Baltic Ports- Which ones to DI vs organized tour?

I have an upcoming cruise in May to the following Baltic ports:

Warnemunde(Berlin)

Tallinn in Estonia

St Petersburg in Russia

Helsinki in Finland

Stockholm in Sweden.

Out of those ports, which ones would you recommend to use a tour guide or shore excursion vs DIY? I already know that I can't see St Petersburg by myself because of the visa issue, but I'd also like some feedback on those other places.

A couple of years ago, I went on my first cruise to the Mediterranean and I was able to do all that stuff by myself except for Marseilles and Ephesus.

But, this time, I might not have as much time to research the cruise ports because I probably have to deal with a entitled, psychopath tenant.

Yikes :eek:...Darn those tenants !!!

I would DIY all those ports of course except St Petersburg....There we used TJ Travel...amazing.

Enjoy !!

Yes, St Petersburg - either ship's tours or a pre-booked tour with one of the highly recommended local operators which all offer visa-free tours. Alla Tours as we used, TJ Travel as Ashland used, or SPB, Best Guides, DenRus, Red Oktober, etc as others have used.

And Berlin if you opt for the long distance from Warnemunde, because of the time & distance issues - though there are plenty of more-local options from Warnemunde.

The others are easy to DIY using ho-ho boats or buses, or shanks's.

JB :)

We will also be cruising the Baltics in May

There are excellent resources for these ports both in this Ports of Call forum on CC and on the web. These are easy ports for the independent cruiser!

For Warnemunde, check out TravelAnni in this forum or go directly to her excellent webpage where she describes in detail the sites in the area and how to get to them. We are opting to use her plan for Scherwin on our cruise.

Travelanni.webs.com

Search this forum for a very walkable pdf for Tallinn self guided tour

For Helsinki and Stockholm we are using the self guided tours from Rick Steves Northern Europe cruise port book.

You don't mention Copenhagen, but there is a frequent cruiser who has ports guide PDFs for around the world which we have used on past cruises. He has a interesting one for Copenhagen. Tomsportguides dot com

http://www.tomsportguides.com/Copenhagen-09-30-2012.pdf

We are doing Baltics in July. Planning DIY everywhere but St. Petersburg and Berlin.

The only place we used a tour was in SPB and booked with Alla. We had a great day in Stockholm riding the local buses, tram and ferries. Took the bus to the Vasa Museum.

I know there are free walking tours in Tallin as there are in many European cities these days. The internet is your friend.

I have an upcoming cruise in May to the following Baltic ports:

 

Warnemunde(Berlin)

Tallinn in Estonia

St Petersburg in Russia

Helsinki in Finland

Stockholm in Sweden.

 

Out of those ports, which ones would you recommend to use a tour guide or shore excursion vs DIY? I already know that I can't see St Petersburg by myself because of the visa issue, but I'd also like some feedback on those other places.

 

A couple of years ago, I went on my first cruise to the Mediterranean and I was able to do all that stuff by myself except for Marseilles and Ephesus.

 

But, this time, I might not have as much time to research the cruise ports because I probably have to deal with a entitled, psychopath tenant.

Tallinn is without a doubt a DIY port. We booked a private tour with TJ Travel in St Petersburg and it was nothing short of amazing. We had a tour guide and driver to ourselves for two days. It was just the best experience. We did ship excursions for both Helsinki and Stockholm as we wanted to squeeze in some far off sightseeing, I do really think Stockholm could be easily done as DIY though.

I did a review of our Baltic cruise if you are interested, here is a link:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2095403

We were able to easily DIY all those ports with our 3 year old son. In St. Petersburg, we were very glad to have a tour and probably would have chosen a tour even if we hadn't been forced to by the visa requirements (if certainly is possible to DIY if you get the visa, but the traffic is challenging and transport to Catherine's Palace is a bit difficult to DIY).

If you are planning to go all the way to Berlin, you may want to consider joining a tour. Otherwise, the German public transport and trains are outstanding, and any of the local options travelanni describes can be easily DIY.

I have an upcoming cruise in May to the following Baltic ports:

 

Warnemunde(Berlin)

Tallinn in Estonia

St Petersburg in Russia

Helsinki in Finland

Stockholm in Sweden.

 

Out of those ports, which ones would you recommend to use a tour guide or shore excursion vs DIY? I already know that I can't see St Petersburg by myself because of the visa issue, but I'd also like some feedback on those other places.

 

A couple of years ago, I went on my first cruise to the Mediterranean and I was able to do all that stuff by myself except for Marseilles and Ephesus.

 

But, this time, I might not have as much time to research the cruise ports because I probably have to deal with a entitled, psychopath tenant.

As has been said many times over, if you are mobile and have no problems walking, all the ports are EASY to DIY. Just on this site alone, you have info on most of the ports you will visit. We have very nice people who live in these wonderful cities who go out of their way every day to give detailed info on how to best see their city. Any questions are answered ASAP, and in detail.

I always have told people asking the same questions you have asked, to Google each city, find their tourist office and email them, asking for any and all info they can send you. We did this for several of the ports, in Copenhagen we received just great maps, a terrific walking tour, same for Helsinki. For Tallinn, there are people who will send you a detailed walking tour that most of us have used. Just look for the thread and read it to find out how to get this tour.

As you know, in St Petersburg, you need a tour to gain access to the city. As the other did, we used SPB Tours and loved them. Each tour company has it's good points, so you should contact several of them and see which one you feel most comfortable with. No one can tell you which one to sue as we all loved the particular one we used. They all do a great job.

Cheers

Len

Easy DIY:

Talinn

Helsinki

Suggest Guided Tour:

Berlin

Mandatory (almost) Guided Tour:

St-Petersburg.

Stolkholm = No Comment, never been.

We booked a combined Tour for Berlin & St-P with Alla Tour. They were EXCELLENT.

Only paid once we did St-P.

:)