hematite153

It is known in advance since a pilot need to be ordered in advance ...All pilot missions are listed at the website linked below.

Thanks!

From the Stockholm sail in

 

Gorgeous!

(And, I don't disagree that it might be easier to watch the sail out, but, I will need something to keep my one child from waking everyone else

at 4am, so, if I can interest him in this it may work out well.)

We're really struggling with this question. We're taking a baltic cruise and are excited by everything but can't figure out what to do with Russia. On the one hand, I don't want to be there and not see it and on the other hand it makes me worried.

I wonder if this feature is changed. My booking for European itinerary in 2019 (which was booked through US agent) does not have any $0 water/beverage package option. I checked under "add dining/beverage" and found only payable options.

I have been trying to figure this out, too. The water package that I show when I log in costs money. My family likes to drink water with our meals. We really will simply bring our water bottles with us to dinner if that's the only way to get water but it seems a bit wrong.

We're Canadian and we booked through the US. But, we're on a northern European itinerary. So, do we get water or do we need to carry it daily? How do I find out for sure?

Thanks for the Best Guides referrals. They really do seem like they have a good offer for children.

Do I need to worry about them being under SPB with the recent fraud report?

Judging from Desdichado62's post, for Stockholm you'd better get them out of bed about half an hour before you put them to bed :D

 

Probably better to watch as the pilot is taken off the ship, and at a port which doesn't involve such a long sail-in / sail-out. Perhaps Tallinn or Helsinki

:)

I have one child who is a night owl and one who is an early riser. Their ideal sleep windows truly do only overlap by an hour or two. We normally push back against both of them but I suspect travel and jet lag will interfere enough that getting up at 4am may be a regular occurrence for one of them. So, if I can watch a pilot arrive as we're entering Stockholm at least I'll have a reason to pretend is my reason for being awake.

Do you simply have to guess when they will arrive/depart or is there a way to know in advance?

Also, is there a door in the ship on both sides? Or, if we see them once will we know to look the same way each time thereafter?

The sail in is more like 5-6 hours but as you say NCL Breakaway usually berths in Nynäshamn.

 

AIDAMar have an ETA at 09.30 in Stockholm tomorrow but will pick up the pilot at 04.15 at Tjärven

which is the entry to the northern fairway into Stockholm.

How do you find out when your ship is picking up a pilot? One of my kids and I are likely to want to be up for this journey. We'll be on MSC if that matters.

When are you sailing and what ship? If one of the major cruise lines, and it is a short time out, I'm surprised you couldn't find a roll call ... but stranger things have happened.

 

Maybe you'll be lucky and get a quick response.

MSC, end of July.

Thanks for the response.

There wasn't any roll call yet for our cruise. So, I started one, but I suspect that's not likely to work out quickly for me.

Perhaps we'll just book the best of the ships tours. I started looking at custom tours after having several people tell me that they did it partially because it ended up being cheaper than the cruise line offerings.

If anyone else has any other ideas (i.e. knows a company that specializes in tours for families with small children), please let me know.

We're going to St. Petersburg but will only be in port for one day and have small children (4 & 7).

Our first instinct was to do a half day tour booked through the cruise line simply because it was the easiest thing to book. However, we're worried about the need to manage a group tour with our small children -- we'll do our own thing in all other ports. So, I started looking at private tours. However, it seems that all the private tours are set up to be long days or multiple days. Is it possible to book something private for our family for just half a day? Or, should I just go back to our first instinct and book through the cruise line? (The pricing I'm getting suggests that we will pay nearly 5 times as much to do a private tour which is the opposite of what I was reading before I started looking.)