Refunds for excursions

[Twitchly]

Before we cruised a few years ago, we booked our excursions online then changed our minds about one of them. I was able to cancel it in MVJ, and a refund duly appeared a week or so later on our credit card.

 

I’m about to sign up for our next cruise’s excursions. But I just came across this in the FAQ on MVJ: 

 

“Please note, whether an optional tour is booked through My Viking Journey or on board, refunds are only processed on board and will be applied as a credit toward your shipboard account balance. Should you have a negative balance at the end of your voyage, the refund toward your credit card will be processed on board. Please allow 14 business days for this to reflect on your statement.”

 

Has anyone canceled an excursion online recently? If so, how was your refund handled? Did you get a credit back to your card before the cruise, or was it applied to your shipboard account during the cruise?

 

If it’s truly the latter, we’ll just opt for included excursions only. There’s a chance we will have to cancel this cruise, and I don’t want to end up with yet more money in vouchers.

[Clay Clayton]

Following….

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, Twitchly said:

Before we cruised a few years ago, we booked our excursions online then changed our minds about one of them. I was able to cancel it in MVJ, and a refund duly appeared a week or so later on our credit card.

 

I’m about to sign up for our next cruise’s excursions. But I just came across this in the FAQ on MVJ: 

 

“Please note, whether an optional tour is booked through My Viking Journey or on board, refunds are only processed on board and will be applied as a credit toward your shipboard account balance. Should you have a negative balance at the end of your voyage, the refund toward your credit card will be processed on board. Please allow 14 business days for this to reflect on your statement.”

 

Has anyone canceled an excursion online recently? If so, how was your refund handled? Did you get a credit back to your card before the cruise, or was it applied to your shipboard account during the cruise?

 

If it’s truly the latter, we’ll just opt for included excursions only. There’s a chance we will have to cancel this cruise, and I don’t want to end up with yet more money in vouchers.

 

Our experience is pre-COVID, but shore-ex we cancelled online were refunded based on the method of payment.

 

If we used OBC, the credits were re-instated. If we paid with Visa, the credit was applied to our card.

[Twitchly]

I sent an email to tellus@vikingcruises.com. Here’s their unenlightening response:

——

Thank you for your recent online inquiry.

You do still receive a refund when you cancel a shore excursion. Please note, the list of booked shore excursions is sent to the ship roughly a week prior to departure, and at that point you will not be able to book or cancel any excursions on My Viking Journey. Once onboard, excursions must be cancelled two days prior to the date of the excursion itself, so the first few days of excursions would be non-refundable once you're within a week from departure.

If we can be of any further assistance at this time, please email us or contact us at 888-663-8454.
——

 

I have asked for clarification (again) about whether the refund is sent to my card pre-cruise or if it becomes shipboard credit.

[Clay Clayton]

36 minutes ago, Twitchly said:

I sent an email to tellus@vikingcruises.com. Here’s their unenlightening response:

——

Thank you for your recent online inquiry.

You do still receive a refund when you cancel a shore excursion. Please note, the list of booked shore excursions is sent to the ship roughly a week prior to departure, and at that point you will not be able to book or cancel any excursions on My Viking Journey. Once onboard, excursions must be cancelled two days prior to the date of the excursion itself, so the first few days of excursions would be non-refundable once you're within a week from departure.

If we can be of any further assistance at this time, please email us or contact us at 888-663-8454.
——

 

I have asked for clarification (again) about whether the refund is sent to my card pre-cruise or if it becomes shipboard credit.

🤞that you get a response to your second request. 

[CurlerRob]

6 hours ago, Twitchly said:

I sent an email to tellus@vikingcruises.com. Here’s their unenlightening response:

——

I have asked for clarification (again) about whether the refund is sent to my card pre-cruise or if it becomes shipboard credit.

Agreed, not helpful. I read the FAQ statement to indicate that cancellation amounts will be applied to your shipboard account and that any leftovers will be refunded to your CC. That makes some sense, as long as you complete the cruise.

 

The open switch is if you cancel an optional tour (resulting in your refund landing on your shipboard account) and then cancel the cruise. Do you get a CC refund for the tour or FCC - which I understand is your valid concern.

 

I'll be interested to hear their response - hopefully from someone on staff who understands your question 😈     🍺🥌

[TayanaLorna]

We canceled excursions for a Nov 21 cruise and got a credit card refund quickly.  The 7 day prior to cruise cancellation prohibition on MVJ was always there and it is outlined somewhere in one of those lengthy documents that Viking sends when you book.  You used to be able to cancel an excursion within the 7 days of cruising if you call a Viking agent.  Don't know where the credit goes though.

[Twitchly]

Latest Viking response:

“Any excursions cancelled on My Viking Journey before you leave are refunded back to the original form of payment.”
 

But he still doesn’t say if that’s only after being applied toward shipboard credit first. 
 

I have just sent one more clarifying email:

“Thanks, Cedric. Are they refunded only after our cruise? That’s what the FAQ suggests.”

 

Will report back.

