St Petersburg

[Pvbgirl]

I am looking at Baltic cruises for 2023 and frankly amazed that cruises are showing a return to St Petersburg.  I would personally not even consider  going there.  Any thoughts or suggestions for cruising to the Baltics but not that port?

[hallasm]

Good question. I have a hard time believing that the cruises will return to St Petersburg in 2023.

In fact, I would hope that the situation is ‘normalized’ in 2023 and back to peaceful times and in that case would be acceptable again to include St Petersburg.  I do not think so, though.
Personally, I would book a cruise even it currently included St. Petersburg  - with an expectation that the itinerary for 2023 will be changed similarly to this year, as there will still be war in the region.  
If, contrary to expectations, there will be peace in the region and St. Petersburg again part of the itinerary for 2023. Time will show.

[Wendy-Europe]

I suspect the shipping companies are planning for the best and expecting the worst. So they try to plan theoretically the classic routes "Baltic Sea" with St. Petersburg and everyone who books a trip of it must be aware that due to the war and sanctions changes are to be expected. I'm sure alternative routes are already in the drawer for 2023 as well.

[CruiserBruce]

2 hours ago, Wendy-Europe said:

I suspect the shipping companies are planning for the best and expecting the worst. So they try to plan theoretically the classic routes "Baltic Sea" with St. Petersburg and everyone who books a trip of it must be aware that due to the war and sanctions changes are to be expected. I'm sure alternative routes are already in the drawer for 2023 as well.

This! St Petersburg is the big draw of a Baltic cruise, and the cruise lines won't rush to cancel the big draw this far in advance...the Baltic cruise market would pretty much crash. 

[dfilpus]

Norwegian is removing Saint Petersburg from its Baltic cruises in 2023. They’ve replaced it with Visby Sweden and Kotka Finland on our cruise in August 2023.

[Jim40]

It will depend on sanctions .

[hallasm]

27 minutes ago, Jim40 said:

It will depend on sanctions

I think it's more about safety and liability than about sanctions.  

Havila Voyages ship Havila Capella sailing along the west coast of Norway is, however, subject to sanctions as the ship is financing with Russian capital.