What's the deal with Excursions? Summer/2021

[King0fTheNorth]

We are excited to be going on our first Viking cruise (have been on many other lines) after a few of our other cruises were canceled. However, we are thoroughly confused on what the rules are surrounding excursions. We will be cruising Iceland this summer.

 

When we first booked, we didn't see any rules saying we could only do Viking excursions. I then asked a customer service rep if we had to stay in their bubble for excursions (someone on a previous Viking forum made it seem like we did). They said no at first, then said they weren't sure and they had to ask. Put me on hold for 10 minutes to tell me he thinks we have to stay with Viking excursions but really wasn't sure.

 

I talked to customer service a week later for something else. Asked that person and they said we could only go on Viking excursions and could not go on any outside the cruise line.

 

Talked to them today again and the person said we were allowed to go on excursions outside of the viking ones offered.

 

Long story short, I'm not sure if we can book excursions outside those offered by Viking or if we have to stick with theirs. Viking doesn't seem to know the answer either. Anyone out there know what the rule is? Thank you in advance.

 

P.s. The cruise is now 2 months away and myvikingjourney is still not allowing us to book excursions (we should have been be able to at this point for a while now) and customer service does not know when we will be able to.

[dwlmg]

As of today, 13 May 2021, the US CDC announced that passengers could go on independent excursions. This is new today. Previously, passengers were only allowed on excursions run by the cruise lines. It remains to be seen if Viking goes along with the CDC relaxation.  It may very much depend on the dictates of the countries where the ports are located. The CDC does not set rules for the Bahamas, the UK, or Iceland.

 

Viking is putting several brand new itineraries into their offerings with very short notice. These itineraries involve new ports so the excursions have to be developed and integrated into My Viking Journey. It will take some time. I suspect once they are available, there will be gradual controlled access for bookings starting with the higher category cabins.

[King0fTheNorth]

2 minutes ago, dwlmg said:

As of today, 13 May 2021, the US CDC announced that passengers could go on independent excursions. This is new today. Previously, passengers were only allowed on excursions run by the cruise lines. It remains to be seen if Viking goes along with the CDC relaxation.  It may very much depend on the dictates of the countries where the ports are located. The CDC does not set rules for the Bahamas, the UK, or Iceland.

 

Viking is putting several brand new itineraries into their offerings with very short notice. These itineraries involve new ports so the excursions have to be developed and integrated into My Viking Journey. It will take some time. I suspect once they are available, there will be gradual controlled access for bookings starting with the higher category cabins.

Thank you. This is great to hear. Was Viking requiring to stay in the "bubble" before today for Iceland? I don't see that in writing anywhere and customer service didn't know the answer when I spoke to them in the past.

 

It also doesn't make sense either if we have to stay with their excursions. For example, the first day on the ship their are no excursions available. So are we just suppose to stay on the ship the whole day and not allowed to leave?

 

Last question, do you know if we book an excursion through viking, are they refundable if we cancel so many days before?

[King0fTheNorth]

6 minutes ago, King0fTheNorth said:

Thank you. This is great to hear. Was Viking requiring to stay in the "bubble" before today for Iceland? I don't see that in writing anywhere and customer service didn't know the answer when I spoke to them in the past.

 

It also doesn't make sense either if we have to stay with their excursions. For example, the first day on the ship their are no excursions available. So are we just suppose to stay on the ship the whole day and not allowed to leave?

 

Last question, do you know if we book an excursion through viking, are they refundable if we cancel so many days before?

Nevermind on the last question, this one I was able to google:

 

"A full refund will be given for most optional shore excursions if you give notice of cancellation at least 48 hours prior to the optional shore excursion."

[CCWineLover]

16 minutes ago, dwlmg said:

As of today, 13 May 2021, the US CDC announced that passengers could go on independent excursions. This is new today. Previously, passengers were only allowed on excursions run by the cruise lines. It remains to be seen if Viking goes along with the CDC relaxation.  It may very much depend on the dictates of the countries where the ports are located. The CDC does not set rules for the Bahamas, the UK, or Iceland.

 

Viking is putting several brand new itineraries into their offerings with very short notice. These itineraries involve new ports so the excursions have to be developed and integrated into My Viking Journey. It will take some time. I suspect once they are available, there will be gradual controlled access for bookings starting with the higher category cabins.

Agree with your thoughts dwimg - remains to be seen.  Sadly today's email to the Bermuda passengers reiterates that passengers will have to comply with the Viking bubble - no going out on your own and no doing anything but a Viking Excursion.

