Thanks for great tips and advice on booking optional excursions!

[kctwinmommy]

We're taking our first Viking cruise and our excursion booking window opened today. We had our list, in order of importance, for booking our optional ones. Then pretty much would pick the best option for the included ones. We had 7 optional ones we wanted to add. But, thanks to researching and getting good information, we knew the best way to get them all.

One, we had our list and started with the most important ones. We based this on the ability to not find 3rd party companies that offered the same, or if it was something really unique to Viking. Two, we had our bank account info in there. Three, we both logged in on 2 computers - you log into the same, one MVJ account and you can both book at the same time. Four, having the ACH info there means we didn't have to enter anything at checkout. If you use credit card, you have to enter it every time, nothing saves or autofill. Five, we put in the cart and then checked out for each excursion instead of adding them all and waiting to do it all at once. Six, went back and then just went in order of the remaining ports to pick the included time slots we wanted. Remember, you must pick a time slot to be on an included excursion.

 

Between different places, this all helped and we got it all done in 20 minutes! Everything showed up about 20 minutes later on my calendar, so I can see everything is booked!!

[CDR2001]

“Three, we both logged in on 2 computers - you log into the same, one MVJ account and you can both book at the same time.”

Interesting, as I tried this in the past and couldn’t log in to the same account on two devices. Will try this next week, thanks. 

[millybess]

7 minutes ago, CDR2001 said:

Interesting, as I tried this in the past and couldn’t log in to the same account on two devices. Will try this next week, thanks. 

We do this all the time.  It works for us, but I know others here have said it doesn't work for them.  

[kctwinmommy]

14 minutes ago, CDR2001 said:

“Three, we both logged in on 2 computers - you log into the same, one MVJ account and you can both book at the same time.”

Interesting, as I tried this in the past and couldn’t log in to the same account on two devices. Will try this next week, thanks. 

I will say, there were a few times when he was trying to pay and I was trying to add, and it said payment denied. So it can get a little clumsy. LOL!

[kctwinmommy]

7 minutes ago, millybess said:

We do this all the time.  It works for us, but I know others here have said it doesn't work for them.  

Oh that's possible too.

[kctwinmommy]

@GardenYogi I just did ours this week, the first time doing it, and I wrote this up to help other newbies, like me, with the best way we got them all done, and the ones that we wanted. It might help with booking what you want. 😃

[kctwinmommy]

On 2/13/2024 at 3:30 PM, CDR2001 said:

“Three, we both logged in on 2 computers - you log into the same, one MVJ account and you can both book at the same time.”

Interesting, as I tried this in the past and couldn’t log in to the same account on two devices. Will try this next week, thanks. 

Were you able to get your excursions booked? Did you log into 2 devices? Or not needed? Hope it worked out for you. We did our dinning last week and didn't get totally what we wanted, but we'll take what we got.

[CDR2001]

Kc, I did not log in on two devices, but I had a major payment issue! I couldn’t get past the checkout screen, which displayed a message about payment pending, wait 5 minutes for screen to refresh. I waited, and waited, and nothing happened.  I tried another computer, iPad, phone, E check, two different credit cards, log in, log out, clear cache, changed browser etc…. Nothing worked. I called Viking, and the agent processed the Echeck payment for me. I should have called sooner as I lost some excursions in the 90 minute process. Viking said they’ve had a few other cases like this. The problem persists, and I have an IT ticket pending. I also emailed tellus, hoping someone will call me about this mess. Anyway, moral of the story is if payments don’t go through, call to book via a Viking agent right away! 

Edited February 28 by CDR2001
Details

[ericosmith]

I had good luck with chat...

[CCWineLover]

7 hours ago, CDR2001 said:

Kc, I did not log in on two devices, but I had a major payment issue! I couldn’t get past the checkout screen, which displayed a message about payment pending, wait 5 minutes for screen to refresh. I waited, and waited, and nothing happened.  I tried another computer, iPad, phone, E check, two different credit cards, log in, log out, clear cache, changed browser etc…. Nothing worked. I called Viking, and the agent processed the Echeck payment for me. I should have called sooner as I lost some excursions in the 90 minute process. Viking said they’ve had a few other cases like this. The problem persists, and I have an IT ticket pending. I also emailed tellus, hoping someone will call me about this mess. Anyway, moral of the story is if payments don’t go through, call to book via a Viking agent right away! 

Sorry to hear.  What is and "IT Payment" ??

 

FYI - this happened to me recently, and I immediately used the chat.  The person on chat processed the payment and we were done in 1 minute, so didn't lose much time at all.

