Just looking for some confirmation on help with booking excursions

[kctwinmommy]

I've read about booking excursions before, and now our time is getting close. As this is our first Viking cruise, I want to make sure I've got my ducks in a row before we do it. Since we're getting on the cruise at leg 2 of 4, I'm realizing that we'll be fighting for slots with people that get on at leg 1, even if they're in a cabin level below ours. We're in a DV, which leaves only the V cabins (they book 60 days, we do 67 days out, which basically puts us on the same schedule - if all that makes sense! LOL!). Anyway, I know we need to pick time slots for our included ones, in addition to booking/paying for optional ones. And from what I've read, it's best to select, book, then pay for each excursion, as some can sell out if you wait to do them all at the end. I'm assuming that booking each one is best, then going back and booking our included ones. Also, will it only show available times, or will it show sold out times as well? I'm just thinking in advance, in case we can't get a slot we want, but may be able to once we get on board, it'll be nice to know what other time slots are available. 

 

I already have a PDF of al the available excursions, I've been reading through it, as is my husband, so that we can pick the ones we want at the top of our list. Right now, we're looking at a lot of the included ones, so I'm hoping we will only need to actually pay for a few excursions. Because our cruise is so port heavy, I don't want to over schedule us either.

 

Thanks for any tips or advice.

[formernuke]

You have it about right. You will see all the times, even if sold out. You should see all of the actual excursions for your cruise about 120 days prior in MVJ (Even though they are not available to book until your date).

 

One note on booking the paid excursions: it is faster to use the electronic payment option (ACH) because it will automatically use that to charge your excursions as soon as you purchase it. Remember it is not yours until paid for, so you wan to quickly pay for each if they are popular. If you use a credit card, you unfortunately have to re-enter the credit card info after every purchase, which will slow you down and risk losing an excursion if it sells out before you can pay for it. (I assume they do that since some people might want to split what they want to charge among several cards). 

[millybess]

19 minutes ago, kctwinmommy said:

I've read about booking excursions before, and now our time is getting close. As this is our first Viking cruise, I want to make sure I've got my ducks in a row before we do it. Since we're getting on the cruise at leg 2 of 4, I'm realizing that we'll be fighting for slots with people that get on at leg 1, even if they're in a cabin level below ours. We're in a DV, which leaves only the V cabins (they book 60 days, we do 67 days out, which basically puts us on the same schedule - if all that makes sense! LOL!). Anyway, I know we need to pick time slots for our included ones, in addition to booking/paying for optional ones. And from what I've read, it's best to select, book, then pay for each excursion, as some can sell out if you wait to do them all at the end. I'm assuming that booking each one is best, then going back and booking our included ones. Also, will it only show available times, or will it show sold out times as well? I'm just thinking in advance, in case we can't get a slot we want, but may be able to once we get on board, it'll be nice to know what other time slots are available. 

 

I already have a PDF of al the available excursions, I've been reading through it, as is my husband, so that we can pick the ones we want at the top of our list. Right now, we're looking at a lot of the included ones, so I'm hoping we will only need to actually pay for a few excursions. Because our cruise is so port heavy, I don't want to over schedule us either.

 

Thanks for any tips or advice.

From one Cindy to another.....:)

 

We are on legs 4 and 5 of a 5 leg cruise.  Our leg starts in April.  The 1st leg starts in February.  There were plenty of categories on different legs that booked before us, but we were able to get all the excursions we wanted.  We didn't expect that, and even several days after we booked, there are only a few "sold out"s.

 

We set up the ACH payment ahead of time.  Both DH and I logged in.  We had our excurions prioritized.  He put 3 in the cart, I put 3 in the cart at the same time and then one of us checked out while the other was putting more in the cart. (I'm laughing while reading this because it sounds like an after Christmas sale or something like that.) We had 5 weeks of excursions to choose and we were done in less than 5 minutes.

 

And yes, choose the optional excusions first and the included ones last.

 

Anyway, there are many people here who say that 2 people cannot be logged in at the same time, but this has always worked for us.

[kctwinmommy]

4 minutes ago, formernuke said:

You have it about right. You will see all the times, even if sold out. You should see all of the actual excursions for your cruise about 120 days prior in MVJ (Even though they are not available to book until your date).

 

One note on booking the paid excursions: it is faster to use the electronic payment option (ACH) because it will automatically use that to charge your excursions as soon as you purchase it. Remember it is not yours until paid for, so you wan to quickly pay for each if they are popular. If you use a credit card, you unfortunately have to re-enter the credit card info after every purchase, which will slow you down and risk losing an excursion if it sells out before you can pay for it. (I assume they do that since some people might want to split what they want to charge among several cards). 

Yes, I actually created a PDF of all the excursions myself. So I have had the time to print it out and read it with my husband. And thanks for the tip on ACH! We normally use our credit card for everything, but we can do the ACH for this if it makes it faster.

