Eurodam Baltic Review June 15-27

[sue117]

St Petersburg, Russia

In SP we opted to go with a private company. I’m not sure that I’m allowed to talk about which one we took here, but it was an excellent decision! We had a mini van bus thing and there were only 10 of us. We were able to get in and out of traffic a bit easier than the big busses and it was easier to stick together in the crowds at the touristy spots. I had to been in the USSR and Leningrad about 20 years ago, and it’s amazing what has changed…and what hasn’t! Our guide, Olga, was SOOO knowledgeable about her city. We didn’t have any problems understanding her with her accent at all. She knew every building in that city and she knew the history with all the czars backwards and forwards. She didn’t breathe when she was lecturing us either!

There was no way to butt in with a question because she didn’t stop talking! (in a good way!). The other thing that was handy, that the big tours had too, was an individual ear piece radio. You can hear the guide talking and she/he doesn’t have to yell to be heard over all the other tours. Olga could walk and talk in a regular voice without having to walk backward or strain her voice. Very handy.

 

We saw the Hermitage the first day. It was crowded, but not obnoxiously though. One of the couples that sat with us at dinner said they went the second day and it was horribly crowded. We saw Peterhof and the beautiful gardens, took a hydrofoil boat ride, ate lunch at a Russian café, Church of the Spilled Blood, and had several photo stops. Honestly? That really was enough for my husband and I, but off we went the second day, since we had signed up for the 2 day tour. We went to Catherine’s Palace first. Oh. My. God. It was horrible. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery was to die for. The Palace was amazing. Wow. Beautiful. But it was really hard to appreciate it when we were packed in like cows going to slaughter. Olga, of course, kept a running commentary of every room we went through (and there were only like SIX rooms total!!) and all the furniture and every portrait on the wall, but it was too crowded, it was too hot, and we were more than happy to get out of there.

 

The traffic in SP is horrible. Too many cars, not enough roads. So we crawled back into town and tried to go on a boat ride in the canals. Something was off with the timing, so we went and got lunch. Olga was amazing. There was a huge line, she was stressing about getting everything in that was on the schedule before we had to go back to the ship. So she snagged someone that worked in the café and told them that we would all take ours to go. So they took all of our orders right there at the back of the line. She was a great “problem solver”. And I know that we wouldn’t have been able to go to this little café and had lunch if we were on the big tour (although they DID provide lunch on those, so I suppose it would have been a moot point anyway).

Off we went to the boat ride in the canals. Then we were seriously running late and it was starting to rain…so Olga told us all about Peter and Paul’s Fortress on the way to the fortress. Told us what czars were buried there, told us about the Romanovs and when we got there only 6 of us on the tour got out to see it. It was almost amusing…we got in and Olga started pointing here and there…”here is Peter the Great, Here is Czarina Elizabeth, here are the Romanovs’…ok let’s go”. Dead czar, dead czar, dead czar, ok, let’s go. We were laughing. Of course it was pouring when we went back outside, but back to the van we went. If we weren’t so tired maybe it wouldn’t have been so amuzing. But we were just glad it wasn’t that crowded in there. Then we went back to the ship and all was well. We saw everything that was promised in the tour brochure that we had signed up for!

 

SP is a beautiful city. Still very corrupt I think. Olga talked constantly about how the policeman’s pockets were “very deep” and if you got stopped,it was cheaper to just pay the policeman, than to go to court. It was the only stop where our passports were checked and stamped. In and out, both days. There is no openness about going in or out of the country. There was no smiling and you had better be sure that your papers are in order or you won’t be able to go into the country. We didn’t have any issues with our paperwork. Our tour tickets for the tour company in Russia were sufficient and counted as our visa so we didn’t have to get one ahead of time. (Holland America does have an excursion where you have a tour then get about 3 hours "on your own" on the shopping street..so I guess it's a little lie that you have to stay with your tour the entire time if you don't get an individual visa).

