Princess cruises - "baltic heritage" cruise.

My wife and i will be doing this Cruise next July (2018). As we have never been to these areas and are finding ourselves totally bamboozled by the available Ship Tours, we would greatly appreciate some advice from anyone who has completed this Cruise with Princess recently. What Princess Ship Tours are highly recommended? What are must see Sights? What Ports can/should we do on our own (with ease)? The Port Of Calls are:

1 - Southampton, England.

2 - Brussels, Belgium.

3 - Copenhagen, Denmark.

4 - Stockholm, Sweden.

5 - Tallinn - Estonia.

6 - St. Petersburg, Russia.

7 - Helsinki, Finland.

8 - Berlin (Warnemunde), Germany.

you should definitely check out your roll call and the ports of call section of the forums for those ports.

i also like the lonely planet website, they also make tour books. if you have aaa, they also have resources that are helpful.

What Princess Ship Tours are highly recommended? What are must see Sights? What Ports can/should we do on our own (with ease)? The Port Of Calls are:

6 - St. Petersburg, Russia.

When you go to your roll call and the ports of call section of Cruise Critic as posters above suggested, you will see recommendation for independent tour operators such as Red October, SPB, Alla and others.

St. Petersburg is not a port that you can easily do on your own (visa requirements, language difficulties, etc.) These independent companies will give you a better experience with more sights and at a significantly lower cost that the ship's tours and they will take care of any visa entry requirements.

I did the Baltic Heritage cruise in June this year. You can read my review in my signature to see what we did but in brief :

Bruges - we shared a pre-booked taxi with three other couples that took us to the main square (a half hour taxi ride each way) where we spent about six hours doing our own thing. Cost was 25 euros per couple and was organised by one couple through our roll call. Very easy to DIY once you are in the city.

Copenhagen - we spent seven hours walking around Copenhagen. We saw the Little Mermaid, Amalienburg Palace, the Changing of the Guard, the Marble Church, the Round Tower, the Botanical Gardens, the Kastellet, Nyhavn and Rosenberg Castle plus lots of the city.

Stockholm - we walked (about 25 minutes) to the old area of Gamla Stan and walked around seeing various churches, the Royal Palace, the Changing of the Guard, Parliament House and the old city. The sail in and out of Stockholm is very beautiful.

Tallinn - is very easy to DIY if you don't have any mobility issues. It is an easy 20 minute walk to the old town and a bit of an uphill walk up to Toompea Hill. There are cobblestones. A very pretty town with lookouts over the old town, churches, lovely old buildings and places to shop and eat. One of our favourite ports.

St Petersburg - we did a two day tour with TJ Travel. It was excellent value, they organised our visas and we were amazed at how much we got to see. Was a highlight of the cruise. Highly recommend TJ Travel.

Helsinki - we got the shuttle to the city centre (cost 10 euros each for return ticket) as it was raining and didn't want to walk. Wandered around and saw the Cathedral and Covered Market Hall but not a lot more due to the rain.

Berlin - we did not go to Berlin as our cruise went to Gdansk.

Most of the ports are easy to do on your own but it depends on your interests and whether you prefer to walk or use public transport or to take a taxi or a tour. This was one of our favourite cruises. Hope you have a great cruise.

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We've done the Baltic cruise twice (2014 and 2017) so the best advice I can give you is avoid the Princess excursions for St Petersburg. They are an absolute rip off.

Try Alla Tours or SPB Tours. Many on here will recommend them too. Just DON'T use Princess.

Although ship's excursions are often quite expensive, many people find them worth the cost due to the 'comfort' of knowing the ship won't leave without you and will handle all the details, especially someplace like St. Petersburg. We usually DIY if we can, but we have often taken ship's excursions also. I can't comment specifically on Princess for the Baltics as that was our one adventure on MSC. However, the excursions we took with them (though expensive) were very well done.

I agree with the recommendation for the private tours in St. Petersburg.

SPB is one port that is very difficult to do on your own. First, you will have to get a visa. That is possible, but not fun. Princess and most private tour companies will supply a visa waiver eliminating the need for you to go thru the visa process.

Second, Language is a problem. Few people speak English.

My wife and i will be doing this Cruise next July (2018). As we have never been to these areas and are finding ourselves totally bamboozled by the available Ship Tours, we would greatly appreciate some advice from anyone who has completed this Cruise with Princess recently. What Princess Ship Tours are highly recommended? What are must see Sights? What Ports can/should we do on our own (with ease)? The Port Of Calls are:

1 - Southampton, England.

2 - Brussels, Belgium.

3 - Copenhagen, Denmark.

4 - Stockholm, Sweden.

5 - Tallinn - Estonia.

