerne. My advice is to be flexible with the weather. We had planned to go one day, but turns out our arrival day was best in the forecast. Really wanted to go to Mt Pilates so did the tour backwards, bus to cable cars, cog wheel train down and train back to Lucerne to be as efficient as possible due to incoming bad weather. Not ideal, but rain started midway on the train down so we at least had decent views from the top.