We did hear that one woman had her purse stolen when she was at the Hermitage the first day, and they won’t let you back on the ship without your passport! I have no idea where she stayed that night. I am assuming the US Embassy or a nearby hotel. It’s scary to think about though. One of the other passengers told us that their guide told them that replacing a US passport is easier in SP than other nationalities. For instance a Canadian passport would have to be replaced in Moscow! So hopefully that woman had her passport replaced and got back on the ship on day 2. Olga told us constantly to watch for pick pockets...at EVERY touristy place..and her cell phone has been stolen 3 times out of her bag...so be very careful with your stuff when you are there. It probably wouldn't be a bad thing to buy one of those money holders that you put on your belt or around your chest just in case!You don't want to be left in Russia because your passport was stolen!

 

So as neat and interesting as it was to be in Russia, we were just as glad to hit the road and get back on the ship!

Our Tour Van

 

"Trick" fountain at Peterhoff...one of the men behind the bench is running the fountain, when kids are there trying to find the "trick" rock he will randomly make the water shoot up!

 

Crowds at the Hermitage...not TOO bad, but this was towards the end when it was getting more crowded. Holland America DOES have a night tour of the hermitage which I heard wasn't crowded at all. Might be worth it!

 

Church of the Spilled Blood (the only Virtual geocache in the city)

 

Rain storm the first night coming in...and this was about at 9pm! The white nights were in full effect! Sun set around 11pm and rose about 3am!

 

The only building we saw that still had a Lenin statue in front!

[sue117]

More pics from Russia

 

You do NOT want to have to use one of these! I'm sure you can figure out what this says! lol

 

Shoe condoms at Catherines Palace

 

We Shuffled through Catherine's Palace like this...from room to room wall to wall people.

 

The "wild" tourists waiting to get into Catherine's Palace. These are tourists that aren't on an official tour

 

9:30pm in Russia. The sun is still nice and high and bright!

 

Relaxing on board in Russia

[scopewest]

What great photos, I'm enjoying your review. Thanks for posting.

[petrakae]

Am enjoying your review very much thank you. We will be there in August, so am taking notes.

[margentina]

We are on the July 9th sailing and I am really enjoying your review. Keep it up. thanks,

[ninkb]

As we plan our next cruise, your commentary and pix are a great help!!! Thank you for all of the time you put into it. And do know, that we also like the quiet, relaxing places we can find on HAL ships.

[sue117]

The towel animal situation in our cabin was hysterical. I’m not sure if our cabin steward was a “free spirit” or new or just tired of making the same ol thing all the time, but we honestly had a hard time figuring out what the animals were each night! It was almost like he just twisted up some towels and threw some eyeballs on them and VIOLA! An animal! Lol. It was a running joke between DH and I to try to figure out what the animal was. We went into one of the couple’s that ate at our table on the last night and they had a very cool monkey hanging on a hanger….we didn’t get an animal that night at all! Lol. So here are some pics of some of animals so you can see what I’m talking about!

 

 

OK, this one is probably a squid...not too bad...

 

 

This one we figured was a water animal...but what kind?

 

 

elephant without big ears?

 

 

Duck?

 

 

What the HECK is THIS one?

 

 

And this was the best yet....?? A rolled up towel with a balled up towel on top with eyes? lol Honestly it was funny, but we had NO idea what these were supposed to be!

[sue117]

We signed up for the early seating. 5:30 was a BIT early I found on this cruise to eat. Most of the time we were leaving port around that time and we like to watch us push off and watch the sights as we leave a city, but we couldn’t do that with the 5:30 eating time. We just missed dinner in the dining room the first night in Russia because our tour didn’t get back to the ship in time. So it would have been nice if dinner was even a little bit later..I suppose we could have gotten the “as you wish” dining and it would have solved all these issues, but we really like eating at the same time each night and with the same people.

 

We signed up for a table for 6. That seems to be a good number for us. DH is a bit hard of hearing and too many more people would make him miserable because he would be too far away from them to hear what they were saying. I discovered another reason on this cruise why we like the tables for 6…their location!!! Almost EVERY cruise we’ve been on with HA we have had a table at the back of the room right by the windows…it’s because that is where the tables for 6 are located! Seriously! The tables for 8 and 4 and 2 and whatnot are scattered around the room, but most of the tables for 6 are in the back near the windows…so that’s a tip for you all!

