sonia2509

You will need to pre book tickets for the museum. We are going in August

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I am so disappointed that this review is finished. Every morning at breakfast I would check to see if there was more. Your review is the best I have read on this forum. Your honesty and humour is what made this so enjoyable to read. I also cried when I read about your husband, here in Australia we have the highest skin cancer rate in the world and I was of the generation that would smother our body with baby oil to get a better tan [emoji853] Your girls will always remember this trip with you and their grandparents, and yes they will be saying how great Mum was when she took us on this trip. We are a family of 5 and we all went to Italy to visit mine and my husband relatives when they were 21, 19 and 17, 6 years ago. We had dramas but we had the best time, now and again they will mention a part of the trip and what a fantastic time they had. Regarding Berlin you have put my mind to rest, as we are doing the Baltic cruise with Celebrity in August and I have booked a private tour to Berlin for the 4 of us. I was concerned that it was a long way to go for just 6 hours of a whirlwind tour but as my husband said this would be probably the only chance we get to go there and it was very expensive so I booked it and I am happy that I did. Finally I can see why you got on so well well with Trevor as you seem to have the same unique sense of humour of us Australians! Thank you again for this wonderful reviews

Sonia

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I agree with your point that every roll call seems to stick with one tour guide, our seems to be SPB. We are 4 Aussies and we are doing our own private tour with Insider Tours, and they allowed us to pick what we wanted to see. I tried a few companies and Insider Tours always answered promptly and it seems always the same person responded, the other 2, I heard from one and they just quoted their normal tour and even after I emailed and advised we did not want to spend too much time at The Hermitage or too many churches the other never replied. We are also doing a private Berlin tour with Insider. After reading your experience with TJ, I will make sure I email Insider again about a week out before our cruise to confirm all the details. Again this is the best review I have ever read.

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Love love your review [emoji7]we are doing the Baltic but different cruise line in August and I am the same age as you and love modern history, the Czars, WW 1 and 2 and Cold War. The excitement you had arriving in Berlin and St Petersburg is what I am feeling right now and I cannot wait until I am walking off the ship and stepping onto Russian soil. Keep this fantastic review going it is the best I have ever read and you should publish it on the Ports thread as well and maybe even the Celebrity thread [emoji6]

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I shop at Aldi :p

 

In fact I know lots of very nice people who shop at Aldi whom I'd be happy to cruise with. :D :D

There are lots of nice people that shop at Aldi. If it wasn't for Aldi we would still be paying highly inflated prices through Coles and Woolies. And they did have an online store only for alcohol though. We would buy a fantastic Prosecco online as they don't sell alcohol in Queensland supermarkets. Unfortunately they closed their online store, and if they start a cruise online website I would have no hesitation to book through them if the price was right. [emoji3]

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Thanks, Sonia, I have tried TA. That is how we found our awesome guide for Amsterdam. But, I didn't think about google. Great idea. Off to search some more.

Glad that I could help [emoji3] As we say at work, Google is our friend!

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I'm looking for the same thing but not getting any luck with responses. I know that Stockholm is easy to do on your own (which we plan to do) but really would like to get out of the City and see the country side for at least a day since we will have 3 days there.

Have you tried TripAdvisor or just google "private tours Stockholm" that is how I found our Copenhagen tour

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I purchased the 2 day pass, the discount is less for 2 days and is 6% not 10%. You will need to google "is Londonpass worth the money" and you will see the correct discount code which changes every month. I hope this helps

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I would be thankful you were able to use dollars. We never go to another country expecting to use dollars. I am sure Danes don't come to the US expecting to use krone.

[emoji122][emoji122] thank you. I cannot understand why it is expected for other countries to accept USD, when you will never use your own country currency in US

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C

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Our favourite place on our Solstice cruise from Auckland to Sydney, November last year. We boarded at 11.30 and our first stop was the Martini Bar and this is where my first photo was taken. The martinis were that good we stayed at the bar till 2.00pm and then went to lunch, and then came back for more every afternoon before dinner and then after dinner. Looking forward to the Martini Bar on the Eclipse in August and will probably skip the special Concierge lunch just to spend more time at this fantastic bar

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The known problems with bottled sparkling water, especially those from foreign countries, is lower health standards, potential for kidney stones, potential for IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and relatively high sodium content.

France and Italy will really appreciate that you have stated that they have lower health standards than USA. I know Italy has a lot of economic problems but to state that they have lower health standards I don't think is correct. I know which country I would rather be in if I get sick and I am hospitalised due to the high cost of health in the US!

Each to his own, we enjoy our sparking water at dinner with a glass of wine and will continue having it.

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You will need to download the app before you leave. Uber is legal in NZ not like here in Brisbane. We booked the car once we picked up our suitcases.

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Premium water is also sparkling water - San Pelligrano and Perrier

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Uber is much cheaper than taxi.

