Selecting Excursions for Our World Voyage

As I mentioned in my last post, selecting shore excursions for our world cruise is a mammoth job. Not only will we be stopping at 86 or so ports, but both Tim and I are unfamiliar with most of these stops. How on earth do we choose from all the options that Viking offers? Do we take an included excursion or an optional one, or do we book a private tour? Or, do we just wing it and plan to see one or more ports on our own?

I have been working on this conundrum for quite a few months, and just recently presented Tim with my idea on how we might approach this. I borrowed ideas from previous world cruisers and adapted them as I saw fit. Here’s the plan!

Every Viking cruise features one included shore excursion in each port of call, as well as a range of optional excursions at varying costs. We were finally presented with a list of available shore excursions at the beginning of August from which to choose. Bookings for us will start on September 3, while passengers in higher cabins were able to select their excursions earlier this month.

Here is an example of the way excursions are presented in My Viking Journey, our online account that provides all the tools necessary to tailor and personalize our complete Viking experience, including shore excursions. Each day lists its own set of excursions.

Examples of Viking's Presentation of Excursions in Each Port - Sometimes, There Are 10+ Choices

You can then click on each excursion to find more information about what is included, the difficulty level, the time(s) offered, and the cost, if applicable.

Examples of the Types of Information Provided by Viking for Each Excursion

Because of the number of options available, a previous world cruiser had prepared a spreadsheet listing every excursion and its associated information. I modified his list and then added all the excursions offered on our cruise. It took a very long time, but I wanted to have a complete list in one document, hoping that would make the selection easier. Altogether, the total number of excursions ended up being 753! Wow!

The First Six Pages of My Spreadsheet - 72 Pages in Total!

Tim and I each took the list and began to make our selections for all ports. For the most part, we decided not to include a second choice. We each then ranked our choices as 1, 2, or 3. That ranking would then help prioritize the order in which we would book the excursions.

I then combined our selections into one spreadsheet and then deleted the excursions that we had not chosen. That was a much shorter list – only 144 entries – and much easier to deal with. At this point, the list was in chronological order by day.

Chronological List of Our Selected Excursions - Only Six Pages Long!

I then sorted the list by our rankings of 1, 2, and 3. I mostly kept each ranking in chronological order, although I did move a few high-priority excursions to the top. Since we are guaranteed an included excursion in each port, I kept those at the bottom of the list. I ended up having to number those 4 or 5 to make Excel happy.

Our Priority Listing of Excursions

Viking has provided shore excursion credits of $3,000 for each of us, which will be a huge help. The spreadsheet includes the cost of each excursion, so I was able to total the cost of our selections.

Although I selected excursions for every port, I haven’t ruled out the idea of taking private tours. I did book one already for Cairns, Australia, and I’m sure I take the suggestions of so many previous world cruisers and take private tours in Bali and elsewhere. Although I love private tours, it’s often simply easier to take one offered by Viking.

Only One Private Excursion Booked So Far

I’ll keep checking over the next few days to see if any of our choices have sold out. If so, I’ll make adjustments accordingly. Hopefully, this spreadsheet will make the process of booking our excursions much easier.

Canada & East Coast Explorer Cruise – Excursions Booked!

While Tim and I continue to chip away at our to-do list for our world voyage, we still must keep in mind deadlines for our upcoming Canada and East Coast Explorer cruise. Today, bookings opened for shore excursions for this cruise, and I was at my computer the second they were available.

We only have seven ports on this cruise, unlike the 86 or so we’ll have on our world voyage, so selecting our excursions was quite simple. We were quite happy with most of the included tours and booked those for almost all the ports.

Our Included Excursions

Tim decided to take an optional tour in Trois-Rivières, Canada, to visit the Musée des Abénakis, the first Indigenous museum in Quebec. I picked two optional tours in Quebec City. In the morning, I’ll visit Montmorency Falls and the Île d’Orléans, the so-called “Garden of Quebec.” In the afternoon, I’ll take a walking tour of Old Town Quebec and then have tea at the landmark Château Frontenac.

Our Optional Excursions

The Château Frontenac was one of the hotels built by the Canadian Pacific Railway to lure travelers to cross Canada by train. Tim and I will be staying at four of these hotels as we travel between Vancouver and Jasper, so I thought it would be fun to at least experience tea at the Château Frontenac, even if I couldn’t spend the night there.

We Got Stuck – Six Times!

Traveling around the world and visiting 38 countries requires much more preparation than we have ever dealt with on previous trips. Not just the obvious one, like what to pack for 180 days when we’ll be encountering all four seasons. No, this time we must deal with visas and vaccinations. Today, we mostly checked vaccinations off our to-do list.

I had read the advice from previous world cruisers and reviewed the options for obtaining the appropriate recommendations and vaccinations based on the ports that we will visit. In the end, I convinced Tim that we should drive to Denver to the UCHealth Infectious Disease/Travel Clinic, partly because our medical records are with UCHealth, and our visit would be covered by insurance. This International Travelers clinic specializes in travel and tropical medicine, expedition, and altitude medicine, or TEAM, and is an official yellow fever vaccination center. I particularly liked the idea of an in-person appointment, as opposed to an online one.

Tim and I arrived at the UCHealth Anschutz Medical Campus, and it was a zoo. The place was packed. We were soon called for our appointment and met our nurse practitioner, who was so patient and thorough in reviewing where we would be sailing. She printed out a 112-page Travax Traveler Report that included everything we might ever want to know about health concerns. An additional set of maps showed where infectious diseases are present. Wow! That’s a lot of information.

Preparing Our Recommendations for Vaccinations and Prophylactics

We also talked a lot about malaria prevention and the three medications available. We decided to go with Malarone, which we will take 24-48 hours prior to the arrival in areas where we will be at risk. We also received prescriptions for Imodium and Azithromycin for traveler’s diarrhea. 

We spent a lot of time discussing the vaccines that we might want to consider, their side effects, and the possible risks for each of us. We knew that two countries require a yellow fever vaccine, so that was a no-brainer, despite the risks. Some of the others were optional, but we decided to err on the side of caution.

Thus, Tim and I both decided to get the following vaccines: typhoid, Japanese encephalitis, meningococcal, hepatitis A, and a polio booster. Yes, we each received six shots, three in each arm. That was a first! We will also get Tdap and hepatitis B vaccines from our primary care doctors, as well as a COVID-19 vaccine and flu shot, in the Fall. Getting all these vaccines may be overkill, but what’s one more stick!

I Don't Think the Shots Bothered Me as Much as They Did Tim

Our appointment lasted well over one hour, and we had to hang around for another 20 minutes, just to make sure we had no reaction to the yellow fever vaccine. Luckily, we had none.

We left with our World Health Organization (WHO) cards that document the vaccines we received. One more item to check off our list!

WHO Cards

Catching Up on Old Blog Posts

It’s taken me eight months since returning from our Mediterranean Explorer and Crossing cruise on Viking, but I have finally managed to finish the remaining blog posts for our days in Spain and Portugal. I also included a post that includes my reflections on the cruise.

I have backdated those posts to the days we were in those ports. 

I am making no excuses for why it took me so long to finish. I’m just relieved the posts for the trip are complete.