It simply may be probably the most lovely practice trip on the earth.
For the previous 4 hours, I’ve been watching, mesmerized, as one stunningly scenic tableau after one other fills the image window subsequent to my seat on the Bergensbanen — the famed teal-colored practice that winds by means of the mountains of Norway.
Crystal-clear mountain lakes fringed with evergreens, picture-perfect villages, snowcapped mountains — it is the whole lot that I all the time imagined the inside of Norway to be. Together with, now, sweeping glaciers.
We’re simply passing the snowy excessive level of the seven-hour journey between Oslo and Bergen, the Hardangervidda plateau — a wintry wonderland so pristine that George Lucas selected it as a stand-in for the ice planet Hoth in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Again.”
It’s, arms down, the spotlight of a five-day go to to Norway that’s taking me from one aspect of the nation to the opposite.
A spotlight that comes with a twist: I did not get right here through a reservation with the practice firm. Or a practice tour firm. Or, certainly, even a land tour reserving service of any sort.
I’m right here due to Viking, the fast-growing cruise firm.
This practice trip, together with nearly each different aspect of my go to to Norway, from my pickup on the airport in Oslo to lodge stays, guided excursions and museum admissions in every metropolis I’m visiting, was organized by Viking as a part of a multiday precruise land tour.
Viking, it seems, is not simply one of many fastest-growing cruise traces on the earth. It is a rising land tour firm, too.
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With an ever-increasing array of multiday land excursions and lodge stays designed to be seamlessly added on to one in every of its cruise itineraries, the road is making it simpler than ever for cruise-loving vacationers to custom-design the proper prolonged trip — all whereas solely coping with a single firm that arranges the whole lot from begin to end.
Greater than 100 precruise and postcruise choices
Viking is not the one cruise line to supply precruise and postcruise land excursions and lodge stays, in fact. Providing what Viking calls cruise “extensions” is a standard apply within the business. However as Viking has grown larger lately, it has developed an unusually big selection of such journeys that may be tacked on to the overwhelming majority of its voyages.
For 2025, Viking is providing 147 of those extensions, up from 91 simply six years in the past.
Within the case of my journey, as an illustration, there have been 4 precruise extensions and 4 postcruise extensions obtainable so as to add on to the core cruise that I had booked — a 14-night “British Isles Explorer” crusing from Bergen to London that included stops at practically a dozen ports alongside the coasts of Scotland, Eire, Wales and England.
The precruise extensions included the whole lot from a brief two-night lodge keep in Bergen paired with a pickup on the airport — good for somebody who simply needed to reach on the departure port somewhat early to acclimatize — to the four-night “Better of Norway & Scenic Prepare” tour that I added to my crusing. The latter provided a full cross-Norway tour expertise with a two-night lodge keep and guided tour in Oslo, the practice journey over the mountains, and a two-night lodge keep and guided tour in Bergen.
Among the many different precruise choices that I might have picked was a three-night lodge stick with guided excursions in Iceland — an add-on that lets North American passengers like me break up their transit to Norway with a cease in that nation.
Amongst postcruise extensions obtainable, the choices had been equally various, starting from a two-night lodge keep in London with out excursions to a five-night “Churchill’s Britain” add-on that introduced in depth touring.
The latter was one I’d have liked to do — if solely I had the additional days free. The historical past lover in me was desperate to see the numerous iconic and typically hard-to-get-into websites that Viking had lined up for a go to, together with Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill’s birthplace and the present dwelling of the twelfth Duke of Marlborough and his household; Chartwell, the place Churchill lived a lot of his life; and Bletchley Park, dwelling of the World Warfare II code breakers.
The big variety of choices meant that I might have created a Viking-organized trip round my cruise that ranged wherever from 16 nights (with a single two-night lodge extension) to 23 nights (if I signed on for each of the longest precruise and postcruise excursions).
Such flexibility is among the large appeals of the extensions.
Amongst basic Viking itineraries that supply an identical array of no less than eight precruise and postcruise extensions are the model’s seven-night “Romantic Danube” river cruises, the place add-on choices embrace a two-night precruise keep in Budapest, a four-night precruise go to to Croatia and Slovenia, and a three-night postcruise keep in Prague (with or with out included touring).
Some sailings, furthermore, embrace actually epic extensions, reminiscent of a five-night tour of the Galapagos that may be added on to Viking sailings in South America.
