Baltic Cruise on Regal Princess

We are sailing on the Regal Princess May 12th to the Baltic. After 40+ cruises this is one area we have not visited and this is the year for it. Since we have not cruised to this area before we are looking for any information that will help with our planning. Some of the things we are pondering include:

1. We are flying into Copenhagen on the 11th and think we will take the Princess transfer to the ship. Can anyone suggest a hotel at the airport that is "reasonable" in price...hopefully one that has a shuttle service to and from the airport.

2. If we were to forego the Princess transfers and stay at a hotel in the city is there one that you would recommend at a reasonable price? Do hotels in the city have shuttle service from the airport or is there a need to take a taxi? Are taxis into the city easy to find and are they reasonable in price?

3. Does anyone know of hotels that are in the vicinity of the cruise ship terminal?

4. What are the pros and cons of booking the St Petersburg tour with Princess versus a private company? Any particular tour that anyone would recommend?

Any other info or tips would really be appreciated.

Thanks:

You may get some good info here, but I suggest you post on the Northern Europe & Baltics board and the Roll Call for your cruise.

My vote would go to Alla Tours. Did a 2 day tour last June with them. Excellent.

There are many good private tours in St Petersburg. You are in a much smaller group and don't spend half your time loading and unloading motor coaches and counting heads. we used kjoy tours last year and had a great time. They were one of the few companies that had adjusted their prices to reflect the drop in the value of the ruble

We took this exact trip in May of 2015. It was truly amazing. I highly recommend staying at the Hotel Bethel. It was in the middle of things and an easy subway ride from the airport. The pictures that we took from our hotel window, much less the street in front of the hotel, are some of our favorites! Taxis to the ship are easy to find. There aren't many hotels near the cruise port. We also highly recommend Alla Tours. We also used them for Berlin. Hope this helps!

We are sailing on the Regal Princess May 12th to the Baltic. After 40+ cruises this is one area we have not visited and this is the year for it. Since we have not cruised to this area before we are looking for any information that will help with our planning. Some of the things we are pondering include:

 

1. We are flying into Copenhagen on the 11th and think we will take the Princess transfer to the ship. Can anyone suggest a hotel at the airport that is "reasonable" in price...hopefully one that has a shuttle service to and from the airport.

 

2. If we were to forego the Princess transfers and stay at a hotel in the city is there one that you would recommend at a reasonable price? Do hotels in the city have shuttle service from the airport or is there a need to take a taxi? Are taxis into the city easy to find and are they reasonable in price?

 

3. Does anyone know of hotels that are in the vicinity of the cruise ship terminal?

 

4. What are the pros and cons of booking the St Petersburg tour with Princess versus a private company? Any particular tour that anyone would recommend?

 

Any other info or tips would really be appreciated.

 

Thanks:

1. We are flying into Copenhagen on the 11th and think we will take the Princess transfer to the ship. Can anyone suggest a hotel at the airport that is "reasonable" in price...hopefully one that has a shuttle service to and from the airport. Try the Hilton Copenhagen Airport...it is connected to the airport as well as the subway system. You can walk across the skybridge from the airport to the hotel. If you have time in Copenhagen, make sure to visit Nyhaven. It is incredible.

2. If we were to forego the Princess transfers and stay at a hotel in the city is there one that you would recommend at a reasonable price? Again, try the Hilton Copenhagen Airport. Do hotels in the city have shuttle service from the airport or is there a need to take a taxi? We took a taxi and it was reasonable, but it was two years ago. Are taxis into the city easy to find and are they reasonable in price? Easy to find. Google Copenhagen Taxi Prices and you will get a sample of price/distance calculation. It is calculated in Danish Krones so you will have to do the currency translation as well.

3. Does anyone know of hotels that are in the vicinity of the cruise ship terminal? Cruise ship terminal is in an industrial area so no hotels near there. We stayed in Nyhaven (which is incredible) and it is a lot closer than the airport to the cruise terminal. We stayed at the Admiral hotel....a little more pricey, but you are in the heart of the action in Copenhagen. It will run you about $289 a night...but then again, so will the Hilton

4. What are the pros and cons of booking the St Petersburg tour with Princess versus a private company? Pros - If you are late, the ship will leave you behind. Traffic can get rough in St Petersburg. Cons - the princess tours cost more. When we were there, we did the full Princess two day tour with the evening events. Also, if you do not use the Princess tours, you will be responsible for obtaining a Russian Visa PRIOR to your visit. If you do not have the Visa, you cannot get off the ship. Any particular tour that anyone would recommend? The Princess two day tour pretty much covers everything.

Any other info or tips would really be appreciated. We normally get all of our cash prior to leaving the states. You will have to get multiple currencies (Euro for Germany, Estonia and Finland, Krone for Denmark, Kroner for Sweeden, Norwegian Krone for Norway, and Ruble for Russia).

Also, fly in a few days early into Copenhagen if you can. It is a really fun city. We have purchased tours on Viator when we were in Copenhagen and were able to see many places. ALso, you can do Copenhagen on your own. Grab a Rick Steves guidebook, and you will find that most of the cool stuff is within walking distance of Nyhaven.

Be prepared to be blown away in St Petersburg.....it is simply an incredible city.

Let me know if you want to know anything else. We did the cruise in August of 2014, and we are doing it again (on the Regal) in August of 2017 with a Princess Land tour on the front end to Budapest, Vienna, Praugue, and Berlin.

The information about the Russian visa above is incorrect. If you book through a privste tour operator, the tour ticket is your visa. You would only need to get a visa on your own if you were planning to explore without a tour. I did a private tour last year and this is how the visa was handled.

