pjs678

If you haven't booked your flights yet, consider flying to Moscow pre-cruise. Yes you will have to get visas but that gives you more flexibility in St Petersburg as well. We leave Wednesday for Moscow before our cruise :)

We never bring any currency overseas. We always withdraw as needed from a bank ATM. Headed to Moscow and from there to Stockholm and onto the Silhouette next week. We have some Euros left over from our last trip so we will bring those, but plan to withdraw Rubles (as we will have several independent days in both Moscow and St. Pete), but hope to avoid withdrawing Swedish or Danish kroner and make do with credit cards there. I would assume your ship's casino will accept dollars as you are sailing HAL, but I'm not sure. We will bring about $2-300 in US Dollars for emergency/casino/extra tip purposes.

Thanks for the review. Sorry you dealt with the noro issue on board. By the way, the currency in Finland is the Euro - that's why it was so easily accepted :)

Great questions that I'm trying to figure out today myself as well.

 

I've heard through this forum...that if you do decide on a HOHO, it's quicker to take a boat tour, rather than bus tour, due to traffic congestion.

 

We're debating on a HOHO boat vs a Free Walking Tour.

 

But the question still remains on how to move from the port to the start of the HOHO boat or center town to meet up with the Free Walking Tour.

That part of the puzzle I've not figured out yet.

Hey - we're on your cruise and we are going to walk from the pier to our 2pm Segway tour, which is all the way over by the National Museum. If the weather is iffy, we will take bus 26. I've not heard good things about the HOHO tours in Copenhagen.

On our Baltic cruise leaving 6/19, we found that the suite guarantee price came rocketing down right after final payment date. We were able to get a great deal on a suite. It came out to less than our original AQ cabin (when you factor in the perks). A lot of people cancelled. Perhaps it was because our final payment date was just after the Brussels attack and our cruise ends in Amsterdam.

But, how do you separate the really good restaurants from the bad restaurants when they're both ranked highly on Trip Advisor?

 

For example, for Trip Advisor's list for top restaurants in LA, they include really good restaurants like Craft, Providence, Gjelina, etc...

 

But, on the same list, you also have places like Cheesecake Factory at #6, Bubba Gump Shrimp, Johnny Rockets, Hard Rock Cafe, etc...

I don't just go with the rankings as I agree they can be very strange. I use it as a jumping off point and look at menus, professional reviews etc.

There's a park and ride lot at the international terminal as well. It's $12/day compared to $9/day at the domestic but it's a garage not an open lot. Depending on how long you are leaving for, you might consider Uber.

We actually do have visas and will be in St. Petersburg next month. I did a lot of research on restaurants through Trip Advisor. You'll be more likely to find folks who have actually eaten at those places if you inquire on the St. Petersburg board there. Seems like most cruise passengers only eat lunch at one of a few places catering to large groups. I'll post a review after our cruise on Silhouette so you'll see where we decide to eat dinner.

I know what they are but I have never used them.

 

From a personal preference they are not something I would use since I do not wish to encourage illegal taxi operations.

 

They are not an authorized taxi company and according to DN newspaper, so far at least 21 of their drivers have been convicted for Svarttaxi ("black market taxi").

 

http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/uber-tjanar-pengar-forare-far-ta-smallen/

 

The Swedish taxi market is unregulated but any taxi driver still needs to have a valid taxi driver license and a commercial driver permit (yrkestrafiktillstånd) to be able to do commercial taxi operations.

 

In addition to that, the tax department are also doing investigations and in their cases there are drivers who have not specified incomes,

from their taxi driving, on their income declarations. Some of them even was receiving unemployment benefit funding.

 

Also have in mind that in case of an accident or crash or etc, the drivers (and you) are not insured.

It might be a translation issue, but I think this only refers to Uberpop, which is a low-cost service that Uber has provided in some places, sort of like "I'm headed that way so I'll pick you up." They have since suspended this particular service. I don't think this refers to services like UberX and UberBlack. Those drivers have to have proper licenses and insurance and should be fine in Stockholm and other cities in Europe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-uber-tech-idUSKCN0Y20WN

We did this last month. When we came in from Atlanta on our outbound trip, we landed in 2E(L) at around 11am and had a 3 hour layover before our flight to Rome. We had very little wait at passport control and no wait at security. We got to 2F in plenty of time and would have had no problem with a 1 hour layover from 2E to 2F.

