Leaving Ship on Cruise Starting With Overnight

[jtwind]

Hi All.  We are booked on a cruise that starts with an overnight.  If we board the ship, when would be the first opportunity to leave?  If we fly in embarkation day, can we drop the bags off at the cruise terminal, and board later?  Thanks, in advance.

[Twitchly]

12 minutes ago, jtwind said:

Hi All.  We are booked on a cruise that starts with an overnight.  If we board the ship, when would be the first opportunity to leave?  If we fly in embarkation day, can we drop the bags off at the cruise terminal, and board later?  Thanks, in advance.

That’s certainly our plan if Viking continues to require isolation after boarding. Though we plan to fly in earlier. Depending on what hotel we use, it might make more sense to leave our luggage at the hotel and then go back and pick it up when we’re ready to board.

[jtwind]

13 minutes ago, Twitchly said:

That’s certainly our plan if Viking continues to require isolation after boarding. Though we plan to fly in earlier. Depending on what hotel we use, it might make more sense to leave our luggage at the hotel and then go back and pick it up when we’re ready to board.

Due to logistics, we won't be able to arrive before embarkation day, so keeping bags at a hotel won't be an option.  Agree that hoping to be able to disembark after checking in may turn out to be a mistake.

[broker1217]

That was not a possibility on our cruise since you could only go on shore in the Viking bubble on Viking excursions. Once we were onboard and done with cabin quarantine---had to stay on the ship (it was not an overnight).

It's going to depend on the specific rules for your cruise and hopefully they will ease up on the Viking excursion only part. I really don't like doing Viking excursions and missed being able to do our own exploring.

 

[jtwind]

Is a baggage drop at the terminal possible?  Test, then quarantine on shore instead of in cabin?

[uktog]

You cant quarantine on shore

[Twitchly]

We’re planning to test as late as possible, one way or another. 

[czrunner]

Slightly off-topic, but what is the latest you can board the ship the first day (before the overnight)?  We want to rent a car the day before and use it still most of the day before boarding the ship.  We will be sailing from Reykjavik in July, and I hope that by then the COVID testing will not be a big issue.

[jtwind]

3 hours ago, uktog said:

You cant quarantine on shore

Is that a rule or a comment?

[Peregrina651]

1 hour ago, czrunner said:

Slightly off-topic, but what is the latest you can board the ship the first day (before the overnight)?  We want to rent a car the day before and use it still most of the day before boarding the ship.  We will be sailing from Reykjavik in July, and I hope that by then the COVID testing will not be a big issue.

 

2 hours ago, Twitchly said:

We’re planning to test as late as possible, one way or another. 

 

Viking requires that you be checked in and on board a couple of hours before departure. Check your Viking Guest invoice  for when you are scheduled to depart; even on the same itinerary, it differs from sailing to sailing.  Be aware, the on board times for embarkation day are distinct from the back on board time for port days. Check with Viking for particulars.

 

[JessM66]

12 hours ago, jtwind said:

Is a baggage drop at the terminal possible?  Test, then quarantine on shore instead of in cabin?

Quarantine on shore??  That’s the best one I’ve heard in a long time.

[jtwind]

6 hours ago, JessM66 said:

Quarantine on shore??  That’s the best one I’ve heard in a long time.

We know no covid test is going to pick up exposures that happen within 2 days of taking the test.  I know it gives everyone a warm fuzzy, thinking that if you test negative when you board, you're good to go.  But the reality is, there is no difference between taking the test at 4 and immediately boarding, and taking the test at noon, and boarding at 4.  

 

I don't know why people laughed at this.  Do you want infected people walking through the ship, interacting with personal, sitting in one of the cabins for a while, and then having to be escorted off the ship by more personnel in space suits, then more ship personal having to go disinfect stuff.  Better to prevent positive testers from ever getting on board.  That's what airlines do.

Edited February 27, 2022 by jtwind

[Peregrina651]

52 minutes ago, jtwind said:

We know no covid test is going to pick up exposures that happen within 2 days of taking the test.  I know it gives everyone a warm fuzzy, thinking that if you test negative when you board, you're good to go.  But the reality is, there is no difference between taking the test at 4 and immediately boarding, and taking the test at noon, and boarding at 4.  

 

I don't know why people laughed at this.  Do you want infected people walking through the ship, interacting with personal, sitting in one of the cabins for a while, and then having to be escorted off the ship by more personnel in space suits, then more ship personal having to go disinfect stuff.  Better to prevent positive testers from ever getting on board.  That's what airlines do.

 

HOWEVER, thus far, the testing that Viking does when you board is not done on the dock; it is done in your cabin when you first board.

 

When we sailed in July and December, we went to our cabins, did the saliva sample and then were permitted to wander around the ship (I don't know about leaving the ship because we didn't try). After Omicron hit, they changed the protocol and required guests to remain in their cabins until results were received a few hours later. Under the current protocol, you would not have a chance to leave the ship once you boarded until you got the results.

[trtog7]

14 hours ago, jtwind said:

Is that a rule or a comment?

If you moving around in a city before you get on the boat you are not quarantining

[jtwind]

1 minute ago, trtog7 said:

If you moving around in a city before you get on the boat you are not quarantining

Of course not.  But would you rather have a person get on the ship before results come back?  (I should have put quarantine in quotes).  So, the remaining question is (if the testing is done in the cabin) is there a bag drop at the pier?