 

 

I also tried to sign up for the ship tour that I learned about here on Cruise critic. The one that is $150. I thought that it was a bit steep, but was finally convinced. BUT because of the code red when we got on board, I was told it was canceled. :( I was sooo bummed. That was one thing that I really really really wanted to do. And I wanted to find out what the “gift” was at the end of the tour too!

About the code red. As I said in the beginning of my review, we were offered a full refund if we didn’t want to get on the ship. It must have been a big breakout of the virus in my eyes. Some of the people that took the combined cruise might have more to say on that though. We were under the code red for about 5 days I think. No salt shakers on the table, no serving yourself in the Lido, no table numbers on the dining room tables, no bread bowls, etc. It’s a lot of extra work for the crew I’m sure. We had no info about the sickness at all. We just went to dinner one night and POOF the saran wrap in the Lido was gone, and we had salt shakers back on the tables!

I was even MORE bummed about the ship tour being canceled as a result. If they canceled it because of the code red….why didn’t they have it back when the code red was removed? We had been on the ship for almost a WEEK after they removed it and had 2 sea days before we disembarked. Certainly they could have had the tour when it would have only been about 12 people going through the tour? Whatever the reason it was disappointing.

[airlink diva]

Loving your review!

Waiting for more!!!

[sue117]

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki was another nice European city. There was a shuttle bus that takes you into town. It doesn’t seem like the city is far from the dock, but of course the dock is in an industrial part of the city and you have to weave in and out of buildings, so if you walk it would take about 45 minutes. So I paid the $10 and took the round trip shuttle. WELL worth it!

DH wasn't feeling well today (he had caught a cold in Russia and was sneezing and just generally feeling icky, so I was on my own in Finland today!

The shuttle dropped me off in the middle of the city. At first I was like "hummm, just a big city", so I walked around a bit more. Finally came into the "touristy" part of town. Saw the big cathedral, saw the open air market, walked around some more. I didn't get to the "rock church", but that looked really neat and I'm sure is worth the trip to it. I probably would have walked to it, but I wasn't sure where it was on the map. The shuttle arrived every 15 min or so so whenever you are ready to go back to the ship you can. There was a geocache about 200 feet from where our ship docked, so for anyone that wants only ONE geocache in the country, you can get one easily in this port!

As soon as I got back to the ship it started pouring! I had just missed the rain. And it rained harder than we had seen it rain the entire cruise so far. Sideways rain!

So, what do you do when you are tired from walking around and it's raining?…I took a nap! Lol. When I woke up the sun was shining. That is kinda how it was the entire cruise. It would rain a bit, then clear up, rain a bit, then clear up.

My husband used the workout facility several times and had no issues with it, although it was crowded on the last 2 sea days, and he said very hot. But I think that is to be expected. We didn’t participate in any of the spa treatments. We went to a few of the shows. We aren’t really “show” people. (refer back to the hermit comment above and our love of reading), but the ones that we did to go were very well done. I know that some have said that HA doesn’t have good entertainment, but we remember on one cruise that we were on we saw Jeff Dunham (the ventriloquist with dummies)…and now he’s FAMOUS!

 

 

The ship...and I didn't know it, but my husband was watching me from our balcony. Top floor, not the big wrap around aft deck, but the one right next to it...you can JUST see him in this pic.

 

 

And here I am with the geocache...you can see how close it was to the ship!

 

 

Big Church (which I'm sure has a name, but since I wasn't on a tour I couldn't tell ya what it was! lol...but I CAN tell you that there are 2 geocaches nearby it! )

 

 

Open Air market

 

 

A geocache under a pedestrian bridge near the open air market.

[sue117]

Sweden

We went to Sweden on a holiday day (Friday). It was midsummer. That means that all the shops closed at 2. This was the only port where we had to tender in. We heard that the people that didn't have a tour had to wait a long time to get on the tenders (because all the shore excursion people got to get on first). We did the “ride into Stockholm” tour…a pretty expensive shuttle ride basically! We had about 5 hours on our own, which was a bit much. Looking back we probably should have done the Vasa Museum and then time on our own, which would have been about 3 hours.

