A Heads up to check booked excursions when on the ship.

[Pushka]

We embarked in Mumbai on Wednesday on Mars. We were pretty pleased with what we were able to book online and booked private excursions for those that were sold out. Our timings were all lined up and we were also able to book Manfredis and Chefs Table for a night, in the weeks prior to the cruise. 
 

I checked our TV on embarkation day and saw several changes to what we booked. The excursion for the next day had been shifted 90 minutes later meaning we could no longer attend the spa booking we'd made online. The next change was for the next port where the included excursion had been moved back 2 hours meaning we would not be able to do the next excursion that was an optional one. I tried to get that shifted back to the time we had booked but was unable to do so. So we had to cancel the included excursion and will do the same by taxi, as we wanted to continue with the optional excursion. The next port we did not book with Viking but privately so all good 😂. The port after that - we were on separate excursions and both times had been changed by 45 minutes and mine by over an hour. Nothing else planned that day so no problems. 
 

We only had one other excursion with Viking for the rest of the cruise and that is fine. For now. 
 

Then I decided to check our Restaurant bookings. The Chefs Table booking has disappeared completely and when I tried to rebook it said it was booked out!  Finally managed to retrieve the booking by attending guest services. 
 

We were able to book a Cook with the Chef session - I'm an Aussie and the menus that morning is Australian. Oh well. 
 

We are loving the cruise and the crew are fab so despite these snaffus all is good. 

 

[Sunflower & The Scientist]

We had a lot of changes with excursions when we boarded Octantis. The frustrating thing was when my husband went to the desk to discuss the changes (he was totally taken off of something he wanted badly, and others were changed so we could not do other things we wanted) they denied anything had changed. They should have turned their screen so he could not see it because he saw all his original excursions and times on their screen, and then the changes. It was very frustrating.....but of course did not ruin our cruise! Just started things off a bit rough. 

[CDR2001]

We had a few changes last year, and were told it was due to adjusted port arrival and departure times. Since MVJ is not available a week or two prior to cruising, there was no way for us to see last minute changes until onboard. Understandable, but I agree, frustrating to have to rearrange excursions and activities.

[austinetc]

We had tickets in our hand only to learn the night before that the excursion was canceled. By asking, not by being told. We got apologies (every time the director saw us from then on), a refund, and credit.

 

There are so many moving parts on a cruise, I'm surprised when things work without a hitch. Because I assume things will go wrong, I book once, check twice (at least). As long as Viking continues to buy us off with credit, I'm fine if they sometimes want to cover errors with a little mendacity.

[Pushka]

14 hours ago, Sunflower & The Scientist said:

We had a lot of changes with excursions when we boarded Octantis. The frustrating thing was when my husband went to the desk to discuss the changes (he was totally taken off of something he wanted badly, and others were changed so we could not do other things we wanted) they denied anything had changed. They should have turned their screen so he could not see it because he saw all his original excursions and times on their screen, and then the changes. It was very frustrating.....but of course did not ruin our cruise! Just started things off a bit rough. 

Yes, I had ready the email that showed our dinner reservation that was cancelled, so when the immediate response was that I'd never booked it I was able to show I did have one. Also, because one of our excursions clashed, it's not possible to book like that online but they could see the two bookings that had changed. So quite clearly a snaffu. So we had to cancel one of them but we've worked out we can do that by taxi now. 
 

We actually had a Cruise Critic meet up last night hosted by Viking and several officers and the Cruise Director attended. Seems just like normal now. And several have had their bookings changed.  Not because of port changes either. They just changed. 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Pushka