The CDC does not apply here anyway since this is in Iceland and Bermuda waters, not US.  Plus they have also left it to the discretion of the vendor (i.e. Viking) to be more stringent if they feel that necessary.  Which Viking obviously feels.

Sorry - not the good news everyone thinks it is - but at least it is a first step and perhaps other countries will start to consider that.

Edited May 14, 2021 by CCWineLover

[King0fTheNorth]

2 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

Agree with your thoughts dwimg - remains to be seen.  Sadly today's email to the Bermuda passengers reiterates that passengers will have to comply with the Viking bubble - no going out on your own and no doing anything but a Viking Excursion.

The CDC does not apply here anyway since this is in Iceland and Bermuda waters, not US.  Plus they have also left it to the discretion of the vendor (i.e. Viking) to be more stringent if they feel that necessary.  Which Viking obviously feels.

Sorry - not the good news everyone thinks it is - but at least it is a first step and perhaps other countries will start to consider that.

I have never received any email from Viking saying we had to stay in the bubble or not. I wonder if the Bermuda cruises have different rules than Iceland?

 

Fingers crossed!

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, King0fTheNorth said:

We are excited to be going on our first Viking cruise (have been on many other lines) after a few of our other cruises were canceled. However, we are thoroughly confused on what the rules are surrounding excursions. We will be cruising Iceland this summer.

 

When we first booked, we didn't see any rules saying we could only do Viking excursions. I then asked a customer service rep if we had to stay in their bubble for excursions (someone on a previous Viking forum made it seem like we did). They said no at first, then said they weren't sure and they had to ask. Put me on hold for 10 minutes to tell me he thinks we have to stay with Viking excursions but really wasn't sure.

 

I talked to customer service a week later for something else. Asked that person and they said we could only go on Viking excursions and could not go on any outside the cruise line.

 

Talked to them today again and the person said we were allowed to go on excursions outside of the viking ones offered.

 

Long story short, I'm not sure if we can book excursions outside those offered by Viking or if we have to stick with theirs. Viking doesn't seem to know the answer either. Anyone out there know what the rule is? Thank you in advance.

 

P.s. The cruise is now 2 months away and myvikingjourney is still not allowing us to book excursions (we should have been be able to at this point for a while now) and customer service does not know when we will be able to.

 

Welcome to the Viking Board. While the pre-cruise experience, especially with the basic customer service can be hit or miss, the experience once aboard, is definitely amazing.

 

Rather than contacting the regular customer service, many of us have found the great people at tellus@vikingcruises.com to be vastly superior in getting the answers.

 

We have no Welcome Back cruises available to book, so don't have access to the latest information, but Viking issued a COVID policy when they first announced them.

 

https://docs.vikingcruises.com/pdf/210405_COVID-19PoliciesAndProcedures_Ver1.pdf

 

Shore leave being restricted to cruise ship shore-ex is consistant with the other cruise lines that have operated in the EU for a number of months. Therefore, it is no surprise that Viking will require this, at least for the initial cruises.

 

Please don't be swayed by the latest change from the United States CDC, as they have zero jurisdiction on any of Viking's Welcome Back cruises. Viking must adhere to the health standards of their Flag State (Norway) and the countries visited. Viking's has a vastly superior Health & Safety Program, compared to the US CDC standards. This program was developed back in December and supplemented last month, so I doubt they will relax their standards, at least until they have completed a few cruises.

 

Personally, my money is on maintaining a shore-ex bubble, at least for the first few cruises.

[LindaS272]

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Please don't be swayed by the latest change from the United States CDC, as they have zero jurisdiction on any of Viking's Welcome Back cruises. Viking must adhere to the health standards of their Flag State (Norway) and the countries visited. Viking's has a vastly superior Health & Safety Program, compared to the US CDC standards.

 It doesn’t matter that the CDC has no “jurisdiction” over Viking. Dealing with Covid protocols is a collaborative effort and Viking is also consulting with the CDC. It’s simply not true that the CDC has “lower” standards.

[NeilP57]

Here in the UK, the Viking Agent was very clear that we were to remain within the Viking excursion bubble and this seemed to be part of the sales script for Icelandic cruise we booked.

 

I had similar discussions when I was considering the England's Scenic Coast, but decided to be in a Viking bubble in your own country was a little too restrictive.

 

It may get relaxed as cruises go by, we are not sailing until 31 July but we have proceeded on the basis that this will be the case and anything other than this will be a bonus.

[cathome]

NeilP57, we’re on this same cruise. We were read the conditions and had to verbally agree when we booked.