Coming back from Rome was a different story. We landed at 2F and only had to go through passport control to get to 2E(M). This time we had only a 2 hour layover and no security to clear, which should have been fine, right? Well, we landed at around 9am and the line for passport control was all the way back into the 2F terminal. It took about 45 minutes to get through that line, then another 45 minutes to get through the bus line to take a bus to the M gates. I'm not sure why we couldn't take the train to M gates, but for whatever reason, we were shepherded through the bus system. We got to the gate about 20 minutes before departure after most had already boarded. I would not accept a 60 minute connection from 2F to 2E at CDG.

ESPN has the US rights, but that doesn't mean that your ship will get it as it's probably on Sky or some other channel in Europe and someone else in the Caribbean. From your signature, I see you are going to Bermuda, so there's a pretty good chance you will get the matches. We'll actually be in Europe on Silhouette so you would hope that there will be enough people who complain if the ship doesn't get the matches. I would at least like to watch live as England gets eliminated in the Round of 16 :)

It's Frihamn, because it's a turnaround port (Stadsgarden is only for day stops I think). It's the only day that Celebrity is disembarking/embarking in Stockholm this entire season so I expect it will be a mess. We upgraded to a suite so hopefully that will get us through the mess quicker.

Has anyone done the free walking tour of Christiana?

http://www.copenhagenfreewalkingtours.dk/index.html#tour-of-christianshavn

thanks for all the good info on russian visas. I will be in SPB for 3 days this summer on a cruise. We are thinking of doing a 2 day tour with SPB or TJ travel. I know the tour companies arrange for the visa but was wondering if we would be able to leave the ship on our own on the third day to wander around with the visa already arranged from the 2 day tour or if it "expires".

Any input is appreciated.

No, you have to have a tour ticket that covers all of your time ashore unless you have an actual Russian visa. Just do a 3 day tour or you will be sitting on the ship for the third day.

Celebrity Suite and Sky Suite bookings (for any sail date) that are made by January 1, 2016 will still enjoy the complimentary specialty dining reservations benefit. These suite guests will enjoy 1 specialty restaurant reservation for each guest in the suite for cruises 7 nights or less and 2 specialty restaurant reservations for each suite guest for cruises 8 nights or longer. All other new Suite Class benefits will begin during January 2016.

But the question was: What if someone booked a non-suite cabin in 2015 and took advantage of an opportunity to spend the difference to move into a suite in 2016? Do they then get the complimentary specialty dining reservations?

That's exactly what we did and got the dinner, except we first had a CC1 cabin.

You got lucky then. I called Celebrity and they told me that the answer is no because our original booking was not a suite and we didn't change to a suite until 2016.

I was looking at bus timetables for our cruise next month as there is a bus stop near Frihamn and if you look here: http://sl.se/en/getting-around/

You will see that there is some info about accessibility, including that all buses have ramps and floor-level access for wheelchairs. Obviously buses are much cheaper than taxis.

My guess would be no as you moved to the sky suite after December 31, 2015. You could call and ask Celebrity the question.

 

Thanks - I'm sure if I call three times, I'll get three different answers to a question that only has two possible answers :)

We got one free specialty dinner with our Sky Suite last month. Since we took advantage of an upgrade, we didn't know we had it until the Michael's Club Concierge called to tell us we'd have to take a lunch because all the dinners were booked.

What if we booked an AQ cabin in 2015 for a 12 night cruise departing in June 2016 then took advantage of an upsell when the price of a sky suite came down last month? Do we still get free specialty dinners?

Hi Ilya and PJS678, we are also planning to explore St petersburg on our own and have our Visas. we have also booked a hotel in town to make the most of our 2 days and would be very interested to hear your comments on the proposed itinerary from PJS. we will be in St Petersburg on 9th June and staying overnight in the PETR hotel. We plan to take the hop on hop off bus but I do know that this doesn't take us to Catherine Palace. Is there an easy way to get there on our own? Many thanks in advance.

Thought about staying in a hotel, but it didn't seem worth it when you factor how cheap cabs/uber/public transit can be to get to/from the ship. Plus places don't open until 10 anyway so not much sense in being in town at 8am without much to do. We plan to stay in town for dinner and head back to the ship when traffic dies down.

