Baltic sailing with 3 and 6 year old

Hello,

We will be doing a Baltic cruise with a 3 and 6 year old.

We just did the Med and the kids loved it, but mainly for the kids club.

We never left them for a full port day on the ship (only a couple hours max, since we spent the morning on shore with them and the afternoon raced through the main sights again without them - port permitting), but with the Baltic being such a port intensive great itinerary, we have a tough time deciding when to leave them on the ship (knowing they will have more fun there) and when to take them off (since we still want them to be part of everything and get to know diff places as well). Well, the 3 year old might not care so much , but the older one is very interested already and has been in the past as well. But our 3 year old would never stay in the kids club alone and we would also not feel comfortable doing that.

We have done a ton of hop on hop off tours with the kids in Europe, since it is so easy and whenever they got enough of the tour, we would just hop off and do some kid friendly stuff for a while before hoping on the next bus.

Which cities can you recommend doing that?

In St Petersburg we would love to really do a 1 or 2 days tour (we overnight there) and might have to bite the bullet and pay for a private tour (OUCH) either with (slower pace) or without the kids (fast tour). St Petersburg was the big selling point for us to book the cruise and we kinda feel, we would much rather do a full day private tour alone (leave the kids in the kids club) and then take the kids in the city the next day. I know the visa is an issue... any advise on what kid friendly tour (and not expensive) to book for St. Petersburg?

We will also stop in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Tallinn, Warnemuende (no we would not go to Berlin, since we have been there with the kids before), Stockholm, Helsinki.

Are these cities we could just wander around, take a hop on hop off tour or need to book a family friendly tour?

Looking forward to any feedback we can get.

Greatly appreciated!!!!

First, you need to get a copy of Rick Steves' Northern Europe Cruise Ports. He will tell you what there is to do in the ports, and how much you can expect to do in the time you have. Also how to do much of it on your own. In Stockholm, be sure to visit the Vasa Museum, Sweden's 'Titanic'. Very impressive and great for kids. Join the roll call for your cruise and see what others are doing. Go to the Ports of Call boards here and see what can be arranged in St. P. There are many tour agencies that arrange private tours, and they could arrange one that is kid friendly if you tell them what you want to see/do. You might also find someone on your roll call with young children that would be interested in joining with you. EM

For Warnemuende take a look at the steam train excursion and read up on it in the Europe section of theses boards where you´ll find a diy description.

Warnemünde is a nice seaside town and you can also go into Rostock using public transportation. I´d say it´s a family port if you are not heading for Berlin.

Presumably you know that, even if you are doing a private tour of St Petersburg the first day, you would still all need individual visas for the second day if you were going round the city on your own. I think you'll find most people on this forum will advise you to stick with the tours. You say 'not expensive', but I think you will have to accept that all St Petersburg tours are pretty expensive. It's one place where you're not going to find a cheap tour but it's worth it for the experience.

You'll find Tallinn is very easy to go round on your own and I think your kids would like it. The old town is really quaint.

We took our 3 year old on a Baltic cruise last August, and he loved all of the ports. It was very easy to DIY in Copenhagen, Tallinn, Warnemuende (no Berlin for us either), Stockholm and Helsinki. Our ship did not stop at Aarhus.

Assuming your boat docks directly in Stockholm, it is a very easy port to DIY with a ton of child friendly options. Please note that my signature below includes a review of my cruise, with a lot of descriptions of child friendly excursions in all of the cities we visited.

We did choose a private 2 day tour in St. Petersburg, and my son particularly loved running through the fountains at Peterhof (bring a change of clothes if if is a cold day), the subway ride, the canal boat ride, lunch at Stolle's and Catherine's Palace. We did not use them, but on the Baltic board families seem quite happy with Best Guides, and if you chose a group tour you might want to look into their family itineraries and research their reviews: http://www.bestguides-spb.com/children-page.html . You know your children best, but for us a private tour was necessary with a 3 year old since there were times he needed a break and we could immediately stop for food, and we could easily skip through the lesser sites at some of the attractions (for example, the middle rooms in Catherine's Palace aren't the highlight and its good to go through these rooms quickly with a young child.) We also customized a comfort tour and paid extra for the subway and canal boat tour since we really thought our son would love them.

thanks for all the great feedback!!