Baltics Cruise with P&O Aurora

Hi

I am completely new to this so please be gentle with me:)

We have booked a cruise on the Aurora [p&O] on the 14th July. We are off to the Baltics and cant wait to get going and start relaxing and exploring.

We are sailing from Southampton.

I just wondered if there was anyone out there who might be able to give us some tips on what to expect on this cruise.

Maybe someone who has cruised the Baltics before or someone who has sailed on the Aurora, or indeed someone who might be sailing on the same ship at the same time as us.

This is our second cruise so we know a little bit about cruising, although probably not a lot compared to some of you who have been doing this for some time.

Any advice will be very welcome.

We went on a Med cruise last year for 14 days and loved it so it is the turn of the Baltics this year.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to anyone who wishes to reply.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. This is a varied forum, but it may be daunting, just looking over the first page! A little further down the boards page you will find forums for the cruise lines. You might be forgiven for thinking these will take you to the cruise line websites, but really they are boards where people ask questions about the ships and share experiences.

Further down the page in a section called ROLL CALLS. this is where people on the same cruise share their planning, etc. Go to ROLL CALLS, select P&O-UK, then Aurora, and look for a thread with the dates for your sailing. EM

Hi, and welcome to Cruise Critic,

Had an excellent Baltic cruise on Aurora a couple of years back.

Aurora is "my" size & design of ship. About 2000 passengers, and a classic cruise ship design with tiered decks at the stern rather than the trend of later ships to have a tall & blunt stern to cram in as many balcony cabins as possible. Do their bums look big in this? Yes :D

Décor on Aurora is quite bland, same as other P&O ships and less-glitzy than American ships.

Two pools on the top deck, one open-air and the other with a sliding roof. If you find the top deck too hectic, the stern pool and the tiered decks which overlook it are much quieter.

Quite good entertainment.

There are no all-you-can-drink packages other than mebbe for soft drinks and speciality coffees. Do check out the discounts on wine packages, though we found the house wine (we only drink red) very drinkable. If you don't finish a bottle at dinner you can take it around the ship with you, or the wine waiter will store it & put it on your table next evening.

Wine and bar prices are lower than US ships, about the same as provincial pubs, and no service charge.

P&O's policy on taking aboard your own alcohol to drink in the cabin is different to most cruise lines. You can take aboard any quantity of any alcohol at both your embarkation port and ports-of-call - P&O have the right to deny you this privilege, but they only do so if a passenger is clearly bent on having a booze-cruise and that won't happen on a Baltic cruise.

On P&O we usually take aboard a few bottles of wine. Plus a bottle of Pimms and of lemonade, and with assorted fruit salad (though sadly no mint) from the buffet we make our own Pimms for the occasional quiet evening on our balcony - though any time is Pimms-o'clock. ;)

Choice & quality of food in the buffet is errrr ..... adequate..... but much better in the main dining room. I suggest you use the buffet for snacks and for quick breakfasts on port days, and the main dining room for dinner and mebbe for a relaxed & civilised breakfast & lunch on sea days. Menu choices are a mix of international dishes and British pub favourites like pies, curries and fish'n'chips..

Unless things have changed, there's no "anytime" option for dinner in the main dining room, everyone is allocated the same dining table, table-mates and 1st or 2nd sitting for the entire cruise. If you didn't have traditional dining on your other cruise, you'll find it a good chance to make friends for the cruise, and possibly go ashore mob-handed to explore the ports or at least swap stories about your day in port. If you're on one of the larger tables you'll almost certainly be sharing with someone who's cruised the ship before & can help with any queries.

You'll almost-certainly find your table-mates are very friendly & sociable........... BUT ........... it's possible that you'll be sharing with folk who are not your style. Perhaps too loud or too boring, too common or too refined, or even empty chairs because those allocated to your table have chosen to dine in the buffet. Don't put up with that cruise-long. If you're unhappy, after dinner quietly go see the Maitre D' and ask to be moved. Table allocation is a big part of his job, there'll be others who want to do likewise and he's pretty skilled at juggling tables (not literally ;)) and matching like-minded folk.

Breakfast & lunch in the MDR (main dining room) isn't traditional seating, you turn up at any time during service and you're sat at random tables with random table-mates.

Formal nights on P & O (you'll probably have two) are strictly formal wear in the MDR - not necessarily black tie (plenty wear dark suits) but certainly a jacket & tie. Also applies to some bars on formal nights. Or a buffet dinner and plenty of other bars if formal isn't your scene.

Like other P&O ships, the crew are mainly Indian. Perhaps it's in their nature or perhaps in their training, but most are quite restrained. On some US ships, I often find the crew too "in your face", on P&O I find that they're toward the the other end of the spectrum, on very few ships do I find that they strike the right balance for me.

Your fellow-cruisers will be predominantly Brits, many of them retireds.

We sailed in early May, a little too early - you'll hopefully find the weather perfect. And even though your cruise is at the start of most school holidays I think you'll find few children on board. It's not an itinerary that appeals to teenagers, the few kids that we came across were younger ones, tied to mother's apron and no trouble.

I guess by now you'll have booked such ship's excursions as you want, but most of your ports are easy to DIY.

The exception is St Petersburg, where unless you've already obtained an expensive and complicated Russian visa (you're probably too late now anyway) you must pre-book a visa-free tour, either with the ship or direct with one of the accredited local tour operators. That's what virtually everone will be doing. Much better tours with small groups, 16-seat minibuses rather than ship's large coach tours, & P&O are possibly the only cruise line which offers these small-group tours. If you've not yet booked, check out the Baltic ports-of-call forum http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=192 for suggested tour operators if you want to book independently, they're all very well-respected - but do so soonest, like today, because time is short. You don't have to pre-pay but you do have to pre-book because the tour ticket e-mailed to you gets you through Russian immigration without a visa. If you've already booked ship's coach tours for St Pete's, not ideal but those who've done ships' tours there have all enjoyed them. Or if you want to stick to ship's tours but haven't booked them, book them soonest too or your preferred tour may sell out.

Do be up and about for the hour-long sail-in to Stockholm through the archipelago of islands, so close you feel you can touch the trees. One of the world's best sail-ins.

Cruise Critic is a large & (for computer-inept folk like me) quite complicated. Do persevere, there's stacks of useful info on the various forums.

Essiesmom mentioned your ship's RollCall, where cruisers get together with their up-coming cruise mates. Sadly we Brits aren't heavily into RollCalls and your cruise is no different - only a couple of pages of posts. But do browse it, and post on there to say "hi". You'll find it at

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2170176

Super ship, great itinerary, you'll enjoy.

JB :)

Wow, I didn't quite expect a reply like that. Thank you so much.

I am going to have to read it again to take it all in :).

Excellent info, just what I was looking for.

Cant wait to get on board.

Thanks again

Wow, I didn't quite expect a reply like that. Thank you so much.

I am going to have to read it again to take it all in :).

 

Excellent info, just what I was looking for.

Cant wait to get on board.

 

Thanks again

No worries, that's what this website is all about. ;)

Well, that - and wittering about smoking, dress codes, drinks packages, etiquette in lifts, etc etc. :D

BTW, Aurora has a namesake in St Petersburg, a battleship that signalled the start of the Russian Revolution in October 1917. Some tours drive-by for a photo-opportunity but there's too much else to see in St Pete's for any standard tours to include a visit aboard.

JB :)