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I guess I stand corrected

I did a St. Petersburg tour two years ago with SPB Tours. They, and other Russian tour groups, take care of getting the visas. Your ticket is your visa. SPB is great and they discount their other tours if you are doing the St. Petersburg tour. They also have tours in Tallinn, Helsinki, Berlin, and Stockholm. Their tours are much smaller groups so you don't waste so much time getting everyone on and off the bus.

Also, if you do not use the Princess tours, you will be responsible for obtaining a Russian Visa PRIOR to your visit. If you do not have the Visa, you cannot get off the ship.

Unfortunately, this is the mis-information that Princess tells its passengers. It's completely untrue. You may book with any private tour company and they will obtain the visa for you. There are many reputable tour companies in St. Petersburg, but I would say the 3 most often recommended here (and which are also highly rated on Trip Advisor) are, in alphabetical order, ALLA, SPB and TJ Travel. We did our tour with ALLA and were quite happy with it.

As for accommodations, if you are looking for clean, comfortable and cheap, look no further than the Wakeup Borgergade Hotel not far from Nyhavn. We loved our modern, compact room especially since we only paid a fraction of what other hotels were charging.

And, if you aren't carrying a bunch of luggage, you can get from the airport to your hotel to your ship using public transportation at a fraction of the cost of a taxi. That's how we did it and it worked like a charm.

We found no reason to purchase foreign currency before leaving the U.S. There are ATMs everywhere in the ports you visit and you can easily (and probably more cheaply) obtain your Euros, Danish krone, Swedish kroner, etc. at ATMs. (We found no need for rubles--everywhere we shopped in St. Petersburg accepted U.S. dollars or Euros.)

Also, please note that the Regal sometimes docks directly in Stockholm. You may already be scheduled to dock directly in Stockholm, but last season sometimes the Regal docked directly in the city even though they were scheduled to dock in Nynashamn, which is an hour train ride plus a tender away from Stockholm.

Definitely recommend a non-Princess tour for St.Pete.

It will cost significantly less and you will likely see more.

For example, we used (and highly recommend) Denrus https://www.denrus.ru/

They include a ride in the St Pete subway (not to be missed) which the Princess tour does not include.

The others mentioned in other posts (Alla, RedOctober, SPB) are all good also.

Don't worry about missing the ship on the second day. All of these companies will get you back to the ship on time.

... if you do not use the Princess tours, you will be responsible for obtaining a Russian Visa PRIOR to your visit. If you do not have the Visa, you cannot get off the ship.

Sorry, but the information in the first sentence is simply wrong, although the second sentence is correct under some conditions. The first sentence repeats the information many cruise lines tell their cruisers in an attempt to scare them/bully them into taking the ship's excursions.

Here are the facts: There are two types of non-ship's tours: independent and private.

The first one means a cruiser gets a Russian visa from the nearest Russian consulate and, then, is free to move about the city whenever and wherever he/she wants to go. A small percentage of cruisers take this route and are very happy and proud of their choice.

The far more common choice for cruisers on this board is a private tour using the services of a licensed St Petersburg tour company. This option means a cruiser organizes a small group or joins an existing small group and the licensed tour provider takes care of the legal work to enter St Petersburg.

The tour provider will ask for your name, address, birth date and passport number/dates of validity. The tour provider will process your information with the powers that be and you will be emailed a tour ticket.

This ticket -- along with the original of your passport -- functions as your legal entrance into the country. You've paid nothing beyond the cost of the tour. You've spent no time visiting a consulate or sending your passport to a visa pulling service. The only restriction is that you are not free to wander at will through St. Petersburg. Happily, you're not handcuffed to your tour guide. Some tour guides will let visitors have a bit of independent time shopping. All tour companies will drop ballet goers off at the theater and pick them up at the end of the evening. (If some degree of independence matters to you, be sure to clarify that with your tour provider.)

Most of us think private tours are the perfect solution. Small groups. Flexibility to respond to unexpected weather or other developments. Customized itineraries. No individual visa required. (The tour ticket may not look impressive, but it works. No one has ever posted about being stopped at passport control presenting a valid passport and a tour ticket from a licensed company.)

Finally, private tour companies offer the same reliability the cruise ships trumpet about so loudly. Just look at the number of posters on this board who have taken private tours. Every single one of us returned to our ship in a timely way. No one was stranded in St. Petersburg. If that ever happened, that news would be all over Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor.

Although we always have an amount of Euros at home, I don't think we used any cash at all on our Baltic cruise. Everywhere took CC and we have a couple with no foreign transaction charges.

We also did our excursions in SPB with Alla Tours who were excellent.

We took this exact trip in May of 2015. It was truly amazing.

Posting on the off-chance that you're still around on Cruisecritic. Did you go out for an evening tour in St Petersburg or not? If you stayed on board, was there a Russian show on the ship?

We have been thinking of booking a folkloric show. However, when we cruised the Med, we spent a lot of money in Istanbul to go on a tour to a bellydance show (where we had a terrible seat and awful food). When we got back to the ship, we discovered they'd had a bellydance show on the ship! So we could've saved our money and probably had a better show. I'm worried about making the same mistake in St Petersburg.

We did not do an evening tour and I don't think there was a Russian show in the ship. Both days were full with touring.

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When we were in Vladivostok Princess had a folk loric show in the evening. I believe if they do it in Vlad they will do it in St Pete.

Also Princess now offers a tour which includes a subway ride as part of a general tour in St Petersburg. We have booked this for June, so will find out how good it is then.

Because the two day tours offered by both Princess and the other operators are so intensive, we have booked two tours on each of the two days (four in total). I generally wear myself out on shore days feeling I have to see everything so I have been kinder to myself and chosen wisely, I hope, to give myself a good look at Spb without everything being a blur. Will have to wait to see how this works, fingers crossed.