Hello everyone. I need some help to choose a cruise for The Baltic sea.

[streghina70]

I been reading reviews about the Norwegian Cruises, and the Holland American Cruises, both, doing the Baltic Sea. We are looking forward to having a nice time, not crowded, and a good itinerary. Need some help to decide which Cruise line will be the best for us. Married, no kids, near our 50, feeling 25.

We have already done some cruises with Costa, Celebrity and MSC.. very different locations, but I did love the Celebrity Eclipse when we did Bahamas. 

Any help is most welcomed 

 

thanks everyone

[taglovestocruise]

21 hours ago, streghina70 said:

I been reading reviews about the Norwegian Cruises, and the Holland American Cruises, both, doing the Baltic Sea. We are looking forward to having a nice time, not crowded, and a good itinerary. Need some help to decide which Cruise line will be the best for us. Married, no kids, near our 50, feeling 25.

We have already done some cruises with Costa, Celebrity and MSC.. very different locations, but I did love the Celebrity Eclipse when we did Bahamas. 

Any help is most welcomed 

 

thanks everyone

Check out Celebrity Reflection or Silhouette since you loved the Eclipse. 

[streghina70]

thank you very much, I did check the Celebrity, but it departs in August, and July.. I was looking to go on first days of June.. or at the end of May.

[Heidi13]

If you are looking for lots of space and no kids, suggest checking out itineraries from Viking Ocean

[MicCanberra]

There are many lines to choose from, I would look at X again if you enjoyed them. 

Out of your two nominated choices, HAL is more likely to be more sedate (older English crowd) compared to NCL (younger mixed European crowd) which is more likely to be a fun ship. We did NCL when we did the Baltics and had a wonderful time, it is a port intensive itinerary so the ship had less importance to us. However, we loved the ship and found the passengers a good mix.

[paul929207]

We did a 14 day Baltic cruise on the Pacific Princess last summer and loved it. The Pacific is a smaller ship 680 passengers. 

[streghina70]

23 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Check out Celebrity Reflection or Silhouette since you loved the Eclipse. 

 

17 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

If you are looking for lots of space and no kids, suggest checking out itineraries from Viking Ocean

Thank you very much, we have already checked Viking..perhaps we will do some of their excursions on land.  

[streghina70]

8 hours ago, paul929207 said:

We did a 14 day Baltic cruise on the Pacific Princess last summer and loved it. The Pacific is a smaller ship 680 passengers. 

thank you very much, I know the Pacific is pretty good, I've heard good opinions, but It has no date on May. Most of these cruise lines, start their itineraries on June or August, and we prefer May, and we have to be careful with Holidays over there.  

 

[MicCanberra]

If you are travelling in May, it is likely to be a cooler cruise and as such means the ship will need more inside spaces rather than sun decks, so take that into consideration when choosing.

[streghina70]

micCanberra, you are so right. 

It will be first days of June, but you have a great point. I was thinking about the pools, and perhaps we"ll need some more "to do" inside.. gym, covered pools.. we are still looking around.  

thank you very much. 

[Jhawktraveler]

We took a Baltic cruise on Celebrity Silhouette in early June in 2016 (Amsterdam - Stockholm) and loved it.   The cruise spent 3 days in St. Petersburg and that's what sold it for us since we had time to explore SPB and also a full day to Moscow.  We also had an overnight in Copenhagen.

[MicCanberra]

3 days in St Pete's is excellent

[dogs4fun]

10 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

3 days in St Pete's is excellent

Totally agree - it is the best option one can book for a Baltic cruise as the visa free program allows only 72 hours in Russia.

3 day St. Petersburg options - May/June

Viking Sky -  May

Viking Jupiter - May

Oceania Marina - leaving Southampton June 2nd and ending in Stockholm on June 14th. 3 days in St. Petersburg, June 10-12. I've sailed the Marina and it is wonderful!!!

Edited March 5, 2019 by dogs4fun

[Aquahound]

On 3/2/2019 at 4:09 PM, streghina70 said:

I been reading reviews about the Norwegian Cruises, and the Holland American Cruises, both, doing the Baltic Sea. We are looking forward to having a nice time, not crowded, and a good itinerary. Need some help to decide which Cruise line will be the best for us. Married, no kids, near our 50, feeling 25.