But Stockholm is another beautiful European city. We spent some time in the old town, watched the changing of the guards at the palace. Then we walked around the main shopping district. Then when time was up we got back on the bus for the hour ride back to the ship.

 

We were surprised that we didn’t have to show our passports at any time except in Russia, and getting back ON the ship in Sweden. We were told that we had to have our passports in Germany, but no one looked at them. Essentially it’s because of an agreement that the European Union has about traveling in Europe, but it was a bit odd to us. So we have 2 stamps (in and out) from Russia, 2 stamps in England (since we flew in and out of London) and one stamp (out) in Sweden! Hopefully no one wants to know how we got INTO Sweden! Ha!

 

 

 

I had ordered chocolate covered strawberries before we came aboard. I wanted them delivered on each of the 4 sea days. I figured that it would be a nice treat. The first sea day came, and no strawberries. So I went to the front desk about 7pm, and they sent them right up. Super. They were delicious. The next sea day (2 days later I think), the strawberries showed up in the cabin. Awesome. Again, they tasted great.

Then we had the 5 days straight of being in port….the 3rd sea day came, and no strawberries. I had my husband go to the front desk and ask to be reimbursed. I figured, it was late, and I was just irritated. They apologized and reimbursed us on our ship board account. Then at 10:45pm there is a knock at the door. It’s a room service guy with the strawberries and a plate of chocolates…apologizing for them not being delivered. Ok, now it was great of Holland America to apologize for their mistake…but to send them up at almost 11pm?? Really? And of course they were delivered without any issues on the 4th sea day. I’m sure it’s difficult to keep track of the orders like that, but isn’t that what computers are for? So in the future, if I want chocolate covered strawberries, I will wait until I am on board and will just pick up the phone and order them that way.

 

 

 

 

Changing of the guard in Stockholm Old Town at the Royal Palace

 

 

DH taking a break at the pedestrian walkway where the shops are...can you spot the geocache?

 

 

The tender and the ship

 

 

On the way back to the ship. This was the nicest day in port...sunny all day, high of around 70ish.

[sue117]

Wrap Up:

Overall this was a great cruise. The seas were incredibly calm. No major issues there. We loved the food, but then again we aren’t “foodies”. We don’t scoff if we have a piece of meat that isn’t cooked exactly to our expectations. We eat it anyway. We don’t freak out if there is a ladybug crawling on the side of the salad plate as it’s put down in front of us (and yes, that happened to someone at our table, but our dining room steward was appalled and whisked the plate away. He said that he had to let the chef know immediately…and a new dish was immediately set in front of our dining partner.). We didn’t eat in the Pinnacle Grill…we figure, why pay for food on a cruise ship when the food in the “regular” dining room is always excellent. We didn’t eat at any of the other specialty restaurants (and one is just an “extension” of the Lido anyway…why would we eat there when it’s basically eating at the Lido??).

 

There are people on every cruise that we go on that we are just amazed they allow themselves to go on a vacation at all. They complain about everything. They complain about the food taking too long, they complain about the elevator taking too long to get there, they complain about anything and everything. We try to relax, not let the little things get to us, and just relax. I think I read about 25 books that I had been saving up on my Kindle for the trip (ok, not 500 page novels, just light formula fiction books). I know I’ll have a ton of work emails to catch up on when I get home, along with a ton of work to do, so we try to just ignore that and have a good time anyway.

 

We earned our 3 star mariner status on this cruise. We love Holland America because it’s relaxing. There aren’t a million kids running everywhere. It’s more low-key, and that’s what we like. We don’t do it to hobnob with the captain, we don’t go to the mariner brunch (which someone I talked to said wasn’t that impressive and there were a TON of people there). Do I think that I am special because I’ve cruised on HA more than 75 days? No. Do I think that HA really cares that I’ve been on their ships more than 75 days? Not really. Nothing against them, but honestly, they don’t know me. I’m just another paying customer. Again, not a complaint, but just my rambling thought. We really like Holland America and in fact I’m a “third generation” HA cruiser (My grandmother cruised HA all the time, and my mom does too (she just got off the World Cruise in April this year)).