 

[Twitchly]

I should add that last January, we canceled our Holy Land cruise when Viking dropped the Holy Land part of it. This was 2-3 weeks before the cruise. All our excursion money went onto the vouchers. That’s what I’m trying to avoid this time around.

If I can’t get an informative answer before we need to book, I’ll just go with only included excursions and look elsewhere for other options.

 

[Mich3554]

Our 54 day back to back to back, we had a lot of cancellations.  A good chunk of that cruise was paid for by vouchers from Covid canceled cruises.  We had a lot of canceled ports, therefore a lot of canceled excursions.   Her’s what happened….

When Turkey was canceled (Italy didn’t want tourists who had been in Turkey previously), this happened about 2 weeks before we left.  Those excursion $$ went directly back to the credit card.  
We lost Alhambra due to high winds.  We provisioned and left a few hours after docking so all excursions were canceled.  Alhambra was paid for from OBC we received from Viking.  This was a non refundable credit, so the $$ went back into our on board account as such.  
We lost excursions in Morocco, Senegal, Brazil, Falklands and a few in Argentina that were paid for by credit card before we embarked during the cruise.  Those credits came back onto our on board account as refundable credit.  
At the end of the cruise (I think at one time our account had a $5000+ credit) when our bar tab was paid, gratuity paid, I took a shopping trip and bought a couple jackets and requested a private driver to take us from Valparaiso to our hotel in Santiago, we had $12 left of non refundable credit and $1400 of refundable.  The $1400 was refunded to DH and I by check about 6 weeks after we returned.

It does get horribly confusing.  

[Heidi13]

2 hours ago, Mich3554 said:

Our 54 day back to back to back, we had a lot of cancellations.  A good chunk of that cruise was paid for by vouchers from Covid canceled cruises.  We had a lot of canceled ports, therefore a lot of canceled excursions.   Her’s what happened….

When Turkey was canceled (Italy didn’t want tourists who had been in Turkey previously), this happened about 2 weeks before we left.  Those excursion $$ went directly back to the credit card.  
We lost Alhambra due to high winds.  We provisioned and left a few hours after docking so all excursions were canceled.  Alhambra was paid for from OBC we received from Viking.  This was a non refundable credit, so the $$ went back into our on board account as such.  
We lost excursions in Morocco, Senegal, Brazil, Falklands and a few in Argentina that were paid for by credit card before we embarked during the cruise.  Those credits came back onto our on board account as refundable credit.  
At the end of the cruise (I think at one time our account had a $5000+ credit) when our bar tab was paid, gratuity paid, I took a shopping trip and bought a couple jackets and requested a private driver to take us from Valparaiso to our hotel in Santiago, we had $12 left of non refundable credit and $1400 of refundable.  The $1400 was refunded to DH and I by check about 6 weeks after we returned.

It does get horribly confusing.  

 

That was also our experience on the 2020 WC, which also had a number of cancelled ports.

[janetcbl]

I  followed the topic regarding cancellation of excursions on the ships sailing “In Search of Northern Lights”into Bodo last winter when all (?) of the stops there were cancelled by Viking due to winds, weather, etc. What surprised me were that all of the Hurtigruten (the Norwegian Coastal line) made that stop twice a day. I wondered if the size of their ships, the design of the ships, or what? allowed them to dock, but not Viking. Can anyone with much more knowledge than I have enlighten me? Just curious. (Bodo is kind of interesting: the end of the train line, some neat museums, a place where the current reverses, and some really nice people.)

[Clay Clayton]

6 hours ago, janetcbl said:

I  followed the topic regarding cancellation of excursions on the ships sailing “In Search of Northern Lights”into Bodo last winter when all (?) of the stops there were cancelled by Viking due to winds, weather, etc. What surprised me were that all of the Hurtigruten (the Norwegian Coastal line) made that stop twice a day. I wondered if the size of their ships, the design of the ships, or what? allowed them to dock, but not Viking. Can anyone with much more knowledge than I have enlighten me? Just curious. (Bodo is kind of interesting: the end of the train line, some neat museums, a place where the current reverses, and some really nice people.)

Maybe a combination of both AND the fact they are ferries and therefore some folks transportation to/from home and work?  

[Heidi13]

7 hours ago, janetcbl said:

I  followed the topic regarding cancellation of excursions on the ships sailing “In Search of Northern Lights”into Bodo last winter when all (?) of the stops there were cancelled by Viking due to winds, weather, etc. What surprised me were that all of the Hurtigruten (the Norwegian Coastal line) made that stop twice a day. I wondered if the size of their ships, the design of the ships, or what? allowed them to dock, but not Viking. Can anyone with much more knowledge than I have enlighten me? Just curious. (Bodo is kind of interesting: the end of the train line, some neat museums, a place where the current reverses, and some really nice people.)

 

The Hurtigruten coastal ships are most likely their local ferries, rather than cruise ships. While cruise ships have vastly superior manoeuvring capabilities than cargo ships, the average ferry has way more capability than most cruise ships. 

