shore excursions booking issue with new website

[DrJJ]

Just got on my viking journey to review shore excursions we had identified on wishlist when booking opens up for me tomorrow.  Was notified that I had been "selected to experience" the new Viking website. Lost all  excursions I had put on wishlist. The new site also apparently no longer has a wishlist feature. Not an experience I would have selected for myself.

Edited February 7, 2020 by DrJJ

[Rosethorn40]

What cruise will you be on? Shore excursions opened for us last Sunday, and tomorrow we can start making dining reservations. I wasn't selected for this new experience. I'm sure it was frustrating to lose everything in your Wish List. Hopefully you will be able to remember what you selected.

[CaliJohn]

Same problem for us too. Wishlist feature now missing with all our selections. Viking rep said it's not available on their new website and no prior notice was provided to anyone. There's going to be a lot of upset users as they roll this out...  

[Hanoj]

Conjures up the square wheels metaphor. Thanks for the notice. I printed my wishlist to PDF in case I’m switched to the new website ahead of being able to book excursions February 26.

[CharTrav]

I have been less than impressed by the efforts of Viking's outsourced IT support. The initial roll out of MVJ was rocky but over time actually got to be pretty good. Sad to read that roll out of MVJ 2.0 is rocky as well. Thanks for the warning. Will make sure to have a printout of our intended ShoreEx selections - along with a list of alternates - on hand before logging in to book/reserve our ShoreExs this Wednesday just in case we are "gifted" to be part of the guinea pig/testing group. Would strongly urge too that you send any comments you have about its functionality, ease of use, etc - positive and negative - to TellUs@viking.com. With luck this will get fed back to that IT crew and acted on in a timely way. 

[philw1776]

Should we shoot the clueless software developers or the evil marketing folks specifying the "improvement"?
Viking ignoring the "If it ain't broke, don't "fix" it" engineering rule?
Waiting for my excursion booking meltdown later this year.

[Luv2Cruise1016]

Just logged into MVJ based on above and my Wishlist is still there just as it has been.

[CCWineLover]

37 minutes ago, Luv2Cruise1016 said:

Just logged into MVJ based on above and my Wishlist is still there just as it has been.

 

I just did the same thing for our upcoming cruise.  The Wish List is there and I can still add, delete, and view it.

You find it not under the List of Shore Excursions by Day.  You go to the Menu bar on the far left, look down to the section titled YOUR CRUISE and the 3rd of 4 choices is titled "Wish List".   Click and you are there.

Edited February 16, 2020 by CCWineLover

[CaliJohn]

Unfortunately this is what the "enhanced" website menu looks like. Nowhere under any heading option can a wishlist any longer be found. Hopefully Viking will correct this before everyone is transitioned to this boondoggle. Thankfully I also copied my wishlist items to a file beforehand.

 

 

Edited February 16, 2020 by CaliJohn
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[CharTrav]

Hmmm.  Ours is still the old version.  Fingers crossed that this happy state continues through the coming week. Strongly recommend that all of you who got "upgraded" to MVJ 2.0 voice your complaint to TellUs and cc your Viking TA focusing not only on its deficiencies but also the lack of prior notice. Enough complaints come in they may  decide the better part of valor is to roll back the beta version of 2.0 until its deficiencies are addressed. Moreover, when they decide to roll out 2.0 again, to do it better. That is, to send an announcer to all affected of the imminent update to MVJ. 

Edited February 16, 2020 by CharTrav

[SuSuTrav]

Thanks for warning! I just took photos of our Wish List choices.

[moatenote]

18 hours ago, CharTrav said:

I have been less than impressed by the efforts of Viking's outsourced IT support. The initial roll out of MVJ was rocky but over time actually got to be pretty good. Sad to read that roll out of MVJ 2.0 is rocky as well. Thanks for the warning. Will make sure to have a printout of our intended ShoreEx selections - along with a list of alternates - on hand before logging in to book/reserve our ShoreExs this Wednesday just in case we are "gifted" to be part of the guinea pig/testing group. Would strongly urge too that you send any comments you have about its functionality, ease of use, etc - positive and negative - to TellUs@viking.com. With luck this will get fed back to that IT crew and acted on in a timely way. 

 

Definitely email Viking!  But I think the address is Tellus@vikingcruises.com

[CharTrav]

1 hour ago, moatenote said:

 

Definitely email Viking!  But I think the address is Tellus@vikingcruises.com

You're right. Thanks for catching my error. 

[Peregrina651]

19 hours ago, CharTrav said:

Strongly recommend that all of you who got "upgraded" to MVJ 2.0 voice your complaint to TellUs and cc your Viking TA focusing not only on its deficiencies but also the lack of prior notice. Enough complaints come in they may  decide the better part of valor is to roll back the beta version of 2.0 until its deficiencies are addressed.

 

Bears repeating loud and clear!