 

Overall this was a great cruise. A great itinerary and a great way to see the Baltics and Northern Europe. There is nothing like being able to come back to the ship after a long say doing the “tourist thing” and not have to unpack or get on a plane or train to get to the next stop. Cruising is our favorite type of vacation…and we are sad that this one is now over. Until next time….

 

Let me know if you have any other questions for me about the trip. I know there were some other people that posted reviews of this same cruise, so I'm not sure how helpful my ramblings are, but they are what they are I suppose :)

 

 

Here are some random shots...

 

 

One of my favorite pieces of art..it was a bit abstract with the chef being the only one sitting in a big concert hall, but I liked it!

 

 

Hanging out on the balcony during a sunny day at sea!

 

 

Snoozing on the balcony

 

 

Beautiful sunset...and this was late at night...like 9pm, and the sun still had a ways to go before it actually went under the horizon!

 

 

Pulling back into a foggy Dover in the morning we were to leave. Check out the ferry in the background!

[LostwithoutPockets]

Thanks for the review of your cruise! Your pictures were great!

[madera1]

We too were on the 12 night Baltic cruise and your review just brought back all of our memories. I have not had time yet to write a review. I truly would recommend this itinerary to anyone who asks. Love your photos. We took over 800 and are still sorting through them.

[Seren Ap Gwalia]

Really loved your review, answered many questions that I had for when we go on 26th of August so found it helpful as well as fun!

Thanks for taking the time :)

[Cheekyrn1]

Thanks so much for taking the time to post...we are doing the 10 day Baltic cruise July 2012 and really excited about it..You were most helpful with your reviews...we are already booked on a small 10 person 2 day tour of st Pete...we have family meeting us in the German ports...we are very much like you in the fact that we enjoy quiet evenings in our room with a good book...go to bed early get up early have long days walking exploring the different ports...I think the only other excursions we need is the shuttle to stockolm and every where else we are quite comfortable roaming by ourselves. Thanks again for the reviews

[EGCruisers]

Just a question for the OP (or anyone else who did this itinerary) -- Did you find going into Nynashamn instead of Stockholm to be a big inconvenience or negative? Trying to decide between the HAL and Celebrity Baltic cruises in late May. There are positives and negatives to both, but the major negative for HAL seems to be Nynashamn.

[falcon10156]

I am going July of 2013 on this itinerary. It is different in some ways. We are not going to Stockholm nor Tallin. Instead we are going to Ystad, Sweden; Gdansk, Poland and Klaipeda, Lithuania.

 

The ports that you reviewed were very helpful. I will re-refer to it as I start thinking about my shore excursion selections.

 

I am on the Prinsendam, which I have sailed before so I am familiar with the ship but your details and personal comments were great.

 

Thanks for posting.

Debbie

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for posting your review, sounds like you had a good time.

[kazu]

Just an absolutely fabulous review - full of great info and very interesting. Pics were absolutely wonderful. Very, very enjoyable:):)

 

Thank you so VERY much for taking the time to share your experiences. We are all the richer for it:)

[Typhoon1]

Thanks for the review and pics. Great.

[sue117]

I am going July of 2013 on this itinerary. It is different in some ways. We are not going to Stockholm nor Tallin. Instead we are going to Ystad, Sweden; Gdansk, Poland and Klaipeda, Lithuania.

 

Debbie

 

I'd love to go to Poland! I've thought "Why would I ever do a Baltic cruise again now that we've done it once?" Well. THAT is my answer! Because it goes to different ports! lol

 

I know it's a year later, but if anyone has any questions about ports or whatever just ask! :)

[jimbri]

Great review. Thanks for the photos.

[schoolinmy3]

After first reading this review almost a year ago I was happy to see the thread resurrected as we leave in less than 2 weeks for this same cruise! Can't wait!

[madera1]

I really enjoyed looking at your photos. What a great description. We were on your cruise and loved it. I made 2 different Shutterfly books with all the photos taken from the trip. For those who are thinking of taking this trip I highly recommend it.

Edited May 30, 2012 by madera1
grammar