Cruise Planning

[Krisval]

Yes to all of the above. We arrive early and arrange special tours for sights and experiences I've researched. We had the most amazing port and food tasting in Portugal and I still contact our guide for suggestions for other cities we are going to visit. We will be in Avignon 3 days before our River cruise and have arranged for a guide for our group of 6 to explore the area, enabling us to see one or two sites Viking will visit, but we will have more time, fewer people, and usually a lower price. I am finalizing tours for our Homelands cruise, including a few pre- and post- cruise adventures. I'm a research maniac and appreciate all the advice and insights provided by the people taking time to post. Big fan of extra days before and after a cruise, whether ocean or river.

[roothy123]

Don't have time now to read the posts above, but will. I'm a big planner. Couple things that really help me, ;however, are:

 

1 tomsportguides.com (free guides you can download) and (to a lesser extent) cruisecrocodile

2) Using Google Earth to look at various places, and also to spot where many photographs have been taken

3) The inyourpocket guides on line (the brochures that are updated 4 times a year) are great for Europe, especially

 

I do lots independently (really independently - bus, car rental, etc.), so I often google tourist information sites, the port websites, webcams, get library books, everything I can get my hands on. This takes lots of time, however, and endless research. Some people prefer to just hop on a cruise ship, select a bunch of excursions, and be done. That's not me.

 

I might post more later if I have more time. I have a lot of great sites that I used, and maps - love maps!

[Peregrina651]

Such a great thread.

 

 

Agreed!! I'm picking up some great hints, like using Pinterest. I'm already a member and have a couple of boards going. I'm not so good at organizing all the research that I do but TripIt works for me for organizing the various reservations I should be keeping track of.

 

The only time I journal is when we travel. And I have found it a great set of 'memory books' to bring it all back. As I write this it makes me think I might want to expand that a bit.....immediate thought, time with our grandkids. Hmmmm.....

 

 

I have a whole stack of travel journals, too. Once I was organized enough to post a full journal of one of my trips on TravelPod but never again since.I checked out a couple of different travel-blogging websites, joined them and tried them out and then quit all of them except TravelPod.

 

 

However, I do finish a Shutterfly share site for major trip every trip (which is becoming as much blog as it is photo-sharing). I use Shutterfly because people don't have to register to view the websites I create. I used to get really annoyed with family members who would send links to pictures but you had to register in order to even view the photos. I refused to register. Not so on Shutterfly and I haven't investigated anything since. Also, I can password protect a share site and still the folks I want to share with only need to supply the password to view the site. (The public nature of the share sites is one of the reason I don't tend to post photos of people unless they are complete strangers).

 

Plus, I put together at least one Shutterfly album of the best photos of the trip--which I do go back through from time to time; this last trip, I did five--of which one was a "thank you" album for our hosts in Granada. (I'll wait for a 50% off sale to order them).

 

One album is usually a "Top-10" list,which has proven a great way to organize a photo album that isn't "day 1 we did this, day 2 we did this". I don't remember when we started doing them but DH is a list maker and now we end every trip putting together a list of the wow sights and moments. Sometimes our Top-10 lists are very different, so I do two "Top-10" albums and sometimes I do one album of his pictures and one of mine.

 

 

The paper souvenirs of every trip--cruise dailies, brochures, post cards, etc-- get packed away in one of those fancy photo-sized shoeboxes and then lined up on the shelf beside my desk. One trip, one box, all nicely labeled and easy to reach if someone asks a question.

 

 

Finally, we choose the absolute best photo of the thousands we have taken and hang it on the kitchen wall. Every glance at the wall is a shower of memories. We have room for 12 photos and the more we travel, the more the wall changes.

 

In truth, after all the planning and even the trip itself, all that remains are the memories. With all I have invested in time, effort and cash to create the memories, I want the aides memoires to help preserve them--hence, photos and journals and the albums, blogs and websites to preserve them and interpret them for others. And, yes, for some, videos and photomontages.

[Peregrina651]

Don't have time now to read the posts above, but will. I'm a big planner.

 

And a very big sharer as well!!

[roothy123]

Thank you, Peregrina. You've been great at helping people as well. I just came back here to start reading this thread, to both see what I could learn AND what I could share. I only got as far as your post, but will now go back to the beginning and start reading.

 

I agree with you 100% about using a photo or blog site that doesn't require viewers to sign up. I hate that. I use pbase.com, which also requires no signup for viewers. Love it, and love the fact that I can write a good amount about each photo. That helps me tell a story, remember where I went and what I did, and also helps me help others when people ask about places I've been (or am going). At this point I really need to concentrate on firming up my plans and notes for Midnight Sun, but I keep getting pulled back into reading and writing on Cruise Critic! Oh well, it's better than spending endless hours on Facebook or Twitter!

