Wake of the Vikings

[CurlerRob]

25 minutes ago, BobCatter said:

Another question: if you do the included tour, then do you have time after to wander around on your own? 

Specifically wondering about Shetlands and Faroes.

Typically, the included tours are short enough that you have time to do your own thing as well. 

 

In Tórshavn, you should dock right downtown, so no issue with exploring on your own. For a photographer, you might want to look at taking a RIB tour of one of the surrounding islands - some of the most spectacular sights we've seen. My quick look found this firm: Sightseeing – Hestur – Tour 1 – RIB62 . This tour is slightly different than the one we took some years ago - we went to the island of Nólsoy, to the east - the pasted trip goes to an island to the west of Tórshavn.  A teaser is below.

 

We've lost out on the Shetlands three times now - twice from weather and once from Covid, so I'm no help there! 🍺🥌

 

[BobCatter]

How difficult is to manage your own outings? Vikings optional Golden Circle tour is $209/per. There are loads of companies in Reykjavik that offer this tour. I'm sure other people have booked their own excursions. Is there any danger of missing the ship?  All these tour companies must understand the cruise business and schedule.

[CurlerRob]

8 minutes ago, BobCatter said:

How difficult is to manage your own outings? Vikings optional Golden Circle tour is $209/per. There are loads of companies in Reykjavik that offer this tour. I'm sure other people have booked their own excursions. Is there any danger of missing the ship?  All these tour companies must understand the cruise business and schedule.

In our view, it's not difficult at all, but much depends on your experience and comfort level with independent excursions.

 

We have taken many independent excursions over the years, and fortunately, never had a bad experience. We research the provider (who sometimes is the same one servicing the cruise line) carefully and usually correspond directly with them to get a feel for their responsiveness and professionalism.

 

Our experience is that booking on your own will typically save you about 50%. We have often been able to book a private or semi-private tour for the same price as a cruise line excursion. The downside is that should you miss the ship, you're on your own.

 

All of the independent providers we've booked with were very aware of cruise ship schedules - our private tours were always willing to return us to the ship at our requested time, even if that was a bit early. All offered refunds if the ship missed the port for some reason. A few guaranteed to help us rejoin the ship if we missed due to a problem they caused - but this is the minority in our experience.

 

Early in our cruising days, we stayed strictly with ship tours. After some experimentation, we now are happy to do our own bookings. We always give a lot of weight to the consequences of missing the ship due to a tour problem - they can happen. Our key criteria now is "what is the impact of missing a departure"? Having to scramble to catch up with the ship a few hundred miles away on the next day is not the end of the world. If the next landfall is 5 sea days out, we won't take that risk.

 

If you're booked on a voyage, the associated roll call often has experienced cruisers looking for others to share a semi-private tour. That can be a good trial run as well. 🍺🥌

[Heidi13]

28 minutes ago, BobCatter said:

How difficult is to manage your own outings? Vikings optional Golden Circle tour is $209/per. There are loads of companies in Reykjavik that offer this tour. I'm sure other people have booked their own excursions. Is there any danger of missing the ship?  All these tour companies must understand the cruise business and schedule.

 

In addition to CurlerRob's great response, I suggest comparing what is included on the various Golden Circle Tours, as when we docked in Reykjavik, even the ship had multiple versions of this tour.

[BobCatter]

20 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

In addition to CurlerRob's great response, I suggest comparing what is included on the various Golden Circle Tours, as when we docked in Reykjavik, even the ship had multiple versions of this tour.

 

Multiple versions of the same tour....hmmmm. Not even sure how that would work. Does one just go backwards or something?

[Peregrina651]

46 minutes ago, BobCatter said:

 

Multiple versions of the same tour....hmmmm. Not even sure how that would work. Does one just go backwards or something?

 

Even the Viking tours don't necessarily follow the tour in order as written in the description but they do cover all of the places. They do this intentionally so that everyone isn't in the same place at the same time.

 

Your scheduled time in port (and schedules are always subject to change) is shown on both your Viking invoice and on the MVJ calendar.  It usually takes half an hour to prepare for disembarkation once docked and back on board for all pax is usually half an hour before stated departure.

 

 

[SJD117]

1 hour ago, BobCatter said:

 

Multiple versions of the same tour....hmmmm. Not even sure how that would work. Does one just go backwards or something?

One can indeed do the main Circle route clockwise or counterclockwise — I’ve done it both ways (once by myself, the other with a tour). Also, there are a myriad of scenic highlights in the region. I can think of multiple ways to construct a tour itinerary.

[Heidi13]

3 hours ago, BobCatter said:

 

Multiple versions of the same tour....hmmmm. Not even sure how that would work. Does one just go backwards or something?

 

In addition to the standard stops on the circle tour, they had other tours that stopped at additional attractions. We booked one that also stopped at an Icelandic Horse Stable.

 

Note- this was before we found Viking, so wasn't a Viking Tour.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Heidi13

[LindaS272]

We booked a private tour of the Golden Circle in 2019 with other folks on the roll call because Viking’s tour was sold out by the time we booked the cruise. With the private tour we were able to say where we wanted to go and when. In addition, we were able to have our lunch at the tomato greenhouse, which was really the highlight of the tour! The tour guide was well aware of the sail time for our cruise and had worked with passengers off all cruise lines for years.