Getting the Shore Excursions You Want

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had built a spreadsheet to track lots of things related to this long voyage. One of those things was to assess what shore excursions we wanted to take.  Our goal was to see as much different culture, wildlife, and natural beauty as possible.

Viking regularly provides one shore excursion per port as part of the cost of the cruise.  These are generally walking or bus tours of the historical and architectural buildings in the town or city.  And the rest of the time in port can be spent wandering around, shopping, or paying for additional excursions.

The additional excursions per port vary wildly by price and availability.  A cooking lesson in someone's house may not be overly costly, but perhaps only 12 people (out of 950 onboard) can go.  Other excursions may be able to handle hundreds of people, but be quite expensive.  And there is everything in between.

Viking, like the other cruise lines, set priorities on when you can book your excursions.  The date when you can start booking tours is printed on every receipt and is listed on all the promotional material on the Viking website.  Viking uses room categories for their prioritization.  Other cruise lines may use a combination of room category and some kind of loyalty credit.  But no matter which way a cruise line prioritizes booking of shore excursions, if you are not prepared to make your choices very early on the first day of your booking opportunity, you may lose out on options.  Even the included tours must be booked as soon as you can so you can choose the time you want to go.

An excursion with limited capacity may already be full before your booking date. Still, if you are not ready very early on your first booking day, you will never know if there had been some openings, and you missed out because of your own inaction.  On one cruise, we missed out on an included tour because I didn't realize I needed to book it.

On this cruise, the additional excursion my husband wanted the most was a particular safari in Africa. So when our day came, the first thing I booked was that safari.  I went back later that morning to look at the safari again, and there was a notice on it -- SOLD OUT.  It took us a few days to work through the 128 days of the cruise and book all the included tours and the additional excursions we were willing to pay for.

Taking a tour all the way up to the Christ, the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro was another high priority for us, and I booked it very early.  That tour never showed up SOLD OUT because Viking was able to get enough buses and tour guides to accommodate hundreds of people. An excursion I wanted on the Falkland Islands I also booked early, and I didn't find out until yesterday that it sold out shortly as well.

People we have met on the cruise have asked how we managed to get on some of these limited capacity tours.  All I can say is we had the spreadsheet with all our decisions, and I got up very early on the first day we were allowed to book excursions and worked through them in our priority order as fast as I could.  If I had gone in the calendar order, I probably would have lost out on that safari.

Les Îles du Salut, French Guiana

Two of the islands in the Les Îles du Salut were used as a French prison.  Îlse Royale held the main prison complex, the guards. And the home of the prison warden.  Îlse du Diable was for the most challenging prisoners, and those who were sent there stayed for life. Îlse du Diable was seen as impossible to escape from, so the prisoners were not guarded.

The book and movie "Papillon" is the autobiography of the only known person to escape the prison and live.

The easy path up the island

The Viking ship set anchor in the bay, and we took tenders to Îlse Royale.  Everything was uphill from that point.  We went up the less rigorous path that wrapped around the island climbing to the top of the island where most of the prison and other buildings were situated.  We passed the children's cemetery as we climbed. Even at an easy climb, the heat and humidity took a toll.

Children's Cemetery

Today the Capuchin monkeys, some peacocks, termites, and the human caretakers are the principal inhabitants of the island. One of the prison buildings is now a hotel, so we were able to get a cold drink after finding our way to the top of the island.  The little gift shop in the hotel smelled heavily of mold - probably from the building itself.

Prison Wall

Grenada

St. George's, Grenada

Grenada and my high school friend, Mike, are forever linked in my mind.  This is my first visit to Grenada, but when I was in college, Grenada was on the news.  I walked into the student cafeteria with some friends in between classes and saw all the televisions showing one thing -- American soldiers parachuting into Grenada.  I called all the phone numbers I had for Mike, but he was not home, and his roommate said he could not tell me where he was.  That was a pretty good clue that Mike was in Grenada. I was able to confirm that later with Mike's Mom.  I stared at the screens, worried for my friend's safety. He did come home safely, but not all the soldiers did.

