Excursion booking

[longterm]

Our excursion booking opens up Tuesday, and I've got my list ready, have a question:

 

 

If I select some excursions, is there a chance that one or more of them could fill up before I actually submit payment for them, or are they "held" for me since I've made the selections? 

For example, if you are buying tickets to a baseball game, your seat selections are held for you for a set # of minutes, after which the seat choices are released and again made available to the public.

 

If anyone knows the answer, I'd appreciate the info; if selections are "held," I'll select all my excursions, then make payment; if they are NOT held, I guess I'll buy them one at a time, which will be a much bigger pain.

 

[kctwinmommy]

They are not held and can be sold out before you purchase them. Simply being in your cart doesn't guarantee you getting them. Go in order of most importance to least, then book your included ones.

[millybess]

5 minutes ago, longterm said:

 

 

If anyone knows the answer, I'd appreciate the info; if selections are "held," I'll select all my excursions, then make payment; if they are NOT held, I guess I'll buy them one at a time, which will be a much bigger pain.

 

If you use ACH, it's very quick.

[millybess]

And it saves you 3.3%  

[longterm]

We'll definitely have that set up, but I worry about a couple of the excursions selling out... 

[kctwinmommy]

4 minutes ago, millybess said:

If you use ACH, it's very quick.

Yes! We like to use our credit card because of the cash back, it's almost even. But in this case, it doesn't allow for auto-fill, but you can have the ACH info stored to use. So that was super fast.

[millybess]

17 minutes ago, longterm said:

We'll definitely have that set up, but I worry about a couple of the excursions selling out... 

It's good that you already have a priority list.  In our case, we added them to our cart in 3's before we checked out.

[CCWineLover]

Be REALLY fast!  pick your most desire excursion first and immediately go to the cart and pay for it.  Unlike sports or concert events, the slots are NOT held.   I've had many times where I select something, and in the 30 seconds it took me to go to the cart and enter in information, someone had beat me to it.

ACH helps a lot as that makes it fast.  You cannot store credit card info, but if I use a credit card, I have a separate Notes file open with the info in it, whereby I can do a quick copy and paste, which then only takes about 8-10 seconds to complete.

Good luck!

[CDR2001]

A few weeks ago, my account froze while I was booking excursions…I got a white screen saying payment pending but it never went away. I lost some excursions before I figured out to call Viking for help! The agent booked them for me but some excursions had sold out. My tip…if account freezes, call or do the chat immediately! By the way, my account is STILL frozen, and technical support is “working on it.”  I have escalated to Tellus email, and I continue to call and check on openings. I also have private excursions booked for some ports. It will be a good cruise, I won’t let technology ruin it for us! 

[Drklh]

Viking Orion leaving June 23 to Inside Passage

Topic: Excursions 

If you, like us, were not able to get the excursions you wanted,  please check with  us about the alternate options we have found at great prices if we can find 2 or more people to join us. We have booked fishing,whale watching, kayaking, bear hunting and driving to Emerald lake via White’s passage. Please reach out if any or all of these are interesting to you. 

 

 

[formernuke]

As stated above, itis faster to use the ACH, but I recommend having a credit card at hand as ell. Just a few weeks ago when I booked excursions (coincidentally for BIE), the ACH worked fine on the first one, it glitched on the second (looked like it hadn't finished processing)so I went ahead and used a CC for the second batch, and by then the first transaction had cleared up so I used ACH for the remainder. By the time I was all done, one or two I selected early on were already gone. So it pays to be quick!

[SailorPaulH]

How is the experience of ease of booking excursions relate to cabin choice? It would seem to me that if you are in an ES you can probably book what you want and maybe a good chance if you have PS or PV!? After that, the creative solutions I have seen in this thread and others seem to be critical as demand outstrips supply. Is there a sweet spot for cabin choice if excursions is your primary focus on your cruise?

[SantaFe1]

9 minutes ago, SailorPaulH said:

How is the experience of ease of booking excursions relate to cabin choice? It would seem to me that if you are in an ES you can probably book what you want and maybe a good chance if you have PS or PV!? After that, the creative solutions I have seen in this thread and others seem to be critical as demand outstrips supply. Is there a sweet spot for cabin choice if excursions is your primary focus on your cruise?

I think the cabin level is important in this.  We always book PV and have never had trouble getting what we want.  The first time we cruised Viking, we booked DV and had a few troubles.  But, I still book the first one or two excursions that are most important to us first, even in PV.  

[SantaFe1]

And, as a hilarious aside, that one excursion I didn’t get immediately in DV I did eventually get, and it was one of the worst excursions I have ever been on.  LOL.  It all works out eventually!  

[ericosmith]

Does no one use a password manager that will autofill personal information and credit card data in forms.  It's a quick and easy way to check out with a card.

[Traveler1977]

In your rush to select the most desirable excursions first, be aware of the fact that some excursions (including the premium ones) are often offered at multiple times.  Make sure you select the time slot you want. 
 

I made this mistake. Didn’t realize it until after I had purchased all of my excursions and was reviewing my selections. 

[kctwinmommy]

On 3/16/2024 at 9:36 PM, ericosmith said:

Does no one use a password manager that will autofill personal information and credit card data in forms.  It's a quick and easy way to check out with a card.

I do have auto-fill, but it didn't work for their site when doing the excursion purchases. First website it's never worked in.

[kctwinmommy]

On 3/16/2024 at 9:18 PM, SailorPaulH said:

How is the experience of ease of booking excursions relate to cabin choice? It would seem to me that if you are in an ES you can probably book what you want and maybe a good chance if you have PS or PV!? After that, the creative solutions I have seen in this thread and others seem to be critical as demand outstrips supply. Is there a sweet spot for cabin choice if excursions is your primary focus on your cruise?