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Hi, we will be on the Eclipse mid August boarding at Southampton and after the cruise travelling to northern Italy to visit relatives for 2 weeks, because of this I will be packing my own hair dryer and power board, so we can use our Australian power chargers and hair dryer. My query is I am certain that Celebrity will confiscate these items when we board. Should I just hand them over to them during check in or when they scan our carry on luggage? If I leave them in our suitcase, I will more than likely be called to pick up the suitcase from the naughty room minus these items. Any suggestions on what I should do would be greatly appreciated.

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Hi, we will be on the Eclipse mid August boarding at Southampton and after the cruise travelling to northern Italy to visit relatives for 2 weeks, because of this I will be packing my own hair dryer and power board, so we can use our Australian power chargers and hair dryer. My query is I am certain that Celebrity will confiscate these items when we board. Should I just hand them over to them during check in or when they scan our carry on luggage? If I leave them in our suitcase, I will more than likely be called to pick up the suitcase from the naughty room minus these items. Any suggestions on what I should do would be greatly appreciated.

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We have already booked with Insider Tours and are very happy with what they have organised but thank you for your suggestion

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We've given up on going to Berlin. Decided to stay around Rostock. I'm French so we go back to Europe nearly every year. Will just keep Berlin for another year. I hear it's a great city! I reckon 4 Aussies in St Petersburgh would be funny. Got lost in Asia a lot. Always a good story! We might give you feedback before you go as we are in SP early August. Happy planning!

 

 

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We were really thought about doing Berlin but we thought we will probably never go there again so we decided to do this very long day. We do have 2 sea days after this to recover [emoji3] St Petersburg, Berlin and the Abba Museum are the 3 things I am looking forward to on this cruse

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Let's not confuse apples and oranges here.

 

 

 

St Petersburg, as well as I can remember was NOT all churches and museums. We did go to Church of the Spilled Blood, but it was just for a very short visit and you are really not there to see anything religious but more the archictecture and everything else. We did also go to the Church of Peter and Paul, but again, it was more to see the final resting places of the Romanov's and Peter the Great. There was really nothing religious about it.

 

 

 

As for museums, we did go to The Hermitage. Just a FYI, there are no 2 people that sort of do not like museums any more than myself and my DW, but we did enjoy our time in the Hermitage, just to see so many 'relics' of such a long Soviet history. It is not just paintings.

 

 

 

Places like Peterhoff, Catherine's Palace et al, are not museums, or not churches and those are some of the main attractions.

 

 

 

I just do not understand why you think St Petersburg is just churches and museums. It is so very far from that.

 

 

 

Cheers

 

 

 

Len

I never said it was all Churches and Museums there was the same thing offered by every tour company and I just wanted to do something a bit different. Everyone is different and like different things and it was good to see a tour company who was interested in what we liked and from there organised our tour. When I asked a few companies for a private tour and told them what I would like to see they came back with nearly the same organised tour they offer to everyone but arranged in different times. I can never see us doing St Petersburg again as we live on the other side of the world and we want to see thing that we are interested in for those 48 hours that we are there.

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That sounds like us. We love cruising and always do our own thing. This is the first organised tour I have ever booked as I was very worried about walking around and not understanding the signs due to their alphabet etc. Language barrier you can always overcome. Also Berlin it was too far from the terminal to do on our own so after a lot of research I went with Insider Tours. There are a few articles in this Forum about people doing St Petersburg on their own. The visa is the hardest part but I just didn't have enough courage to do it on my own. I can just see 4 Aussies walking around St Petersburg trying to navigate our way back which wouldn't have been good [emoji23][emoji23]

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Hi Sophie

We leave on the 14th August with Celebrity Eclipse, and yes I will be posting a review for Insider Tours both here and TripAdvisor. It would nice for people to see what else is out there other than the 4-5 companies that everyone seems to use. Sometimes it is good to do something different to everyone else.

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If we were on the same cruise to St P., I'd be sat outside with him :D

 

 

 

Have a great cruise

 

 

JB :)

[emoji106][emoji106]

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Hi John

I understand what you mean - but both my husband and my cousin do not want to be going through museums and churches. I have had my husband sit outside churches/museums as he was not interested at all and he won't be able to do this in St Petersburg. We are going to the Hermitage but not for the time most tours are there for as we will be seeing other things in St Petersburg that are not in the normal tours

Also John I have always found your posts most interesting and informative [emoji3]

Sonia

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Our group of 4 is also using Insider Tours for the 2 day SPB visit. We liked that the company offered different activity level options and kept their groups small (6 people). In the end we decided to do a private tour for 4 people, reasonably priced. We were not interested in being part of a 16 person group, Insider fit our needs perfectly.

 

 

 

We are now in communication with them to possibly book a Stockholm port tour with them. You selected well!

 

Leta

That is exactly why we booked as well. Being in a group of 16 people in Hermitgae Museum with many other groups of 16 with separate guides did not interest us at all

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