 

Interestingly enough, I had used one credit card that caused the issue.  The chat person suggest I give her a different card or use ACH checking.  I did that and it immediately went through.  She said sometimes certain credit cards have issues.  FYI. 

Future reference for everyone.

Edited February 28 by CCWineLover

[CDR2001]

The technical support team is supposed to call me when the account problem is resolved. Until then I’m just calling as I make a few excursion changes. 

[kctwinmommy]

20 hours ago, CDR2001 said:

Kc, I did not log in on two devices, but I had a major payment issue! I couldn’t get past the checkout screen, which displayed a message about payment pending, wait 5 minutes for screen to refresh. I waited, and waited, and nothing happened.  I tried another computer, iPad, phone, E check, two different credit cards, log in, log out, clear cache, changed browser etc…. Nothing worked. I called Viking, and the agent processed the Echeck payment for me. I should have called sooner as I lost some excursions in the 90 minute process. Viking said they’ve had a few other cases like this. The problem persists, and I have an IT ticket pending. I also emailed tellus, hoping someone will call me about this mess. Anyway, moral of the story is if payments don’t go through, call to book via a Viking agent right away! 

Oh no! I'm sorry! I hope they can get things fixed for you. Were any excursions you wanted sold out already?

[CDR2001]

“Were any excursions you wanted sold out already?”

I managed to get all of my preferred excursions except one. They have an alert in my booking if availability opens up. I’ll continue to check daily. In any case, my cruise will be great! British Isles Explorer May1. 

[kctwinmommy]

3 hours ago, CDR2001 said:

“Were any excursions you wanted sold out already?”

I managed to get all of my preferred excursions except one. They have an alert in my booking if availability opens up. I’ll continue to check daily. In any case, my cruise will be great! British Isles Explorer May1. 

Oh that's good! And you can always look on Viator's website. They offer a ton of excursions, most similar to what Viking seems to offer, and a lot more.

[kctwinmommy]

I will add, getting dinner reservations wasn't as easy. We just wanted to try Manfredi's once or twice, and we did get 2 slots, but the early times were all gone for the most part. We managed to snag one night for 6 p.m. in a shared table, which isn't a big deal for us. And then another night we took an 8 p.m. slot for just the 2 of us. I know people have said that a lot of times there's openings once we're onboard. We'll be fine with these 2 nights I think. But we'll see if anything changes.

[longterm]

On 2/13/2024 at 3:13 PM, kctwinmommy said:

Three, we both logged in on 2 computers - you log into the same, one MVJ account and you can both book at the same time. 

MVJ won't let 2 users be logged into the same account; in fact, if a Viking rep wants to see your account while you're logged in, they'll require you to logout first so that they can get in and see your account.
 

We tested that a couple of days ago; I logged into MVJ, then my wife logged in. While we were both able to login, a banner on the excursions page indicated that she wouldn't be able to do anything other than to view excursions--she wouldn't be able to book anything.
 

If you were able to that then you have some special powers... 🙂

On 2/13/2024 at 3:13 PM, kctwinmommy said:

Five, we put in the cart and then checked out for each excursion instead of adding them all and waiting to do it all at once. Six, went back and then just went in order of the remaining ports to pick the included time slots we wanted.

Not sure I see any value in this, unless an excursion can fill up while it's sitting in your cart; perhaps someone can anyone confirm that this can happen.
 

[millybess]

6 minutes ago, longterm said:

MVJ won't let 2 users be logged into the same account; in fact, if a Viking rep wants to see your account while you're logged in, they'll require you to logout first so that they can get in and see your account.
 

We tested that a couple of days ago; I logged into MVJ, then my wife logged in. While we were both able to login, a banner on the excursions page indicated that she wouldn't be able to do anything other than to view excursions--she wouldn't be able to book anything.
 

If you were able to that then you have some special powers... 🙂

Not sure I see any value in this, unless an excursion can fill up while it's sitting in your cart; perhaps someone can anyone confirm that this can happen.
 

Many people here have said this about 2 users not being able to book excursions at the same time on the same account.  But, for us, this is not the case.  We have always been able to book excursions at the same time.  In fact we did this 2 months ago for our cruise next month  We're travelling for 5 weeks, so that was a lot of excursions and it took us less than 5 minutes with both of us working on it.

[kctwinmommy]

8 minutes ago, longterm said:

MVJ won't let 2 users be logged into the same account; in fact, if a Viking rep wants to see your account while you're logged in, they'll require you to logout first so that they can get in and see your account.
 

