Balmoral Castle Help

[Mimiya11]

We are in Aberdeen on Monday June 23rd.  Can anyone provide any insight as to why all the tour operators (via Viator, Get your Guide, etc) have that date crossed off?   Can they possibly be all booked?   Any help is appreciated as the only one I have access to is through our ship which is charging an insane $500 person!    

 

[John Bull]

I've known cruise lines to offer places of interest on dates when they're not available - followed by red faces when they have to cancel & refund.🙄

I've also known of places which are not open to the general public on a certain day of the week but make an exception for large ($$$$) groups such as ships' excursions. For that reason we paid over-the-odds to visit the Balaclava submarine tunnel on a ship's excursion 

 

ONLY that date crossed off ?

Or other dates immediately before or after ?

 

JB 🙂

[princeton123211]

1 hour ago, Mimiya11 said:

Can anyone provide any insight as to why all the tour operators (via Viator, Get your Guide, etc) have that date crossed off? 

First off-- things like Viator are not tour operators. They are third party aggregators. Expedia is to Hilton, what Viator is to an actual tour operator. Aside from booking and collecting a commission on your booking Viator has no direct control over your experience. 

 

Do some research and find out if an actual local tour operator has availability. It's also possible, like stated above, that it is just closed that day for any reason (it is still a working residence) and you might just be out of luck. At a minimum it might be worth booking the expensive cruise excursion if this is something that is important to you-- you can usually cancel them in advance if you are able to find a tour operator at a lower price. 

[Harters]

22 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

it is still a working residence

Maybe the King is hosting an "event" which, for security reasons, means the estate has to be closed to the public. 

[fruitmachine]

I think this is a combination of the tour you're seeing only being available for general booking on certain days of the week (and the same tour being offered through multiple resellers) and a more general 'still to open bookings' for the wider market.

 

Balmoral is generally open May-July, but I can't see any reference to next years availability, let alone specific dates that it may be closed for Royal visitors, 

 

If you're wanting a fully qualified driver/guide to take you on an individually tailored excursion in a 6-8 seat Mercedes or similar, then the place to search is the Scottish Tourist Guides Association (https://www.stga.co.uk/) and get some fellow passengers to join you from your roll call.  For just two of you, it'd probably be a similar cost to the cruise excursion, but every additional fellow traveller reduces the cost.  Either way, you'd get a much better excursion.

[Planning to cruise]

As openings of royal palaces varies for operational reasons next years dates may not yet be definitely available.  A tour company may simply not yet be taking bookings.   

[Cotswold Eagle]

16 hours ago, John Bull said:

ONLY that date crossed off ?

Or other dates immediately before

In absence of an answer to your question from the OP, I had a look at a likely tour on Viator and it is not available on any Monday next summer, which to me suggests it is simply an issue of the local operator not offering it on Mondays.  

Edited Wednesday at 07:03 AM by Cotswold Eagle
Typo

[Planning to cruise]

Or like many museums in most European countries closed every Monday?

[princeton123211]

11 hours ago, Cotswold Eagle said:

it is not available on any Monday next summer, which to me suggests it is simply an issue of the local operator not offering it on Mondays.  

Balmoral's grounds are closed on most Mondays and Tuesdays in the off season (with an occasional Sunday) so it would make sense then that Mondays are closed in season. 

[Cotswold Eagle]

13 hours ago, Planning to cruise said:

Or like many museums in most European countries closed every Monday?

 

3 hours ago, princeton123211 said:

so it would make sense then that Mondays are closed in season.

 

Balmoral is open daily during its short summer season. I can see nothing to suggest this will change next year.