 

TellUs@vikingcruises.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Peregrina651

[CharTrav]

Based on my experience yesterday -- working with MVJ V1.x -- I won't weep at all over the demise of the Wish List in V2.0.  For me .. unless the Wish Lists for my husband and me are merged when the booking window opens .. so that I can see and book/reserve all of our wish list selections together .. it's less than useless. We are pretty independent -- choosing the same excursions about half the time (if that).   Also .. I discovered that the criterion MVJ uses to determine schedule overlap prevents booking excursions with a 15 min or less gap between them. Thus, if you schedule an excursion that ends at 1:30 .. you can't also select one that starts at 1:45. 😝

[Peregrina651]

2 hours ago, CharTrav said:

Thus, if you schedule an excursion that ends at 1:30 .. you can't also select one that starts at 1:45. 😝

 

There are a couple of reasons for that.

 

• You have to be at the rally point (usually the Star Theater) for the tour 15 minutes prior to the start time.
• If your tour runs even the least bit late late, and you miss the second tour,  you will be really upset when you don't get your money back

Also, I think that the minimum gap is half an hour,

 

HOW TO GET AROUND IT:   There is nothing to stop you from getting off the morning tour at 1:30 and walking over to the Shorex folks who are working the dock (loading the buses) and asking if there is space on the 1:45 tour. If there is space, they will get you on the bus. And they will phone it to the desk to have the charge added to your account, so you don't have to go to the Shorex desk and then back to the bus.  Also, if early tour has multiple start times, show up for the earlier start time and ask if you can get on one of the buses if there is room (especially if it is an included tour, there are always no-shows).

 

 

[CharTrav]

2 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

There are a couple of reasons for that.

 

• You have to be at the rally point (usually the Star Theater) for the tour 15 minutes prior to the start time.
• If your tour runs even the least bit late late, and you miss the second tour,  you will be really upset when you don't get your money back

Also, I think that the minimum gap is half an hour,

 

HOW TO GET AROUND IT:   There is nothing to stop you from getting off the morning tour at 1:30 and walking over to the Shorex folks who are working the dock (loading the buses) and asking if there is space on the 1:45 tour. If there is space, they will get you on the bus. And they will phone it to the desk to have the charge added to your account, so you don't have to go to the Shorex desk and then back to the bus.  Also, if early tour has multiple start times, show up for the earlier start time and ask if you can get on one of the buses if there is room (especially if it is an included tour, there are always no-shows).

 

 

Thanks! I was able to book an excursion for mu husband with a 30 min gap. Which is why I concluded 15 min is the break off. And yes I was wondering if the rally time is the driver. Also - the excursion in question is an included one towards the end of our 22 days.  So we're hoping we can work directly with guest services on board.

[Peregrina651]

17 minutes ago, CharTrav said:

Also - the excursion in question is an included one towards the end of our 22 days.

 

You should not have any trouble getting a seat one way or another.

[RetroRod]

Hopefully I’m not too far off topic but for those that were “lucky” enough to be selected for MVJ 2.0 did you still have to enter a CC number for each excursion in your basket at checkout since the CC that you register can not be used for MVJ website purchases. The reason I ask is that it was recommended on this site to not wait until all your excursions were in your basket to check out and then enter your CC number. It was also recommended to pay for a few in the basket and then enter a few more. Some people that waited until the very end of their selection process found some of their excursions were “stolen” i.e no longer available or the times not available.  I found that the pay-as-you-go process is time consuming but we got the excursions we wanted. Hopefully Viking will read this😊

[CharTrav]

1 hour ago, VJMAZZ said:

Hopefully I’m not too far off topic but for those that were “lucky” enough to be selected for MVJ 2.0 did you still have to enter a CC number for each excursion in your basket at checkout since the CC that you register can not be used for MVJ website purchases. The reason I ask is that it was recommended on this site to not wait until all your excursions were in your basket to check out and then enter your CC number. It was also recommended to pay for a few in the basket and then enter a few more. Some people that waited until the very end of their selection process found some of their excursions were “stolen” i.e no longer available or the times not available.  I found that the pay-as-you-go process is time consuming but we got the excursions we wanted. Hopefully Viking will read this😊

I'm still on the old MVJ. I enter the CC number when I'm done selecting all of our excursions and have never had the experience of excursions being booked out from under me or times rendered unavailable.  In any case, I've never had to enter the CC number over and over again for each excursion. Just once. For the total. 

[Peregrina651]

4 hours ago, VJMAZZ said:

Hopefully I’m not too far off topic but for those that were “lucky” enough to be selected for MVJ 2.0 did you still have to enter a CC number for each excursion in your basket at checkout since the CC that you register can not be used for MVJ website purchases. The reason I ask is that it was recommended on this site to not wait until all your excursions were in your basket to check out and then enter your CC number. It was also recommended to pay for a few in the basket and then enter a few more. Some people that waited until the very end of their selection process found some of their excursions were “stolen” i.e no longer available or the times not available.  I found that the pay-as-you-go process is time consuming but we got the excursions we wanted. Hopefully Viking will read this😊

 

I will do this only for the optional tours that I am afraid will sell out quickly.  If there are one or two that I really want and I'm worried, I will do them first, check out and then come back and finish.  And, this is probably only necessary if you are doing this in the opening rush of booking for the DV and maybe the V cabins.

 

Also, as much as it is annoying, I see an upside of the way things are set up. No one can put a popular shorex in their shopping cart and sit on it for days or weeks while they decide if they really want the tour or not.