Late flights after disembarkation?

[ARDXXX]

On Viking for Christmas Cruise from Santiago to Buenos Aires and thought we had good flight times ( for a change ) found out today from Viking that although our flight from BA to London on the way back is a good time -  2ish in the afternoon the connecting flight in London to Newcastle has been cancelled and we will now have eight hours in Heathrow which is worse than  being stuck in BA as we will be nackerated! still not much I can do about it.

[TayanaLorna]

20 hours ago, theduffys said:

What tour are you doing. Our problem is we spent 3 days in BA a few years ago and we saw all the regular tourist spots.  We love Tours by Locals by the way.

We are doing the 7 hour all day tour of BA with Elisabet because we have never been to BA before.  Will take the Viking included the day before which will probably be a panoramic bus tour.  Then we can customize our private tour based on areas we would like to explore further or areas we missed.  TBL have other trips such as on the river or to the gauchos too.

[SM77]

On 7/7/2019 at 6:54 PM, vnb2003 said:

Early this year we were on the first segment of WC Miami to Buenos Aires. We had the same dilemma-where we will spend 12 hours. We had various answers from Viking and just before the cruise we were told that management on board is in contact with HQ and we will know the plan when on board. Meanwhile our TA arrange hotel room for us free of charge.

To make it shorter, Viking arranged a 4 hours boat excursion, after that Viking brought everyone to the Hilton where there were a few conference rooms reserved with refreshments. Buses were leaving to airport for the scheduled flights. Our large luggage was taken to the storage area in airport by Viking in the morning. All day was well organized and we had all info we needed all the time. Our TA switch our reservation for Hilton and we were able to have a shower, lunch, and a good nap :). Our flight was at 9:59 pm.  That day though rainy was a great finish to the great cruise 🚢 

We will be on doing South America from Buenos Aires to Santiago in December.  We finalized our flights and departure from Santiago is 9:45 PM.  I recall for a river cruise, Viking did make arrangements for a hotel stay in a conference room for a few hours, however we opted to go to the airport.  However this is a much longer day in which we can do a tour of Santiago or Valparaiso.  I started to look into any tours that we could do on our own but would rather work through Viking for the transfer from the port to the airport since we booked our flights w/ Viking.  Sounds like there will be a large enough group of passengers for Viking to make some arrangements at a hotel for the day.  Your experience makes me optimistic that Viking will try to do something for disembarking guests (& I don't have an issue if there is an additional cost for a tour).  I will contact TellusViking and post if I get a definitive answer.  If they do get us to a hotel for the day, we might be able to arrange through the hotel a half day tour of Santiago.  

[vnb2003]

SM77, I hope they’ll do. It would probably depend on how many people will have a late flight. There were around 200 on our cruise. 

Good luck and have a fantastic cruise! 😊

[SM77]

I just got a reply from Viking Social after emailing TellusViking.  Below is their response:

 

Thank you for reaching out to us so that we may further assist.

 

Typically, we do arrange a hospitality hotel room in Santiago for our guests with late Viking Air departures, so that you may relax and explore the city independently before your return flight. 

 

We encourage you to check back with us closer to your embarkation date for further details, and thank you for your patience.

 

I did make a suggestion that a tour be available so let's see if they decide to do anything extra.   There is a post-extension in Santiago so I would imagine that Viking is working w/ a tour company for those passengers that are staying on.  

 

[vnb2003]

On 8/13/2019 at 1:52 PM, SM77 said:

I just got a reply from Viking Social after emailing TellusViking.  Below is their response:

 

Thank you for reaching out to us so that we may further assist.

 

Typically, we do arrange a hospitality hotel room in Santiago for our guests with late Viking Air departures, so that you may relax and explore the city independently before your return flight. 

 

We encourage you to check back with us closer to your embarkation date for further details, and thank you for your patience.

 

I did make a suggestion that a tour be available so let's see if they decide to do anything extra.   There is a post-extension in Santiago so I would imagine that Viking is working w/ a tour company for those passengers that are staying on.  

 

SM77, glad to hear this! 🙂

 

We were at the same hotel as Post-extension.

[Clay Clayton]

We have s similar issue leaving Hong Kong at 11:35 pm headed back to the states after our Asia Discovery cruise in October. I emailed TellUs and hit a call a few days later from Viking letting us know that Viking Air would be arranging a day room for us.  I hope this turns out to be the case though I’d be perfectly happy resining aboard the ship which is overnighting in HK.

 

🤞🏻Only time will tell.