6 - St. Petersburg, Russia.

7 - Helsinki, Finland.

8 - Berlin (Warnemunde), Germany.

You should join the roll call for this cruise. The site is shown below. PurpleTraveller has offered some excellent information. We have been to all these ports, here is our take.

Bruges: Via the roll call see if you can organize a private transfer to Bruges' center square. It is easy to walk around the area. Canal boat tours are right there if you wish to take a cruise.

Copenhagen - A very walkable city. You may wish to take a cab from the pier to Nyhaven. At Nyhaven you can take a canal ride. Close by is the Royal Palace where you may see the parade of the changing of the guard. There are pedestrian streets that you can walk over to Tivoli area. There are lots of nice cafes.

Stockholm - It is good to know where the ship will dock, in Stockholm or at Nynashamm. If it is Nynashamm you will be about 1 hour from Stockholm center. The Old City, Gamla Stan, is a good place to see.

Tallinn - We booked a private walking tour with SPB Tours. This is a nice old city and it is close to the pier.

ST Petersburgh 2 day. Suggest you join with others on your roll call and book a private 2 day tour. SPB and Alla are two known tour companies. The cost and tour size is less then the Princess tours.

Helsinki - We took the shuttle from the pier to the market square area. It is nice there.

Berlin (Warnemunde) - Berlin is a 3 hour train ride each way. We chose not to do this. We took a shorter walking tour with SPB tours of Warnemunde and Rostock. It was nice. It is important to know which dock. We docked right by downtown Warnemunde, but some ships dock across the harbor.

London/Southampton - In June 2016 we sailed from Southampton. As we had been to London a few times before we went directly from Heathrow there. We arrived a few days early and booked a private transfer with Smiths for Airports. It is an easy town to walk around. If you have not been to London would recommend you spend a few days pre or post cruise there.

Hope this helps.

Here is your roll call

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2466528

We took a similar cruise on Princess two years ago and LOVED it! We used Alla Tours for Berlin and SPB and were extremely satisfied! We toured Helsinki, Tallin and Stockholm on our own. Copenhagen is a lovely city. We sailed from there, so we had two days in the city.

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We did this cruise in July 2017. Many of the stops will be easy to do on your own. We spent 4 days in London before the cruise. The day of the cruise we took Princess transport down to Southampton. We purchased the rick Steves book on Baltic cruises. It was very helpful.

Belgium - We took Princess transport to Bruges planned our day based on what we like. Our time there was on our own.

Copenhagen - Walked off the ship we docked very close to town. We followed Rick Steves walking tour.

Stockholm - We took the Hop On Hop Off bus.

Tallin - We walked from the ship into old town spent the day enjoying everything old town offered.

St Petersburg - Here we decided to take the ships tours. While you may not get to see everything we felt they were a good value.

Helsinki - Hop On Hop Off bus

We did not stop in Germany instead we went to Poland. We really enjoy walking but if you have mobility problems this probably would not work well. We enjoy taking our time stopping to enjoy lunch not having to kept up with the group. In Stockholm & Helsinki the Hop On Hop Off bus you can board right at the ship. Just be careful of your time getting back to the ship. We only had enough time to make 2 stops and get back to the ship before the ship left. It did give us a great over view of both cities.

We also did this cruise in July. I recommend consulting the Ports of Call boards, especially to learn about experiences with various private tour companies. The only port for which we used a formal packaged tour was Saint-Petersburg: we did the SPB 2-day Deluxe Tour which was intense, but fantastic and great value compared to what was offered by Princess. Both SPB and Alla, another highly rated company, offer discounts to Cruise Critic members/groups: check your Roll Call to see if someone has already formed a group. We also used the Princess transport to Gdansk with exploration on our own, because of the distance involved and the relatively short time in port. The distance/timing factor would definitely come into play if you plan to go to Berlin from Warmemunde- not sure I would rely on public transsport although you can read about people taking the train.

When planning for the other ports, I started off by reading the descriptions of the Princess tours to see what they prioritized, then I read the pertinent chapters in the Rick Steves book, augmented by information on the Web from the different cities' tourist bureaux. Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki are quite big cities and you have to make choices because you can't see all of them in one day. They are also very walkable, have great (but not cheap) public transit and bike-share systems.

We thoroughly enjoyed this cruise, including the days at sea, the ones at the beginning giving us time to finalize our preparations for the ports later on, and the ones at the end giving us a chance to rest and relax on the way back to Southampton.

I would also agree with the suggestion of adding some time at the beginning or end to spend in London, or elsewhere in the UK. We flew in on the morning of the embarkation day and took the National Express bus from Heathrow to Southampton (long but inexpensive and pretty painless), but stayed for an additional week in England at the end of the cruise (we called it the "vacation from our vacation"). Enjoy your planning!

