Berlin tour with Alla - pushing it too close to get back?

[stiej]

We are going on the Baltic and Russian cruise this summer and have booked Alla for our Berlin tour. According to the itinerary we get back at 10pm with the ship scheduled to leave at 11pm. Its a 3 hour drive. Im just nervous because being that far away you never know what can happen driving. Would you feel comfortable staying with Alla to do this or would you do a ship excursion to cover your behind?

[Giantfan13]

We are going on the Baltic and Russian cruise this summer and have booked Alla for our Berlin tour. According to the itinerary we get back at 10pm with the ship scheduled to leave at 11pm. Its a 3 hour drive. Im just nervous because being that far away you never know what can happen driving. Would you feel comfortable staying with Alla to do this or would you do a ship excursion to cover your behind?

 

 

 

Have you checked some of the other tour companies that do Berlin also?. Companies like SPB tours also do Berlin tours (http://www.spb-tours.com/germany/). I have no idea when they get back, but if you are worried about the time frame, I would do some more investigating. Nothing is written in stone and if you wish to change tours, you can.

 

The way I see it, if you are worried now about your arrival time back at the ship now, you will be worried for the entire tour and it will take a lot of the enjoyment out of it.

 

I'm sure the tour groups know exactly what they are doing, as they all have been doing it for many years and I have never heard of anyone missing their ship. It would be a death ring for that company, or any company, to miss a ship's departure, but for your peace of mind, If another company gets you back, say, at 9:00, it might benefit you to do that tour instead.

 

Cheers

 

Len

[KirkNC]

I have never seen one get back that late, usually it is 6:00 or 7:00.

[epc3099]

We are going on the Baltic and Russian cruise this summer and have booked Alla for our Berlin tour. According to the itinerary we get back at 10pm with the ship scheduled to leave at 11pm. Its a 3 hour drive. Im just nervous because being that far away you never know what can happen driving. Would you feel comfortable staying with Alla to do this or would you do a ship excursion to cover your behind?

 

We are using Alla to go to Berlin and acording to the itinerary we got we are to be on board by 8 PM with the ship departing at 10 PM. I would recommend you to go back to Alla and ask her directly. There is a reason why they are highly rated and don't believe they will risk their reputation not making it back on time.

[stiej]

ok i was wrong - we actually leave port at midnight but all aboard would usually be around an hour to half hour before. I am going to drop her a line and see if we might can be back by 9 instead.

[dolittle]

We did it with Den-Rus and got back around 10:00 P.M. and there was plenty of time to spare . The highways are very good and not crowded ,these private excursions co. are very good at what they do . Do not fear missing the ship this will not happen. It will make you fell better if look up the reviews on this and other sites . These private co. all get very good reviews it was one of our best choices in Berlin.

[Elzacruiser]

We are going on the Baltic and Russian cruise this summer and have booked Alla for our Berlin tour. According to the itinerary we get back at 10pm with the ship scheduled to leave at 11pm. Its a 3 hour drive. Im just nervous because being that far away you never know what can happen driving. Would you feel comfortable staying with Alla to do this or would you do a ship excursion to cover your behind?

 

We book with Alla Burlin Tour also. And per their program it says:

17:00 - 20:00 Travel back to Warnemuende. A 20-30 min comfort stop on the way

I think this should be standard Berlin tour schedule. Not too sure where do you see 10pm?:confused:

[stiej]

I see it on my tour itinerary as I am pasting here:

19:00 - 22:00 Travel back to Warnemuende. A 20-30 min comfort stop on the way.

22:00 Onboard.

 

The tours are based on the times your ship arrives in port and ours comes in at 930 which is later than the standard used on the generic itinerary.

 

I emailed Alla and she has assured me they have done this enough they know exactly when to leave to guarantee plenty of time.

[MrsTW]

I used Alla last year to Berlin. We opted out of a comfort stop on the way back and arrived at the ship with hours to go before sailing! ;)

[stiej]

Thank you for letting me know your experience. We are travelling with 2 kids, so we might HAVE to make a quick "comfort" stop, but we dont need 30 mins to take care of that!

[lost in translation]

We did Berlin with SPB on May 8. I can tell you I was nervous as we were sitting in traffic in Berlin. I thought we had no chance to get back to the ship on time but we got back an hour before all aboard. I talked to somebody on our roll call who had been on an Alla tour and she said they were also concerned but got back in plenty of time. There were restrooms on the busses which were actually fairly nice. I used that one the whole day instead of paying to use ones where we stopped. (However, the woman from our roll call said her husband got locked in the bus restroom and they had to take the door off to get him out so no restroom on that bus for the rest of the day.)