[King0fTheNorth]

1 hour ago, cathome said:

NeilP57, we’re on this same cruise. We were read the conditions and had to verbally agree when we booked.

 

Definitely not the case when I booked. And I'm assuming this isn't standard since their customer service kept giving different answers when I asked. Did you book an Iceland trip Cathome?

[Clay Clayton]

This information was pretty clear to me in Viking’s Covid procedures which were the first thing that popped up as a banner at that time on the website (it doesn’t anymore at least for me-maybe because I read it?). Here is a link to it:

https://docs.vikingcruises.com/pdf/14-210511_COVID-19PoliciesAndProcedures-US.pdf
 

It is also very clear in the terms and conditions of the contract all of which can be found here: https://docs.vikingcruises.com/pdf/2-210416_BookingAndSaleTermsAndConditions-US.pdf with the pertinent sentence pictured below. 

[King0fTheNorth]

13 minutes ago, Clay Clayton said:

This information was pretty clear to me in Viking’s Covid procedures which were the first thing that popped up as a banner at that time on the website (it doesn’t anymore at least for me-maybe because I read it?). Here is a link to it:

https://docs.vikingcruises.com/pdf/14-210511_COVID-19PoliciesAndProcedures-US.pdf
 

It is also very clear in the terms and conditions of the contract all of which can be found here: https://docs.vikingcruises.com/pdf/2-210416_BookingAndSaleTermsAndConditions-US.pdf with the pertinent sentence pictured below. 

I've never seen the banner on the website. It might have been temporary. Thank you for the copied text. The first customer service rep I spoke to that original said we didn't have to stay in the bubble pulled this text up and after reading it he said he thought we might have to but wasn't sure. It's not super clear since it says "depending on local conditions".

 

Their Health and Safety program isn't very clear either (screenshot below). They use language to protect themselves which is understandable I just still haven't seen anything that says "you must book all excursions through viking" and customer service has given different answers.

 

Since most people on the forum say we have to stay in the bubble, I will just assume that is the case and plan accordingly. Fingers crossed they open it up after CDC recommendation. It would have been nice if Viking was more clear on this but thanks to everyone on this forum for their input.

[Clay Clayton]

5 minutes ago, King0fTheNorth said:

I've never seen the banner on the website. It might have been temporary. Thank you for the copied text. The first customer service rep I spoke to that original said we didn't have to stay in the bubble pulled this text up and after reading it he said he thought we might have to but wasn't sure. It's not super clear since it says "depending on local conditions".

 

Their Health and Safety program isn't very clear either (screenshot below). They use language to protect themselves which is understandable I just still haven't seen anything that says "you must book all excursions through viking" and customer service has given different answers.

 

Since most people on the forum say we have to stay in the bubble, I will just assume that is the case and plan accordingly. Fingers crossed they open it up after CDC recommendation. It would have been nice if Viking was more clear on this but thanks to everyone on this forum for their input.

No disagreement with you.  Somewhere on one of the many Iceland rollcalls, someone posted that they had a conversation much like yours with one of the phone representatives which had been different in a later call. I think they got a call back saying that a “blast” email had gone out to all call agents informing them that in order to leave the ship you had to be on a Viking excursion. 
 

Of course, it is a fluid situation and by the time the last Iceland cruises go, it could all be different.  

[Heidi13]

9 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

 It doesn’t matter that the CDC has no “jurisdiction” over Viking. Dealing with Covid protocols is a collaborative effort and Viking is also consulting with the CDC. It’s simply not true that the CDC has “lower” standards.

 

Yes, Viking consulted with the United States CDC, while formulating their Health & Safety Policy, which was published back in December. At that time, they still had plans to operate ships in US Waters. However, with the latest frequent changes being promulgated by the US CDC, I highly doubt Viking is paying much attention, since no ships are expected in US waters.

 

In the Marine Industry, when dealing with a plethora of International Regs and requirements that are changing due to COVID, you tend to focus on the ones that are relevant. With limited shore resouces and an exceptionally high workload, they have other priorities, such as Bermuda, which is being widely discussed extensively on another thread.

 

Viking requires 100% pax fully vaccinated, but the US CDC only requires 95%. That would indicate Viking will operate at a higher standard than the US CDC requires for ships operating in US Waters. I note, other cruise lines will require a higher standard than the US CDC. The Viking COVID Policy (Ver 1) has a number of other requirements that are of a higher standard than the US CDC.

 

In the Marine Industry, most of the top owners have policies & procedures requiring a higher standard than Govt requirements.