 

Cargo ships normally spend long voyages at sea, so it isn't cost effective to pay the capital cost to install the thrusters, horsepower, high lift rudders, etc to make them more manoeuvrable. It is cheaper to pay tugs for docking. Cruise ships are built for worldwide operation and may dock once per day, but on average, probably only 3 to 5 times per week.

 

Ferries are designed to handle local waters and meteorological conditions, and can be required to dock multiple times per day. My last command docked 8 times per day, but some of my earlier smaller commands docked up to 32 times per day. Therefore, the ferries are designed to handle the local conditions and are way more manoeuvreable than most pax ships. From a cost/benefit analysis, it is cheaper to install the required horsepower and manoeuvring equipment in the ferries than it is to use tugs multiple times per day, or cancel sailings.

 

I routinely docked in 40 - 60 knot winds with a local 550', 2,000 pax ferry, but the Viking ships would be limited to probably about 25 kts, with lots of tugs.

 

The other factor to consider is local knowledge. Foreign ships must use local pilots, who know the local waters, but they probably don't know the local ferry terminals as well as the ferry Masters, who have docked many hundreds of times.   

[Heidi13]

Deleted

Edited June 25, 2022 by Heidi13

[janetcbl]

37 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

The Hurtigruten coastal ships are most likely their local ferries, rather than cruise ships. While cruise ships have vastly superior manoeuvring capabilities than cargo ships, the average ferry has way more capability than most cruise ships. 

 

Cargo ships normally spend long voyages at sea, so it isn't cost effective to pay the capital cost to install the thrusters, horsepower, high lift rudders, etc to make them more manoeuvrable. It is cheaper to pay tugs for docking. Cruise ships are built for worldwide operation and may dock once per day, but on average, probably only 3 to 5 times per week.

 

Ferries are designed to handle local waters and meteorological conditions, and can be required to dock multiple times per day. My last command docked 8 times per day, but some of my earlier smaller commands docked up to 32 times per day. Therefore, the ferries are designed to handle the local conditions and are way more manoeuvreable than most pax ships. From a cost/benefit analysis, it is cheaper to install the required horsepower and manoeuvring equipment in the ferries than it is to use tugs multiple times per day, or cancel sailings.

 

I routinely docked in 40 - 60 knot winds with a local 550', 2,000 pax ferry, but the Viking ships would be limited to probably about 25 kts, with lots of tugs.

 

The other factor to consider is local knowledge. Foreign ships must use local pilots, who know the local waters, but they probably don't know the local ferry terminals as well as the ferry Masters, who have docked many hundreds of times.   

Thanks. These “Ferries” have 500 beds, 3 restaurants, etc. They have some evening entertainment and make 1 to 3 or 4(?) stops per day, sometime for a few minutes, often for hours in the larger cities (Trondheim, Tromso, etc.) There are excursions, so they have always seemed to be more than a ferry and less than a cruise ship. They are, however, a great way to travel in Norway.

 

[CurlerRob]

Here's one example - the Trollfjord, captured in Ålesund. 🍺🥌

[Clay Clayton]

6 hours ago, janetcbl said:

Thanks. These “Ferries” have 500 beds, 3 restaurants, etc. They have some evening entertainment and make 1 to 3 or 4(?) stops per day, sometime for a few minutes, often for hours in the larger cities (Trondheim, Tromso, etc.) There are excursions, so they have always seemed to be more than a ferry and less than a cruise ship. They are, however, a great way to travel in Norway.

 

Agreed-a friend and his Mom used them as a cruise ship but said it was fun to see the locals who were using them for transportation. 

[Let Me Travel!]

Hi - I’m a notorious excursion changer…I was on a VR cruise in May…thought my overall credit would apply as an on-board credit…I was wrong.  My overall credit did get credited to my credit card while I was on-board, but it did not apply as an on-board credit…never was “jipped” out of $$…just came back to me a little differently than I had understood.  I have an overall credit for my ocean cruise in August….I will expect to see the credit on my credit card once I get on the cruise.

[Twitchly]

4 hours ago, Let Me Travel! said:

Hi - I’m a notorious excursion changer…I was on a VR cruise in May…thought my overall credit would apply as an on-board credit…I was wrong.  My overall credit did get credited to my credit card while I was on-board, but it did not apply as an on-board credit…never was “jipped” out of $$…just came back to me a little differently than I had understood.  I have an overall credit for my ocean cruise in August….I will expect to see the credit on my credit card once I get on the cruise.

Can you say a bit more about what happened when you changed excursions? I assume you canceled some excursions and then booked other ones. Did you get a refund for the canceled excursions prior to your cruise? 

[Twitchly]

OK, finally got a helpful answer from Viking:

 

——

Only excursions cancelled once you're onboard are refunded at the end of the cruise.

 

If you cancel ahead of time on My Viking Journey, they're still refunded quickly back to your card. We've not changed that. 

——

 

So we can book our excursions this week without worry! 😀

Edited June 26, 2022 by Twitchly

[Let Me Travel!]

Yep…I cancelled one excursion and booked another (Viking)…I received my credit back by the time I came home.  I paid by check (to get the 3.3% discount) so they refunded by check.