We tested that a couple of days ago; I logged into MVJ, then my wife logged in. While we were both able to login, a banner on the excursions page indicated that she wouldn't be able to do anything other than to view excursions--she wouldn't be able to book anything.
 

If you were able to that then you have some special powers... 🙂

Not sure I see any value in this, unless an excursion can fill up while it's sitting in your cart; perhaps someone can anyone confirm that this can happen.
 

Yes it will, my husband and I both logged in, using the same user name & password, and we were both able to purchase excursions. It won't let you log in with the different user names/passwords. He would purchase one, while I was looking at the next day. We did sometimes step on each other and would end up seeing both excursions in the cart, so one of us had to back out of the cart so we could check out.

 

Again, we did this because I had read plenty of stories about excursions booking up. We had our list, went down in order of most importance, then booked. It went super well.

 

And yes, many people have commented in the past that they filled their cart, went to check out, and found that things were unavailable. Now, our cruise had very few excursions sell out after I went back to look a few days later. But plenty of other people have said that even before they could book theirs (probably in a DV cabin like us, or maybe in a V cabin), that there were many excursions sold out.

[longterm]

2 minutes ago, kctwinmommy said:

Yes it will, my husband and I both logged in, using the same user name & password, and we were both able to purchase excursions. It won't let you log in with the different user names/passwords. He would purchase one, while I was looking at the next day. We did sometimes step on each other and would end up seeing both excursions in the cart, so one of us had to back out of the cart so we could check out.

 

Again, we did this because I had read plenty of stories about excursions booking up. We had our list, went down in order of most importance, then booked. It went super well.

 

And yes, many people have commented in the past that they filled their cart, went to check out, and found that things were unavailable. Now, our cruise had very few excursions sell out after I went back to look a few days later. But plenty of other people have said that even before they could book theirs (probably in a DV cabin like us, or maybe in a V cabin), that there were many excursions sold out.

You're absolutely right--we just tested it. It wouldn't let us use our separate logins into the same MVJ, but so long as we logged in using the same login, it worked fine. Sadly, it appears now that my wife won't be available at that time, so it became a moot point for us. 😞

[kctwinmommy]

1 minute ago, longterm said:

You're absolutely right--we just tested it. It wouldn't let us use our separate logins into the same MVJ, but so long as we logged in using the same login, it worked fine. Sadly, it appears now that my wife won't be available at that time, so it became a moot point for us. 😞

Oh no! Is anyone else around that could log in to help? Hopefully you won't need it! I know I was worried, but it was also a moot point. I'm not sure which cruise excursions fill up faster than others, or if it's just a random thing, which is quite possible. We did get everything we wanted and I don't think many, if any at all, were sold out after we booked. But there are several sold out. Plus, our ship changed one port now, due to the Olympic flame route, and I think 9 out of the 12 excursions in that stop are now sold out. It's odd...

[kctwinmommy]

On 3/16/2024 at 2:19 PM, longterm said:

You're absolutely right--we just tested it. It wouldn't let us use our separate logins into the same MVJ, but so long as we logged in using the same login, it worked fine. Sadly, it appears now that my wife won't be available at that time, so it became a moot point for us. 😞

Did you get your excursions booked? I wasn't sure when your date was to reserve them. Hope you're able to get the things you want.

[longterm]

2 hours ago, kctwinmommy said:

Did you get your excursions booked? I wasn't sure when your date was to reserve them. Hope you're able to get the things you want.

I did! I was ready right at the stroke of 2pm, and I only had 3 optional excursions to book, so I did those first, then grabbed all the included excursions. We've got quite a few private excursions booked, so I only had about 9 excursions total to book.

I did notice that some are already sold out.

[kctwinmommy]

2 hours ago, longterm said:

I did! I was ready right at the stroke of 2pm, and I only had 3 optional excursions to book, so I did those first, then grabbed all the included excursions. We've got quite a few private excursions booked, so I only had about 9 excursions total to book.

I did notice that some are already sold out.

Yay! Glad it worked out! We did 7 optional, then like 9 included. We also booked a private one at 2 ports. The only one that's not set is Venice, because we have 2 nights there and we can't book our full day options until we get onboard. It's a turn around day for passengers, so we have to wait.

[kctwinmommy]

@Moby_Spout - this might help too. We are first time Viking cruisers, so I took a lot of advice from different people.

[Moby_Spout]

Thoughtful! 
I'm taking notes. Hopefully, the cruise isn't an anticlimax after all the excitement and activity to prepare for it! 😄