We did this cruise in July, 2017. We used SPB tours for all excursions except in Bruges. We were very pleased with SPB. In Bruges we used a Princess tour for "Flanders Field". This tour was also excellent including a visit to the museum in Ypres, as well as a cemetery and a visit to Bruges.

My wife and i will be doing this Cruise next July (2018). As we have never been to these areas and are finding ourselves totally bamboozled by the available Ship Tours, we would greatly appreciate some advice from anyone who has completed this Cruise with Princess recently. What Princess Ship Tours are highly recommended? What are must see Sights? What Ports can/should we do on our own (with ease)? The Port Of Calls are:

1 - Southampton, England.

2 - Brussels, Belgium.

3 - Copenhagen, Denmark.

4 - Stockholm, Sweden.

5 - Tallinn - Estonia.

6 - St. Petersburg, Russia.

7 - Helsinki, Finland.

8 - Berlin (Warnemunde), Germany.

We just did the similar Baltic route of Copenhagen, Oslo, Berlin (Rostock), Tallin, St. Petersburg overnight, Helsinki, and Stockholm (Nynasham). For our time in Copenhagen pre-cruise we did the Grand Day Trip around Copenhagen with Hamlet Tours. Fun day touring castles and a cathedral.

Stockholm (we docked at Nynasham but got to use the retractable dock) and took the Princess tour of the city drive and Vasa museum. Museum itself was nice and super crowded as there were at least 8-10 tour buses alone there at the same time. Guide was horrible though - at several points she'd give us a time to meet back up at the museum gift shop so we could look around on our own but then yell at several of us when we tried to step away from the group to do our own exploring. At one point we just hung back against a wall by where she was lecturing and she reprimanded us for "not being close enough." Bus provided had a narrow set of stairs forcing you to climb to the top to get a seat so a few disabled passengers didn't even feel safe enough to go into the museum for fear they'd not be able to climb back up the stairs. Spent the whole city tour unable to see out one side of the bus but our guide didn't care when we pointed out the dirty obscured windows.

Tallin - by the time we got to Tallin and realized the Princess tour we'd booked required 90% walking and a couple hundred steps we were exhausted and canceled those plans. Instead we walked off the ship exploring the port area and walked up to the old town to walk around before devoting the rest of the day to relaxing.

St. Petersburg - for the first day we did the Princess tour to Moscow - super long day compounded by an extra hour delay at the end when a crew member who'd gotten permission to join our excursion fell ill from the combination of working the overnight shift, being on this tour in overheated museums since 6:15AM, and having had alcohol with her dinner on the train ride back. The train slowed down until they knew she'd be okay and we didn't get back to the ship until 1AM. The tour itself is definitely a once in a lifetime experience though! We saw St. Basil's Cathedral, walked into Red Square, toured Gum mall, given time to explore, a hotel for tea time, a square with a bunch of churches including one we got to go into and then lastly into the Kremlin where our guide covered every exhibit including the Faberge eggs in the Armory.

2nd day in St. Petersburg, we booked the afternoon Princess tour to the Hermitage. Two younger female guides spent our "city tour" portion of the ride into town trying to figure out the headsets and making frantic calls to someone on their cell phones so we never got any commentary. They split up our bus so each guide only had about 15 passengers to lead around the Hermitage but our guide, despite being super on top of moving people along and keeping things on time, let all that fly out the window when we got to the gold room because she didn't want to have to tell our gold room expert that we needed to cut her presentation short. Even the guards kept popping in and checking to see if we were still there. The other half of our bus who'd been with the other guide had already visited all the same things and been back on the bus for 20 minutes by the time our guide let us leave. Only because we were on a Princess tour, the ship waited for our late return.

Helsinki - if you're looking for something different than the usual church/Viking museum, castle theme I highly recommend Princess' tour of the Fazer Chocolate Visitor Center. It's like 3-d art deco meets Willy Wonka complete with getting to try however many samples you can eat. We each were given a shopping bag of full size product samples as we left. We also grabbed several of our favorite kinds from their gift shop for only around $20 total. Our guide also took us to the Sibelius monument and some square across from the prime minister's office during a quick drive around the city.

Berlin - About a week or so before our cruise, Princess switched our dock to Rostock instead of Warnemunde so we ended up docked right next to the train that went into Berlin. We took the Princess excursion via the train into Berlin and it was also a long day but well worth it. Saw all the expected sights, Berlin Wall remnants, Checkpoint Charlie, Reichstag and more. At the end of the day, we were one of several buses that fought traffic just to get back to the train station so this was another port where the ship waited on us to return on the train.