Amongst Viking’s most uncommon extensions, the model affords a four-night tour of websites in England tied to the invention of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb that may be added to its Nile river cruises in Egypt. The tour contains particular entry to Tutankhamen-related archives and displays within the U.Okay. not usually accessible to the general public. These embrace a not-normally-open personal assortment of Egyptian objects at Highclere Citadel, which was the house of the earl who supported Egyptologist Howard Carter’s efforts to search out Tutankhamen’s tomb (and can also be recognized as we speak as the placement for the filming of “Downton Abbey”).
The latter tour is designed to happen simply earlier than a Nile crusing and ends with a flight to Egypt.
A seamless expertise
As I noticed throughout my journey, reserving a precruise or postcruise extension with Viking, or one in every of every, takes away quite a lot of the ache factors of arranging a visit round a cruise.
One of many issues that cruise followers love about touring by cruise ship is that it makes journey straightforward — no less than for the particular days of the crusing. The ship not solely offers you with a spot to remain whilst you’re touring but additionally your entire meals and leisure. It additionally serves as transportation for you and your baggage to maneuver between locations in your itinerary, and it affords guided excursions in every single place you go (at some traces, reminiscent of Viking, some excursions even are included within the fare).
That stated, the everyday cruise reserving would not embrace the entire little (and typically large) issues that you simply may want or need to add to your journey within the days main as much as stepping on board a vessel — or simply after you disembark.
Do you need to keep a few nights in your embarkation port earlier than your cruise to get to comprehend it higher, or simply to regulate to the time zone of the area if it’s miles from dwelling? Do you need to add guided excursions in that port or different close by locations? Do you want transfers out of your arrival airport to your lodge?
What about recommendation from a neighborhood on native eating places or store hours or points of interest?
With its precruise and postcruise extensions, Viking affords to maintain all of this.
My “Better of Norway & Scenic Prepare” extension included a pickup on the Oslo airport by a Viking consultant for a fast drive to the included lodge, the Clarion Resort The Hub — clearly strategically picked by Viking for its central location (which couldn’t have been higher; we had been simply steps away from Oslo’s fundamental purchasing road and strolling distance to all its fundamental points of interest).
As soon as there, Viking representatives had been ready at a devoted Viking hospitality desk with my room keys — no must even strategy the entrance desk to test in. I used to be up in my room inside minutes.
These identical Viking representatives, all locals, remained available on the desk all through every of the times that I used to be there to supply recommendation on issues to do on the town — that’s, once they weren’t main us on the included excursions that had been a part of the package deal.
Additionally they personally escorted us on foot to the practice station (which was only a block away) on the finish of our Oslo keep for the Bergensbanen practice journey throughout the mountains to Bergen and even stayed on board with us for the complete journey to verify we made it to our subsequent set of Viking guides within the vacation spot metropolis.
On the Bergen practice station, these guides and a few buses had been ready to whisk us to our Bergen lodge, the Resort Norge by Scandic — additionally completely positioned within the coronary heart of the town.
In brief, it was a seamless expertise — one the place we actually did not should do something besides present as much as get pleasure from our time.
The fee
Viking’s precruise and postcruise extensions aren’t cheap. The four-night “Better of Norway & Scenic Prepare” tour that I added to my “British Isles Explorer” cruise prices $1,999 per particular person — or about $500 per night time. The 2-night Bergen lodge add-on prices $899 per particular person — about $450 per night time.
The three-night “Iceland & The Golden Circle” precruise tour prices $3,099 per particular person — a whopping $1,033 per night time.
That stated, the fares for these extensions typically embrace fairly a number of components, together with a lodge room, some meals, excursions and transfers. In some circumstances, such because the Iceland tour famous above, the fares additionally embrace flights — within the case of the Iceland tour, a flight from Reykjavik, the place the tour ends, to the place to begin of the cruise in Bergen.
The fee to guide all of those components individually can add up, too.
Whether or not or not you could find a inexpensive approach to have the identical tour expertise by reserving all the weather by yourself will rely upon a number of components, together with how savvy you’re about making lodge, tour, restaurant and switch bookings by yourself.
Nonetheless, the true worth in reserving one in every of these excursions by means of Viking is the way in which it makes each the reserving course of and the expertise of touring straightforward.
With only one name to Viking, or a number of clicks on-line, you’ll be able to organize nearly each little element of your cruise trip — not simply the cruise itself however the whole lot you do on the journey earlier than and after you board your vessel — with the best of ease.
When you’re in your approach to your trip vacation spot, you hardly should do something.
For a sure sort of traveler, together with me, that is one thing for which it is price paying.
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