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.