With regard to Catherine Palace, the hours for individuals are limited and the transit options are also somewhat complicated. It seemed easier to book a guided tour. I found a guide who charges by the hour and is reasonable.

One Flew South. Concourse E. Definitely should be on the radar of anyone who's spending several hours at ATL.

Finally got a chance to try it a couple of weeks ago and it was good...for airport food :)

Pretty sure all Moscow trips are 2 day trips- an overnight in Moscow.

No, they are day trips for cruise passengers as no one has a visa to stay overnight in Moscow. We looked into this for our trip coming up in June. The 3 day port stays usually do a train round trip on the second day. The 2 day port stops can't catch an early enough train so they fly there on the first day and either train or plane back to St. Petersburg. I wouldn't recommend it for a 2 day stop if it's your first time in St. Petersburg. Just researching the things to see and do there will give you sensory overload.

Hi, my name is Ilya. I didn't noticed another appropriate thread here so decided to make new one. I live in St. Pete all my life and know almost everything about our city. So if you have any questions about city sights, recommended places, history, routes, seasons, entertainment, visas, tour tickets, transport, event or may be you just need an advice - feel free to ask me, i'll do my best.

Hi Ilya. Thanks for your help.

We just received our Russian visas as we are headed to Moscow before our cruise this summer which visits St. Petersburg for 3 days. We will be attempting to visit St. Petersburg somewhat on our own and I wanted to see if this itinerary makes sense.

Before you ask, we are not ballet/opera people so we won't be trying to get tickets for any evening performances.

Day 1 Wednesday - Arrive port at 7am - avoid the rush of people going to meet group tours/ship tours.

We are meeting a tour guide (with a taxi) at the port at 9am and headed first to Catherine Palace. Then a taxi with the guide back into the city, a quick lunch and the guide will take us on a brief (3 hours) tour of the Hermitage. We will leave the guide around 5pm and walk down to the Faberge Museum for the 6pm opening for individuals. After that, we will have dinner somewhere near the museum (Pelmeniya and Tarhun look like good options) before a walk down Nevsky Prospekt and then taxi back to the ship for the night.

Day 2 Thursday - Either a taxi to city and then hydrofoil to Peterhof or taxi directly to Peterhof around 9am - leaning toward the latter to make it simple. Visit the lower gardens and fountains then hydrofoil back to the city around 1pm. Lunch nearby (not sure where) then go to Kunstkamera museum (it's a quirky place that my wife really wants to visit). Around 4 or 5 we would go to Church on Spilled Blood. Then dinner (PMI Bar looks like fun) followed by an evening boat tour before heading back to the ship.

Day 3 Friday - Taxi around 9am (or maybe try public transport) to Grand Choral Synagogue for the 10am opening and a quick self-guided tour. Walk to St. Isaac's for inside visit and climb the dome. Lunch (Stolle?) then walk over the bridges to Peter & Paul Fortress for a visit to the cathedral and perhaps one of the museums. If still time, visit the Political History Museum then taxi back to the ship around 4pm in plenty of time for the 6pm sailing.

Does this make sense? Is there anything major that we are missing? Any restaurant ideas other than the ones mentioned? Thanks in advance for any help.

You won't have to go through security again but I wouldn't do it. International flights often start boarding up to an hour before takeoff just to get the 3-400 folks on board. You could end up having to go from T or A gates all the way to E or F which could take a while factoring in getting off your flight, walking down to the train, taking it 5 or 6 stops, and walking to your gate in the other terminal.

I think you did not understand you TA (they are probably confused as well). If you go ashore ONLY on a ships tour a visa is not required as theere is a LIMITED visa waiver program in place for cruise ship passengers If you go on other tours a visa is almost always required and the visa is a pain and expensive. I have seen companies that have saod they have waivers, but make sure you have that in writing or the Russian authorities will not let you out of the docking area.

 

Private tours will not likely end up being cheaper because of the visa cost, but certainly will provide the chance to see much much more.

That is false. There are many tour companies that can provide the visa-free tour. Who do you think the cruise line uses? They don't staff their own tours. They use the same companies that provide the private tours, also visa-free for up to 72 hours. It is you who is confused.