 

 

[LindaS272]

2 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Yes, Viking consulted with the United States CDC, while formulating their Health & Safety Policy, which was published back in December. At that time, they still had plans to operate ships in US Waters. However, with the latest frequent changes being promulgated by the US CDC, I highly doubt Viking is paying much attention, since no ships are expected in US waters.

 

In the Marine Industry, when dealing with a plethora of International Regs and requirements that are changing due to COVID, you tend to focus on the ones that are relevant. With limited shore resouces and an exceptionally high workload, they have other priorities, such as Bermuda, which is being widely discussed extensively on another thread.

 

Viking requires 100% pax fully vaccinated, but the US CDC only requires 95%. That would indicate Viking will operate at a higher standard than the US CDC requires for ships operating in US Waters. I note, other cruise lines will require a higher standard than the US CDC. The Viking COVID Policy (Ver 1) has a number of other requirements that are of a higher standard than the US CDC.

 

In the Marine Industry, most of the top owners have policies & procedures requiring a higher standard than Govt requirements.

 

 

I object to your continual denigration of the CDC. It was a recent news article that quoted a Viking management representative that Viking is currently consulting with the CDC as well as equivalents in other countries. Yes, Viking has opted to require 100% vaccinations, which is a tighter standard than the CDC’s and does not represent that the CDC is derelict in its recommendations. 

[Hockeyump]

The point regarding CDC  as I understand it, is that whatever they say, Viking are not bound by it.  I am in the UK and have no interest in what statements CDC make.  There is little point in getting excited by what they say as at the end of the day what Viking says is all that matters.

[Peregrina651]

6 hours ago, King0fTheNorth said:

I've never seen the banner on the website. It might have been temporary.

 

It is not a banner. It is in the footer of every page along with links to other important documents that we should read before we sail.

 

/image/

 

 

[LindaS272]

6 hours ago, Hockeyump said:

The point regarding CDC  as I understand it, is that whatever they say, Viking are not bound by it.  I am in the UK and have no interest in what statements CDC make.  There is little point in getting excited by what they say as at the end of the day what Viking says is all that matters.

Sure—that’s fine. But I was getting tired of the continual denigrations of the CDC.

[Myrtle Ave. Mayhem]

I'll be on the June 29 sailing. SE opened up yesterday for my category. Most excursions seemed to be already booked, while the available ones held no interest. Viking Orion will be the destination!

I love everything about the onboard Viking Ocean experience. 

 

[CCWineLover]

26 minutes ago, Myrtle Ave. Mayhem said:

I'll be on the June 29 sailing. SE opened up yesterday for my category. Most excursions seemed to be already booked, while the available ones held no interest. Viking Orion will be the destination!

I love everything about the onboard Viking Ocean experience. 

 

We are on Jun 29 as well!  I agree, the excursions were definitely picked over!  Only 6 weeks away!

Will be glad to meet you on the Orion or on the plan.  We are on AA from CLT-BDA, doing SFO-CLT overnight.

[Heidi13]

22 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

I object to your continual denigration of the CDC. It was a recent news article that quoted a Viking management representative that Viking is currently consulting with the CDC as well as equivalents in other countries. Yes, Viking has opted to require 100% vaccinations, which is a tighter standard than the CDC’s and does not represent that the CDC is derelict in its recommendations. 

 

Denigrating the US CDC was certainly not my objective, as the intent was providing the facts as to why the US CDC has no official standing in any of the Welcome Back cruises.

 

Even in responding to your statement that the US CDC doesn't have lower standards than Viking, I again provided a fact. Don't believe I was actually critical of their standard, as I pointed out, the industry frequently operates at a higher standard than Govt regs.

 

Similar to Hockeyump, as a dual Canadian/UK citizen, the only CDC I follow is the BC CDC, which has done an amazing job.

[Myrtle Ave. Mayhem]

24 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

We are on Jun 29 as well!  I agree, the excursions were definitely picked over!  Only 6 weeks away!

Will be glad to meet you on the Orion or on the plan.  We are on AA from CLT-BDA, doing SFO-CLT overnight.

Definitely Kent, looking forward! Will be on the redeye LAX-CLT, CLT-BDA. Hopefully the Admirals Lounge in CLT will have a hot breakfast. 

[Jchivers]

Following.  We're booked on Malta & Adriatic Jewels in July, and hoping that the restrictions are lifted by then.

[MSEm]

100% VS 95% vaccination rate required.  Viking Ocean is an adults only cruise line therefore all guest can and should get the Covid vaccination before sailing.  Many mass market cruiselines  will have all ages on board.  At this time covid vaccination is not available for children under 12 year old.  Hopefully this will be lower in the future.