21 days to Fjords and Baltics

[hensus]

We are considering a back to back cruise on HAL Nieuw Statendam which includes the fjords and Baltics OR a Viking trip (Empires of the Med, Lake Como to Athens) in August.  We have cruised to the British Isles and the Med but never more than 12 days on ship and not to

Russia or Scandinavia.  We have previously been to Athens, Venice & Santorini and words cannot describe how amazing they were.  The Croatian ports would be new stops for us.  My questions,

1.  Any thoughts on 21 days on HAL’s new ship and the length of trip?

2.  Vikings itinerary and ship experience?

3.  And finally, costs being very close, which one would you suggest?  

We are retired so have the time and I am thinking how very wonderful it would be to do either one of these trips!  Thanks in advance for your kind responses🙂

 

[CruiserBruce]

We did a similar cruise on HAL's Eurodam a couple of years ago. Fantastic trip. 21 days was great. We have also done long cruises on HAL in the Med, and have a 24 day Med cruise booked on HAL in May 2020.

 

Viking is an entirely different cruise line, but we don't have any experience. You can look at the Viking board for features Viking offers, and on the HAL board for all the info on N. Statendam.

 

I got to think Viking will be much more expensive on a per diem basis. You are not really comparing apples to apples here, both in terms of cruise lines, and in terms of the features of each cruise you are looking at. 

[kitkat343]

The Baltics and Norway are really special (we did them on separate cruises since we were traveling with small children and couldn't handle a b2b).  If you haven't been to either of those regions, that would be my choice.

 

My signature line describes what we did, but its a little more geared towards families and might not be as useful for you.  But please note that thanks to the excellent public transportation system it is extremely easy to tour all of the Baltics independently, except in St. Petersburg and possibly Germany if you choose to go to Berlin (it's not the hard to get to Berlin but its quite far and you might prefer to be on a tour for that).  In Norway, there aren't a huge number of private tour operators (but here are some) and we can help you with tours later.

 

Either way it should be a wonderful trip!  Congratulations on your retirement!

[Danish viking]

The Good thing with the Nordic and baltic trip is that you get the best of both world's. 

 

You get the baltics with big cities and castles and palaces and some natur on the way into Stockholm. 

On the other hand you got the wild nature of the Norwegian fjords. 

[kaisatsu]

Asking on the Northern Europe board, I suspect the answers are going to skew towards Northern Europe! 

 

That said, I think it's personal preference. A Mediterranean cruise is very different from a Northern Europe cruise.

 

The Baltics tend to be fairly port intensive, and (aside from St.Petersburg) a lot of the ports lend themselves to DIY exploration. The city centers are fairly compact, ships often dock in or close to downtown, and in the Scandinavian ports high labor costs and low demand mean that there's not a great availability of independent tour options. The Norwegian fjords are all about scenic cruising, with beautiful sail-ins and sail-outs and some extremely small port towns.

 

You've sailed the Mediterranean before, so you know what to expect. The Croatian coast is beautiful, but at a high-level it's geologically and geographically similar to the surrounding area. I haven't sailed with Viking, but they are typically smaller ships and include more extras, like free excursions in each port (in keeping with their river cruise heritage).

Edited January 8, 2019 by kaisatsu

[hensus]

Thank you all for the responses.  We are leaning toward the Baltics.  I know the weather can be quite changeable...that said, what type of weather should I expect for August 18 - Sept. 8?  May is also an option.  What would be your "must see and do" sights and experiences for the fjords & Baltics itinerary?  This board has been so helpful to us in planning, thanks again!

[CruiserBruce]

"Must do" is what interests you, not what we tell you it is. Every port is covered here extensively...lots of possible things to interest you.

 

Weather data can be quickly obtained by a little Google searching. Try, for example, "Bergen May weather" or Copenhagen August weather.