How accurate are the listed Port Times?

[Pushka]

Notwithstanding changes in Ports because of any number of issues, including risk, winds, even Covid etc, I'm wondering how accurate are the listed port times that appear on the Invoice. 
 

My query stems from the fact that the Excursions list was released yesterday for a cruise in May which is basically a south - north repositioning cruise that returns via the Suez and so it goes through Egypt and Israel and Jordan. So will reach a lot of bucket list areas in Egypt, eg Valley of the Kings, which requires a 13 hour trip from Port, Safaga.  As does Cairo from Port Said. I was concerned that our time in Port as stated by the  Viking schedule, does not allow for more than a 9 hour excursion, making it impossible. 
 

But the excursions show that all the bucket list places are offered, with multiple 13 hour excursions, even an included one. I really happy, and can't wait to book but the lingering doubt is the schedule, which hasn't changed. 
 

So my query is, are the original port timings wrong? (As an aside, Saudi Arabia, Jeddah was added about 2 months ago, not a place I want to go to and the two excursions, the only two offered, aren't exactly worth the cost of the $200us pp visa and husband not allowed to go on one (a female only excursion 😳)

Edited December 28, 2022 by Pushka

[CDR2001]

I can only speak to our 1 Viking Homelands cruise last August. Port times were listed on our invoice, but we noticed times for some excursions conflicted. A few excursions were scheduled to leave before we would even arrive in port….. yes, confusing. Excursion times were correctly stated on our tour tickets, and matched the arrival and departure times on the Viking Daily news. No private excursions we planned were effected. 

[Heidi13]

The estimated arrival and departure times are determined by the initial cruise planners and established based on having sufficient time ashore and also to manage fuel consumption. Therefore, provided the ship is fully operational and no other issues are experienced, the ship is capable of arriving at the estimated arrival time.

 

Once completed, the shore-ex department should plan tours in each port, based on the time in port. This is the reason that some tours listed on the website are not available, as the time in port is shorter than the duration of some tours.

 

When schedule changes occur, sometimes things are missed. For example - on the 2020 WC, Viking Sun was changed from Lyttelton to Akaroa. Lyttelton is a short drive to Christchurch, while Akaroa is about 90 mins. They didn't address this on the Christchurch tours, so our 5 hr tour had only 2 hrs in Christchurch, as the ship couldn't delay departure to reach the next port. As usual, Viking's great customer service, automatically refunded the entire tour cost.

 

In your situation, I would be very surprised if Safaga was less than 12-13 hrs, as that is the time required to reach Luxor and spend more than a couple of hours. As previously noted, the shore-ex included on the website for any cruise are generic tours available for that port. Only once the actual shore-ex are released, will you know which tours are available for your port calls. Therefore, if the posted arrival/departure times are accurate, they will only be able to offer more local tours.

 

As another option, you may wish to consider Memphis Tours, who can develop a custom tour from Port Said/Alexandria, taking you to Cairo, Luxor, Valley of the Kings/Queens and Petra, rejoining the ship in Aqaba. Downside is you miss the Suez Canal transit.

[Pushka]

2 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

Iyour situation, I would be very surprised if Safaga was less than 12-13 hrs, as that is the time required to reach Luxor and spend more than a couple of hours. As previously noted, the shore-ex included on the website for any cruise are generic tours available for that port. Only once the actual shore-ex are released, will you know which tours are available for your port calls. Therefore, if the posted arrival/departure times are accurate, they will only be able to offer more local tours.

 

As another option, you may wish to consider Memphis Tours, who can develop a custom tour from Port Said/Alexandria, taking you to Cairo, Luxor, Valley of the Kings/Queens and Petra, rejoining the ship in Aqaba. Downside is you miss the Suez Canal transit.

Yep. These are the actual excursions offered on our cruise and with prices. Cruise is around 126 days out so Owners suite can book in a couple of weeks time. I was delighted to see Safaga excursions were offered that hit the main areas Valley of Kings etc. Same with Cairo. Because our Invoice indicated otherwise. 
 

And don't you worry - I have been pouring over the WC posts and the blogs. Including yours  😁. . Last time I checked with them they weren't able to offer anything but now it's on. I had already booked with Guided Tours Israel and Jordan Travel for Petra. Being a DV I could see the Israel tours gone before I had a chance. 

[Haqdeluxe]

2 minutes ago, Pushka said:

Yep. These are the actual excursions offered on our cruise and with prices. Cruise is around 126 days out so Owners suite can book in a couple of weeks time. I was delighted to see Safaga excursions were offered that hit the main areas Valley of Kings etc. Same with Cairo. Because our Invoice indicated otherwise. 
 

And don't you worry - I have been pouring over the WC posts and the blogs. Including yours  😁. . Last time I checked with them they weren't able to offer anything but now it's on. I had already booked with Guided Tours Israel and Jordan Travel for Petra. Being a DV I could see the Israel tours gone before I had a chance. 

Last time we cruised out of the Owner's Suite we didn't have to worry about arranging excursions. We had people for that! Have your people contact our people. 😁

[Pushka]

27 minutes ago, Haqdeluxe said:

Last time we cruised out of the Owner's Suite we didn't have to worry about arranging excursions. We had people for that! Have your people contact our people. 😁

😂 Colour me green with envy. 😁

[Heidi13]

41 minutes ago, Pushka said:

Yep. These are the actual excursions offered on our cruise and with prices. Cruise is around 126 days out so Owners suite can book in a couple of weeks time. I was delighted to see Safaga excursions were offered that hit the main areas Valley of Kings etc. Same with Cairo. Because our Invoice indicated otherwise. 
 

And don't you worry - I have been pouring over the WC posts and the blogs. Including yours  😁. . Last time I checked with them they weren't able to offer anything but now it's on. I had already booked with Guided Tours Israel and Jordan Travel for Petra. Being a DV I could see the Israel tours gone before I had a chance. 

 

I didn't realise you were referring to the actual shore-ex for the cruise, my mistake. Might be worth sending a note to the people at "Tellus" to question the port times with respect to the tours.

 

As I noted, in our experience, the Master will generally sail at, or close to the posted time, if they don't have much leeway for making the next port. Our tour in Christchurch was minimal, as we had to be back at the ship for departure. We received a refund, but did miss most of Christchurch.

[Pushka]

43 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

I didn't realise you were referring to the actual shore-ex for the cruise, my mistake. Might be worth sending a note to the people at "Tellus" to question the port times with respect to the tours.

 

As I noted, in our experience, the Master will generally sail at, or close to the posted time, if they don't have much leeway for making the next port. Our tour in Christchurch was minimal, as we had to be back at the ship for departure. We received a refund, but did miss most of Christchurch.

So I contacted Viking by chat as tellus@ for Aussies has to be rerouted to US which takes time. Hmmm. "Houston we have a problem". The Agent has reached out to the Oceans Product team as he can see the issue.  Haifa port times, supposed to be an overnight, also look a bit weird.