We have already done some cruises with Costa, Celebrity and MSC.. very different locations, but I did love the Celebrity Eclipse when we did Bahamas. 

Any help is most welcomed 

 

thanks everyone

 

Between these choices, I recommend Holland America.  NCL ships are crowded and have the worst food in the business (my opinion, of course).  HAL isn't known for great entertainment but overall, its a nicer cruise line than NCL.  

[streghina70]

15 hours ago, Jhawktraveler said:

We took a Baltic cruise on Celebrity Silhouette in early June in 2016 (Amsterdam - Stockholm) and loved it.   The cruise spent 3 days in St. Petersburg and that's what sold it for us since we had time to explore SPB and also a full day to Moscow.  We also had an overnight in Copenhagen.

That would be excellent for us, we are double checking the dates of departure of the Celebrity, since I just saw, they only had departures on July. 

thank you very much

Edited March 5, 2019 by streghina70
mistaken words

[streghina70]

2 hours ago, Aquahound said:

 

Between these choices, I recommend Holland America.  NCL ships are crowded and have the worst food in the business (my opinion, of course).  HAL isn't known for great entertainment but overall, its a nicer cruise line than NCL.  

If I do not find a good departure date on the Celebrity cruise, I think everyone has guided me on the Holland.

Thank you very much for your opinion

[streghina70]

3 hours ago, dogs4fun said:

Totally agree - it is the best option one can book for a Baltic cruise as the visa free program allows only 72 hours in Russia.

3 day St. Petersburg options - May/June

Viking Sky -  May

Viking Jupiter - May

Oceania Marina - leaving Southampton June 2nd and ending in Stockholm on June 14th. 3 days in St. Petersburg, June 10-12. I've sailed the Marina and it is wonderful!!!

I am double checking on celebrity, and then I'll check Viking. 

Marina is impossible for us, we are flying from Argentina to Amsterdam. 

But many thanks for all the tips

[Aquahound]

22 minutes ago, streghina70 said:

If I do not find a good departure date on the Celebrity cruise, I think everyone has guided me on the Holland.

Thank you very much for your opinion

 

Like the others, I also recommend Celebrity over both those lines.  Good luck on your hunt.  😊

[streghina70]

I have just checked on Celebrity, they have only 11 days itinerary, no longer 3 days on St Petersburg. and departs on July and end of June. Pitty..so excited to find my cruise with them.

[MicCanberra]

1 hour ago, streghina70 said:

If I do not find a good departure date on the Celebrity cruise, I think everyone has guided me on the Holland.

Thank you very much for your opinion

I take it the 2 June Silhouette cruise doesn't suit.

[marco]

For this itinerary, and price being pretty much comparable,  my priority would be  the ports and  time in ports rather than which particular ship/line.

[MicCanberra]

4 hours ago, marco said:

For this itinerary, and price being pretty much comparable,  my priority would be  the ports and  time in ports rather than which particular ship/line.

Agreed, that port intensive itineraries mean the ship is less important but not necessarily irrelevant.

[streghina70]

https://www.princess.com/find/cruiseDetails.do?voyageCode=G922

 

Thank you very much Everyone.. I agree, with so many cities to see, the ship is not my priority, but I think we have a winner: Princess has good cities, good departure day for us, and all I've heard from this cruise, has been positive.  

[MicCanberra]

36 minutes ago, streghina70 said:

https://www.princess.com/find/cruiseDetails.do?voyageCode=G922

 

Thank you very much Everyone.. I agree, with so many cities to see, the ship is not my priority, but I think we have a winner: Princess has good cities, good departure day for us, and all I've heard from this cruise, has been positive.  

Good work, I think you will enjoy princess. 

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, streghina70 said:

https://www.princess.com/find/cruiseDetails.do?voyageCode=G922

 

Thank you very much Everyone.. I agree, with so many cities to see, the ship is not my priority, but I think we have a winner: Princess has good cities, good departure day for us, and all I've heard from this cruise, has been positive.  

Good choice. We did this itinerary on the Star Princess (in 2007 for our 30th anniversary), and it is still our best cruise ever.