Some schedule rearranging and invisible excursions for our visit to La Crosse

That which is loved is always beautiful - Norwegian Proverb

Our port visit to La Crosse, Wisconsin was originally scheduled for an arrival of 9:30AM. Early this morning, our Captain had to defer to other river traffic that delayed our arrival. When the announcement was made about the later arrival time, it was also announced that we would have to be leaving the port of La Crosse earlier than planned. We later learned during the evening disembarkation briefing from Cruise Director Tim that Viking had known about the political rally happening in La Crosse today since earlier in the week but they'd only been told today that they would need to either vacate the waterway early or risk being unable to sail away for several hours after our originally planned departure of 5PM. 

Dad and I decided to split up for excursions today. He booked the included option of River Town Discovery, a three hour easy activity level tour. Initially there was a 9:45AM tour and a 1PM tour but due to the time constraints, they lumped everyone onto the morning session. The other included option was La Crosse by Foot which was a two hour moderate activity level tour with a snack offered. When we were getting ready this morning, I was browsing our account section on the cabin's interactive TV system to look up something about today's tour. I discovered that there suddenly was a lot more excursion options showing to choose from for today, including one that Dad would have definitely chosen to do, the Dahl Auto Museum Experience. This extra cost excursion lasts for 3 hours and 15 minutes and is an easy activity level. The description talks about being driven around the town's historic downtown neighborhoods in a classic car before returning to the museum with free time to explore their collection of Ford Motor Company's automobiles. 

Dad ran right down to Guest Services to see if he could switch to this tour but they told him that no one had booked the tour so they didn't arrange any transportation for it. Dad told them about how it wasn't showing pre-cruise to book so he doubted anyone even knew this tour existed. Guest Services claimed that they believed all of these suddenly appearing tour options had been showing to book all along and that no one had been interested in booking. He asked about being able to arrange some sort of transportation now whether it be Viking's own busses, a shuttle, taxi, or rideshare and they refused. Dad took it upon himself to walk up the street next to where we docked and call for his own rideshare to visit the museum. Once there he chatted with the museum manager who revealed that they've offered this tour for a while but Viking keeps telling them no one booked it! He enjoyed the experience on his own and made it back to the ship in time to board the included River Town Discovery tour.

Here are the other tour options that didn't show up until we arrived in port and our TV/app systems updated with the new day's schedule:

The bulk of the other tour options was centered around the Vesterheim Museum in nearby Decorah, Iowa. There were three options to book, all at differing extra costs, that all featured privileged access. The main tour, a moderate activity level lasting 6 1/2 hours, includes lunch. This long tour would cover a bus ride to Decorah, a guided tour of the museum, privileged access to the museum's education center which houses items not available to the public, a tour of the Norwegian Lutheran Bethania Church, and the museum's Heritage Park. The museum charges $12 admission for adults and $10 admission for seniors 65+. This fee was included with our tour charge.

The other two options offered a morning guided museum tour, lunch, and then an afternoon class where you either signed up to make Solje Earrings or completed a Kroting woodworking project. Due to the time constraints, everyone signed up for any of those three tours (the museum one initially had two time slots) now all went at the same time. I appreciated that Viking chose rather than cancel the classes, they instead pulled the small group of us off the bus when we arrived at the museum so we could be escorted straight to the classroom while everyone else did the guided museum tour. In the end, it was also the most financially beneficial to Viking since they didn't have to refund the extra cost ($129 per person) of the crafting tours. Honestly, though I would have been more disappointed in missing the class than the museum tour. I do however, feel that there should have been some sort of discount or refund given that those of us in the class only got half the tour experience. And yes, we did discuss all of the excursion issues thus far mentioned through our Viking surveys and post cruise with Viking over the phone when they called to follow up.

Our Kroting class was a small group of five held in a back workshop style classroom adjacent to the gift shop that connected it to the museum. Our kind teacher was a former elementary school teacher and we had a wonderful chat while working on our projects. Our teacher had pre-painted these wooden round trivets in blue, red, and green colors before sketching out two different Nordic designs with white colored pencil on each color option. We each were given the momentary use of a kit that included an eraser, a small blade knife to clear away any stubborn edges, and the thick handled curved blade known as a kroting tool. She showed us how to safely use the kroting tool and had us practice on scraps of wood before doing anything to the painted trivets. 

This style of crafting requires focus and precision as you have to follow the drawn lines with your kroting tool. The nice thing about working on a smaller piece is that you can move it around to fit the direction of the line you're carving. Using the tool does create a deeper and wider line in the pattern but the contrast it makes seeing the natural wood grain versus the dark painted color makes for a pretty visual. 

Our small group worked so well getting all the lines done in our designs in this shortened class time that our teacher gave us the extra step of painting on a layer of clear coating to seal the wood. We all helped to clean up and enjoyed taking our new creations on a brief few minute tour of the gift shop before it was time to return to the bus. All but one couple from all three tours then boarded the bus to head over to a local restaurant T-Bock's Sports Bar & Grill for an included lunch with a pre-set menu. Thankfully the menu had a variety of options and all was made on the spot so no confusion about who ordered what. The other couple worked it out with the tour guide that they would forgo lunch in order to spend more time at the museum. We picked them up again on the way back from lunch.

I shared a booth with another couple who had done just the museum tour and we had a delightful conversation with our lunch.

The French Dip Au Jus with a chosen side of potato salad:

The homemade vanilla cheesecake with whipped cream and fresh berries that was offered for dessert.

All of the food, service, and dining company were great! This sign in front of a nearby shop made me laugh.

I'm pretty sure several of us fell asleep for the ride back to La Crosse. I commend our Viking bus drivers for maneuvering through the lines of people and parked cars on both sides of the narrow streets there to attend the political rally as they brought us back to the port. We were the last buses to arrive and Viking pulled up the lines as soon as we got back onboard. 

Due to the time constraints, Viking had to cancel a planned talk and performance on the Norwegian Hardanger Fiddle by Eden Ehm scheduled for 4PM. The disembarkation talk was combined with the Daily Briefing about our next day's visit to Red Wing and they made announcements prior alluding to the fact that everyone needed to attend. The Viking Daily describes it as "We encourage one guest from each stateroom to attend" but pushing for everyone to attend made for a hugely crowded Living Room and a lot of annoyed passengers looking for seats. They eventually directed passengers to sitting in the nearby lower level of the Explorer's Lounge and piped in Tim's talk. Probably could have saved a lot more hassle if they'd told everyone about being able to tune in from their cabin TVs since this was the one working live feed location.

We stopped for a surf and turf dinner at the Aquavit Terrace. We ran into Chef Aaron who remembered promising me a club sandwich for lunch back on night 1 of the cruise. We'd only spotted him working at the grill once during the cruise and the grill was too mobbed to bother asking him to make something extra. Most of the time it was only one gentleman working the grill despite the crowd. He told me to come back for our last afternoon on board and he would make it for me. Unfortunately, he was once again not on duty at the grill the next day either.

We finished out our evening with another Big Quiz session with Cruise Director Tim.