[molymoo]

We do a lot of planning but try not to get too entrenched in them ... being flexible leaves you with the opportunity to enjoy unexpected pleasures along the way.

 

TripAdvisor and Pinterest a lot in preparation for trips ... we also like to check You Tube as well. There are a lot of videos posted that can give you an idea of what to expect in each port. We watched a long one of the bike ride in Flam before our Homelands trip last summer.

 

Specific to the Homelands cruise I would recommend you consider hooking up with a private tour company for the St. Petersburg portion of the cruise. It is a two day stop but the city is absolutely full of wonderful sights and you may do better with private rather than the Viking offerings. We took two Viking excursions and they were okay but we spent five days in SP a few years ago so we felt we were able to take a more relaxed approach to the city this time around. I would have been disappointed had that been my first and only trip there.

[roothy123]

 

Specific to the Homelands cruise I would recommend you consider hooking up with a private tour company for the St. Petersburg portion of the cruise. It is a two day stop but the city is absolutely full of wonderful sights and you may do better with private rather than the Viking offerings. We took two Viking excursions and they were okay but we spent five days in SP a few years ago so we felt we were able to take a more relaxed approach to the city this time around. I would have been disappointed had that been my first and only trip there.

Agree with this. You'll see a lot. I don't know what Viking says about visas in St. Petersburg, but many cruise lines scare you into thinking that you can't do a private tour without buying an expensive visa. That's completely false. If you use a reputable company like TJ or Alla, they provide a blanket visa. We were on Oceania when we went to St. Petersburg, so it may be different, however, my advice to anyone in St. P is to allow plenty of time to get off the ship and meet your guide. SO MANY people get off there, and everyone seems to go off at the same time.

 

As for flying into a city early and staying on in the disembarkation city, we do this when we can afford it (money and time wise), especially the going early part. It helps us adjust to the time difference as well as gives us more time in the city. At least on most itineraries, Viking gives you a full day or more in the embarkation and disembarkation cities, which is nice. But on many other cruise lines, all you see of the first and last ports is the route to and from the airport. Ending in Stockholm sounds exciting until you realize you have to leave for the airport at 9 and won't see much. (Been there, done that.) We usually go a day or two early to the embarkation city. Viking's pre-cruise land packages are pretty good from what I hear, but we just do our own thing, staying where we want, flying in when we want, and using the money we save for another trip.

 

For future cruises, I'd suggest you be open-minded about the ports and itineraries. Viking is one of those lines that is not afraid to go to lesser-known places, and even if you have never heard of a place, you may find that a place you know nothing about is fabulous. Maybe I'm just a country girl at heart, but I've often chosen a cruise without knowing a THING about a couple ports. More often than not, however, once I get to those places (with a little research before, of course!!) I fall in love with those ports. Ronne, Denmark comes to mind, as does Lanzarote in the Canary Islands - and more.

 

In planning what to do, keep in mind that you may not be able to get off the ship immediately at the planned itinerary time. Sometimes there are weather delays, or too many people wanting off the ship at the same time, or some other factor that will cut into the time you have ashore. On our Viking Med cruise in 2015, however, we were generally off the ship within a half hour when we wanted that. (You may not be early birds like us, though.) Coming back, you're generally asked to be back on the ship a half hour pre-departure. If you've booked a third party tour, most companies will monitor the ship's location and if you're late, they'll wait. If the port assignment (location) changes at the last minute, they'll know about it. No worries.

 

As for websites, I already mentioned a couple of my favorites (tomsportguides - and inyourpocket especially for the Baltic). I load city maps onto my tablet to use offline to help me navigate. A week or two pre-cruise, I go to cruisetimetables.com, enter ship name and cruise date to pull up a report of weather in each location. I love DK books for great pictures of tourist areas and sights and Rick Steves and Lonely Planet books for lots of info. I love openstreetmaps.org for maps that show more detail than google or viamichelin, Forvo to show me how to pronounce words or place names, and marinetraffic.com to track where the ship goes. When we buy insurance I use tripinsurancestore.com and buy it when we first put money down on a cruise so that pre-existing conditions are covered. I use a packing list that I've refined after many cruises. I take something to hang around my neck to keep my ship card handy as I use it a LOT. When I go ashore, I always take the phone number of the cruise ship (or ship agent's info for cruise lines that don't give out the ship's phone number) in case I run into trouble. We paid the $85 for 5 years or whatever it is to get TSA Pre-check privileges - though the global entry is better.

 

Am I obsessed? Yes. Do I end up seeing and doing all I plan? No. Do I still have a great time? Yes.

 

Great thread.

 

Enjoy your retirement!

[irenedee]

Wow and thanks Roothy. That was a great post. I'm sure many readers are taking notes. Thanks for sharing

 

 

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