[Peregrina651]

45 minutes ago, jtwind said:

So, the remaining question is (if the testing is done in the cabin) is there a bag drop at the pier?

 

 

I found that it depends on the port. Some port operations (and these are handled by third-party operators, not Viking) are set up to allow us to drop bags early and others are not -- but that was re-Covid and a lot has changed at the passenger terminals post-Covid.

 

Shoreside service providers were devastated by the 2 year shutdown and are not returning to operations at the same rate as ships and passengers.  Between the lag in shoreside services and the ever-changing Covid restrictions, it is hard to predict what things will be like months from now at any given embarkation port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JeriGail]

1 hour ago, jtwind said:

Of course not.  But would you rather have a person get on the ship before results come back?  (I should have put quarantine in quotes).  So, the remaining question is (if the testing is done in the cabin) is there a bag drop at the pier?

On our late November 2021 cruise from Barcelona, there was not a place to just drop off bags and leave.  There were Viking staff there to take your tagged bags (with your name and cabin number), but we had to go through the boarding process at the same time as bag drop-off.  I'm sure it's a security issue to have someone drop-off a bag and then just leave.

[broker1217]

4 hours ago, jtwind said:

We know no covid test is going to pick up exposures that happen within 2 days of taking the test.  I know it gives everyone a warm fuzzy, thinking that if you test negative when you board, you're good to go.  But the reality is, there is no difference between taking the test at 4 and immediately boarding, and taking the test at noon, and boarding at 4.  

 

I don't know why people laughed at this.  Do you want infected people walking through the ship, interacting with personal, sitting in one of the cabins for a while, and then having to be escorted off the ship by more personnel in space suits, then more ship personal having to go disinfect stuff.  Better to prevent positive testers from ever getting on board.  That's what airlines do.

I think you are misunderstanding the sequence.

You board, take your test in your cabin and await your results, and are quarantined in your cabin until you test negative.

Boarding is prior to testing.

[LindaS272]

1 hour ago, JeriGail said:

On our late November 2021 cruise from Barcelona, there was not a place to just drop off bags and leave.  There were Viking staff there to take your tagged bags (with your name and cabin number), but we had to go through the boarding process at the same time as bag drop-off.  I'm sure it's a security issue to have someone drop-off a bag and then just leave.

Like Peregrina says, it depends on the port. Pre-Covid, you could drop your bags before checking in so you would have been free to roam. It was not a security issue because you have printed tags with your account barcode.

[jtwind]

3 hours ago, broker1217 said:

I think you are misunderstanding the sequence.

You board, take your test in your cabin and await your results, and are quarantined in your cabin until you test negative.

Boarding is prior to testing.

Yes.  Someone already pointed that out.  People I know, who have been on different cruise lines, have all been tested at the dock before boarding.

[Australia08]

7 hours ago, broker1217 said:

I think you are misunderstanding the sequence.

You board, take your test in your cabin and await your results, and are quarantined in your cabin until you test negative.

Boarding is prior to testing.

We did the test in our cabin for our Iceland and our Panama Canal cruise. For our Northern Lights cruise we disembarked last week, we had to do the saliva test behind a screen dockside before we could even go to the check in area. After check in we were escorted to our cabin and had to stay there for about 5 hrs before we got our results and could leave quarantine. There were several couples at a time behind the screen so it was weird. 

[Peregrina651]

8 minutes ago, Australia08 said:

We did the test in our cabin for our Iceland and our Panama Canal cruise. For our Northern Lights cruise we disembarked last week, we had to do the saliva test behind a screen dockside before we could even go to the check in area. After check in we were escorted to our cabin and had to stay there for about 5 hrs before we got our results and could leave quarantine. There were several couples at a time behind the screen so it was weird. 

 

 

Thank you!

 

One question. Did you embark in London or Bergen? 

 

I'm asking because the protocol could have been imposed by the port and not by Viking. More info is need from folks currently on other ships. Hopefully they are following this thread and will respond.

[Australia08]

3 minutes ago, Peregrina651 said:

 

 

Thank you!

 

One question. Did you embark in London or Bergen? 

 

I'm asking because the protocol could have been imposed by the port and not by Viking. More info is need from folks currently on other ships. Hopefully they are following this thread and will respond.

We boarded in London. I’m not sure what the protocol in Bergen was. Doing the saliva test dockside was very strange to us. By the way, no testing was required for us to enter the UK, but we did have to have the 72 hr PCR or 24 hr antigen test to even get our Viking cabin keys. 

[Moonlion]

9 hours ago, Australia08 said:

We boarded in London. I’m not sure what the protocol in Bergen was. Doing the saliva test dockside was very strange to us. By the way, no testing was required for us to enter the UK, but we did have to have the 72 hr PCR or 24 hr antigen test to even get our Viking cabin keys. 

On the Jan. 24th Northern Lights cruise, we boarded in Bergen and did the saliva test at the terminal (behind a screen) before boarding.  We quarantined in our stateroom until the results came back negative. 

[Cheekyrn1]

We are boarding in tillbury March 25. We are arriving March 24 with an all day private tour scheduled for the 25th. We don’t plan on checking in on the cruise or embarking until about 9pm. We did call Viking and they said this was ok since we are in port overnight