President Reagan sent the US Military to Grenada to protect American students who were attending college there.  The Prime Minister at that time had started eliminating those citizens who publicly disagreed with him by lining them up in front of a firing squad. No American students had been harmed yet when the US troops arrived in Grenada, but it seems unlikely that the American students would have kept quiet for long.

Grenada has a memorial for the American soldiers that died that day - October 25th, 1983. It is on a highway near the airport.  Our tour guide pointed it out from the bus, but we did not stop there.

Grenada has a national holiday called "Thanksgiving" - on October 25th each year to commemorate the Americans who came and freed them from a violent government.

Fan Palm

Almond Tree

Today Grenada is a beautiful place, mostly recovered from Hurricane Ivan, which our tour guide called  "Ivan the Terrible." We saw beautiful fan palms, almonds growing on trees, the large breadfruit, and smaller coconuts, as well as papaya and bananas.  Avocados were out of season.

Cacao Fruit

We went to the Chocolate Museum in St. George's, where we learned and tasted fresh cacao - the fruit that chocolate eventually emerges from.  The fruit is sweet, similar in taste to papaya. The inside pip is where the chocolate comes from.

US Government Shut Down -- San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan City Wall, National Historic Site

I was concerned about the effect of the US Government shut down on our tour of Puerto Rico. After all, one of their major tourist attractions is the San Juan National Historic Site.  Fortunately, some good citizens who have more sense than our elected officials paid privately for opening up parts of the San Juan National Historic Site.  San Juan has mostly recovered physically from Hurricane Maria but is still working to improve financially, and tourism is a significant component of their economy.

The tour guide explained why the wall and other fortifications were built over the years to protect San Juan from invaders.  But the walls do not help them with the latest invaders - IGUANAS!

Iguana, San Juan National Historic Site

But the fortification did help them after Hurricane Maria.  One part of the fortification that the Spanish built in the 17th century was a complex system of cisterns with clean water.  That water system was functional and provided clean water to residents after the hurricane.


Also in port, while we were there was a traveling replica of Christopher Columbus' ship the Santa Maria. Wow, I would not have wanted to be traveling on that small ship!

Epiphany in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Three Kings paying homage to the Baby Jesus in Mary's Arm

We arrived in San Juan in the morning of Epiphany, which is the Christian celebration of the Three Kings coming to pay homage to the birth of Jesus.  According to our tour guide, children leave a small pail of grass out for the King's camels.  And this is the day the Puerto Rican children receive their Christmas presents.  It is a festive holiday for the locals, and then you add 4 cruise ships and the population soars.

We headed off to St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church for morning mass.  Of course, it was in Spanish, but since the Mass is the same all around the world, it is possible to follow along anyway.  The church was small, and the people were friendly and joyous in their celebration of the Mass.  They had one guitar player, but many songs were sung a cappella.  The homily is the one part where if you don't know the language you have no idea of what is being discussed.  During the sermon, the priest kept asking the congregation questions or asking them to repeat things.  At one point, he had them saying the same thing multiple times - louder and louder - and then he must have asked them to repeat it to each other.  The woman seated next to me turned to me and said something.  It was clear I had no idea what she was saying.  She and the woman behind her discussed the problem and then translated.  Everyone was supposed to say "I am a child of God" and then "We are children of God." After that, everyone around us used English when giving the "Peace of Christ" and other community responses.  At the end of Mass, everyone streamed forward to give homage to the baby Jesus.

Statue of Baby Jesus

Following that Mass, we walked through Old San Juan and over to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.  Everywhere were displays of the three Kings - from simple window clings to elaborate statues.  Even City Hall had a large exhibit on the upper balcony. The City Hall display was unique in that the Kings brought music instead of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Three Kings at City Hall

When we arrived at St. John's Mass was going on with the main doors wide open to the street, so even those passing by could hear and see.  At the end of that Mass, three men in king costumes carried up the traditional gifts to the altar.