We have a DV cabin, went on right at our time to select, and still got everything we wanted. I would say the only thing we may have missed was the exact time slot for an included excursion. But it was like instead of getting a 9:30 start time, we had to pick 10:00, so no big deal.

[SailorPaulH]

On 3/17/2024 at 11:08 PM, kctwinmommy said:

We have a DV cabin, went on right at our time to select, and still got everything we wanted. I would say the only thing we may have missed was the exact time slot for an included excursion. But it was like instead of getting a 9:30 start time, we had to pick 10:00, so no big deal.

I just got off MVJ and we had an easy experience booking all our desired excursions and times for our July 2024 cruise. No freeze issues and able to pay by ACH quickly.

 

The only odd thing was an included excursion I booked that goes from 3:00-5:30 pm, but ship departs from port at 4:00 pm. Either the port departure time is wrong or that time option for the included excursion is not for real - I guess I will find out. I am a pretty strong swimmer, but I don't think I can Viking Venus a 90-minute head start!

[LindaS272]

1 hour ago, SailorPaulH said:

The only odd thing was an included excursion I booked that goes from 3:00-5:30 pm, but ship departs from port at 4:00 pm. Either the port departure time is wrong or that time option for the included excursion is not for real - I guess I will find out. I am a pretty strong swimmer, but I don't think I can Viking Venus a 90-minute head start!

I’d go on the chat function and ask about that excursion time. They might be able to rebook you on another or at least tell you that excursion will be canceled so you know well in advance.

 

We had an excursion time cancelled on us without notice last July (included boat trip in Bergen). We booked another time via chat, but they were not able to tell us why our previous time had been canceled. I think they bumped us to book in somebody more important because that excursion time still showed on the schedule.

[lackcreativity]

As a regular occupant of the Veranda cabins, four things usually keep me satisfied during the booking process. First, I have enough experience now to reassure me that things have generally worked pretty well during previous cruises. Second, I know that if we miss out on something really important there are private tours to consider. Third, Viking often adds extra buses and people often drop out so Sold Outs may open again. Finally, lots of times there is a second choice of a different excursion that is appealing too. 

 

I guess I am just easy to please. It does make thing easier in the long run!

[SailorPaulH]

2 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

I’d go on the chat function and ask about that excursion time. They might be able to rebook you on another or at least tell you that excursion will be canceled so you know well in advance.

 

We had an excursion time cancelled on us without notice last July (included boat trip in Bergen). We booked another time via chat, but they were not able to tell us why our previous time had been canceled. I think they bumped us to book in somebody more important because that excursion time still showed on the schedule.

As you suggested I used the chat feature, and the explanation was something I have never heard of before on Viking Ocean. That included tour does indeed finish after the ship leaves port! Supposedly, a shuttle bus will take you to the next port.

 

In this case, the ship leaves Seydisfjordur at 4 PM. A shuttle bus takes the excursion group to the next port (Akureyri where the ship arrives 8 AM next day!). This seems very weird and I didn't get into the logistics of where you sleep, eat, etc., and just canceled the excursion. We can do a port walk easily enough on our own earlier in the day if we want to.

[CCWineLover]

20 minutes ago, SailorPaulH said:

As you suggested I used the chat feature, and the explanation was something I have never heard of before on Viking Ocean. That included tour does indeed finish after the ship leaves port! Supposedly, a shuttle bus will take you to the next port.

 

In this case, the ship leaves Seydisfjordur at 4 PM. A shuttle bus takes the excursion group to the next port (Akureyri where the ship arrives 8 AM next day!). This seems very weird and I didn't get into the logistics of where you sleep, eat, etc., and just canceled the excursion. We can do a port walk easily enough on our own earlier in the day if we want to.

I don't really believe what Viking told you.  I would contact others at Viking to see.  You are right to cancel it.

Do you know how long a bus would take from Seydisfjordur to Akureyri?  Nearly 4 hours !!!

We did this cruise and S. is on the East coast and A. is on the North side of Iceland.  This makes no sense.   If you are looking at the included port walk in S., then you could easily do it yourself.  The included tour we took was not one of the best includeds we had on this trip. 

[CDR2001]

25 minutes ago, SailorPaulH said:

As you suggested I used the chat feature, and the explanation was something I have never heard of before on Viking Ocean. That included tour does indeed finish after the ship leaves port! Supposedly, a shuttle bus will take you to the next port.

 

In this case, the ship leaves Seydisfjordur at 4 PM. A shuttle bus takes the excursion group to the next port (Akureyri where the ship arrives 8 AM next day!). This seems very weird and I didn't get into the logistics of where you sleep, eat, etc., and just canceled the excursion. We can do a port walk easily enough on our own earlier in the day if we want to.

SailorPaul, we have been to Seydisfjordur, and the included tour was pretty much the same as the self guided tour we did. However, on our Iceland cruise last year, we also had an excursion listed that ended after departure. When we received our tickets onboard, we had a corrected time! I can’t believe the chat agent said you’d be bused to the next port…yes that happens on river ships sometimes, but it is totally impractical, and impossible on ocean!  Someone needs to do some more training before giving an answer that doesn’t make sense. Enjoy Iceland! 

Edited March 22 by CDR2001

[LindaS272]

I agree that the answer is screwy. Talk about incompetence. BTW, one time a few years ago, I was on a chat with an agent who was really rude, put me on hold several times, and finally ditched the session. I complained to tellus@vikingcruises.com and was given a nice chunk of OBC for our troubles. Worth a try!