 

Thanks so much!

[kctwinmommy]

5 minutes ago, millybess said:

From one Cindy to another.....:)

 

We are on legs 4 and 5 of a 5 leg cruise.  Our leg starts in April.  The 1st leg starts in February.  There were plenty of categories on different legs that booked before us, but we were able to get all the excursions we wanted.  We didn't expect that, and even several days after we booked, there are only a few "sold out"s.

 

We set up the ACH payment ahead of time.  Both DH and I logged in.  We had our excurions prioritized.  He put 3 in the cart, I put 3 in the cart at the same time and then one of us checked out while the other was putting more in the cart. (I'm laughing while reading this because it sounds like an after Christmas sale or something like that.) We had 5 weeks of excursions to choose and we were done in less than 5 minutes.

 

And yes, choose the optional excusions first and the included ones last.

 

Anyway, there are many people here who say that 2 people cannot be logged in at the same time, but this has always worked for us.

Thank you! I'm laughing at the Christmas sale comments!

 

And yes, I have heard that as long as your logged in, as the "same person" you can use 2 computers. But, my husband is somewhat slower than me on these kinds of things. He'll be like "Wait, what am I doing, which am I picking, how many people, what time..." LOL! So his question will take longer than me just doing it most likely.

 

 

[CCWineLover]

Cindy -  I was going to respond, but all the above posters have given you all the very good advice about the logistics of getting excursions.  One more note, however, is that if you have OBC's (or vouchers) that are on your account already for the cruise, Viking will take those off first.  Of course that will make it even faster to execute.

One area to be thoughtful of - pairing an optional excursion in the am or pm with an included in the opposite time slot.  Sometimes it gets a bit tricky - but I'd still do the optional first.

 

We are actually going from Rome to Athens (with Greece extension) in a month.  Looking at your itinerary and ports on Mars for your legs, it appears to be identical to ours and the excursions identical.  We reserved in December.   We have a DV and also have legs 2&3 of 4 legs, so aware of the competition.  If this helps:

We were able to get nearly everything we wanted.   It took 20 minutes to complete - 17 excursions

A couple excursions that sold out quickly were:

-Herculaneaum (Naples) and a bit later Pompeii  (we got Pompeii as first choice)

-Fortification: City Wall Walk (Dubrovnik) didn't get this but we'll do it on our own

But we got every other one of our optional and included choices in each port.

 

[millybess]

Excellent advice and I will offer one more thing. If there is something you want and can’t get, check back often. We’ve already cancelled 2 excursions for our April cruise. No doubt there will be more changes to come. 
 

Also, on the cruise we’re on right now, it’s day 4 and we’ve already cancelled 2 excursions. 

[kctwinmommy]

1 hour ago, CCWineLover said:

Cindy -  I was going to respond, but all the above posters have given you all the very good advice about the logistics of getting excursions.  One more note, however, is that if you have OBC's (or vouchers) that are on your account already for the cruise, Viking will take those off first.  Of course that will make it even faster to execute.

One area to be thoughtful of - pairing an optional excursion in the am or pm with an included in the opposite time slot.  Sometimes it gets a bit tricky - but I'd still do the optional first.

 

We are actually going from Rome to Athens (with Greece extension) in a month.  Looking at your itinerary and ports on Mars for your legs, it appears to be identical to ours and the excursions identical.  We reserved in December.   We have a DV and also have legs 2&3 of 4 legs, so aware of the competition.  If this helps:

We were able to get nearly everything we wanted.   It took 20 minutes to complete - 17 excursions

A couple excursions that sold out quickly were:

-Herculaneaum (Naples) and a bit later Pompeii  (we got Pompeii as first choice)

-Fortification: City Wall Walk (Dubrovnik) didn't get this but we'll do it on our own

But we got every other one of our optional and included choices in each port.

 

Awesome! Thanks for the info! And yes, sounds like we're on the same things. And I was going to look at any chances we had to double up, when we wanted to. And no OBC's for us.

[kctwinmommy]

42 minutes ago, millybess said:

Excellent advice and I will offer one more thing. If there is something you want and can’t get, check back often. We’ve already cancelled 2 excursions for our April cruise. No doubt there will be more changes to come. 
 

Also, on the cruise we’re on right now, it’s day 4 and we’ve already cancelled 2 excursions. 

Oh yes! I'm not going to freak out if something is sold out. LOL! I'll also be honest, as of right now, I think there's only like 2 things that we really want to do. This is such a big trip for us, a long one, that there's so much to do and see to begin with. We can't do it all... 😃

[kctwinmommy]

On a side note, thank you for the replies! Too many times people say "oh, just search it" or "here, read this thing." But to keep things straight in my own head, it's good to have replies to my questions.