Rental Car from Warnemunde to Berlin

[a5storyguy]

I am booked on the Insignia for July 24, from Stockholm to Copenhagen. On August 2, we will be in Warnemunde. Does anyone know the details for renting a car to drive to Berlin? I've read on this web sight that Hertz has a location in Rostock. How do we get Hertz to bring a car to the ship or pick us up?:cool:

[digby]

I am booked on the Insignia for July 24, from Stockholm to Copenhagen. On August 2, we will be in Warnemunde. Does anyone know the details for renting a car to drive to Berlin? I've read on this web sight that Hertz has a location in Rostock. How do we get Hertz to bring a car to the ship or pick us up?:cool:

 

 

I would think your travel agent could arrange it with Hertz or one of the many other companies.

[Kane]

We are on the Insignia "turn-around", and will be in Warnemunde a few days after you. I did some "Google Earthing" and it looks like the train station is very near where the cruise ships dock.

 

Hopefully someone who has been there will post, but hopping the train was what we were thinking of doing. (Parking might be a problem if you drive in).

[a5storyguy]

I checked on taking the train, and my conclusion is that it takes too long to get to and from Berlin, and requires two changes along the way. It would only allow a little over 3 hours in Berlin. A rental car would seem quicker.

[Druke I]

Train station is but a five minute walk from where the ship docks. We were there last Sept on Regatta.

 

We opted not to go into Berlin (we felt not enough time to even scratch the surface), but did hop a commuter train into Warnemunde itself. My wife browsed in the main shopping district, and I jumped on a streetcar (trolley) and toured the city. One of the trolley lines goes through the backside of the zoo, and you can see some of the larger cats as they wander about their enclosures.

[shoshona2]

When my friends took the Baltic cruise on Oceania, the cruise line provided transport to and from the ship to a hotel in Berlin. They decided to have a private guide meet them in Berlin and leave the "driving" to the cruiseline in case of any problems getting back to the ship. They will only wait for THEIR transport or tour!!!

 

Go to the "ports" section of this board and hit on "Europe" and put Berlin in the search mode. You will get many opinions.

 

Sheila

[irsdcc]

Here is comments from several other threads and trip reports:

Warnemunde: Picked up Hertz car at the dock and 4 of us drove to Berlin (2.5 hours) leaving at 8 am. Parked near the zoo (15 Euro). Took a hop on - hop off bus with about 12 stops (several different companies - ours was Berolinas) for 19 Euro each. Has head phones with commentary in 8 languages. Lopp takes about 2 hours if you don't get off. Car rental and gas cost about 150 Euro (gas was almost half that amount!) split among 4 people. Driving seemed easy (Henry drove).

The bus is called City-Circle Sightseeing, they are yellow, run every 15 minutes in Summer, stop 14 times and cost 19 Euro each. Their website is www.severin-kuehn-berlin.de and includes a map of the route, so you should be able to plan a parking place accordingly.

There were at least 3 companies. One was Hop ON Hop Off. The one we took was Berolinas (one of 2 with Yellow buses). Drivers speak minimal english. The bus had headsets with 8 language pre-recorded narrative.

 

If you get on where you get off after wandering around it is easy. We tried to walk to next stop in couple of cases (because it was closer) and it was not easy to find the bus stop. All company buses stop at same spot. The whole loop takes over 2 hours, so I would not take it around once for orientation. We got on near the Zoo, close to a Tourist Information office.

Here's a link to the German rail site where you can get current pricing as well as scheduling which, to me, is at least as important as the price on a do-it-yourself excursion by rail. http://www.bahn.de/pv/view/int_guest...l_guests.shtml

On the left hand side of the page, just below the button marked "Suchen", there are links for "English | Français | Italiano".

I made my bookings via the Hertz website and used the Miera Kraftahrzeuge GmbH location (in Rostock). It says on my confirmation that this is the best location if arriving by International Luxury Liner. I plan on phoning the office soon to see if they will have the car available to me at the port and if they will be available after hours to drop it off (around 8:00 pm). Also, I did a quick check via Mapquest on how far this location is away from the Warnemunde port and it is a 10 minute drive.... worse case scenario if it's not at the port we will take a taxi to pick it up.

Reserved through the Hertz website for our arrival May '05 on the Connie, we arrived and got off the ship expecting to taxi to the Rostock office. I noticed the Hertz sign at the little tourist office at the Warnemunde dock as we got off the ship at about 7:45. The office was closed but a young lady was opening up and said a Hertz rep would arrive at 8:00. He did (by bicycle) and my car was in fact at the dock! This worked out great and we arranged our return time with him at the dock, he also came back to meet us by bicycle. Probably not the kind of story you want to hear if you're an obsessive planner, but everything worked out well for us. We were in Berlin by about 10:45 and left at about 5:00 PM, we parked the car close to the Berlin Zoo about a block from a hop on hop off bus stop, a nice TI right in that area as well.

If you book via the internet and let Hertz know that you will be arriving by ship, they will have a car right at the Hertz office at the dock. You can see the sign from the dock. For us unfortunately, we arrived on a Sunday and could not make a reservation online because the office was considered closed. I had my local Hertz office make a reservation through Rostock. When we arrived though, they had no record of a reservation(stupid me forgot to get a confirmation number). They did have a van available for us though at 63 euros. The other cars they had were already reserved by other passengers..It cost me another 60 euros to fill the van on return though! Still it was wonderful to be able to drive through the countryside and get away from the cruise ship environment. We had about 5 hours in Berlin, not enough but I'm glad we did it..got back in time to have a few Rostocker beers in port...it's only 5 minutes walk through the train station to lively Warnemunde..

Our ship docked in Warnemunde. The Avis rent car agent is about a 5 minute walk from the pier and is located in the Rostock train station. Rostock has two Avis locations. You must specify the train station in order to be convient to the Warnemunde dock. The office opens at 8:00am. You can also take the train from that station and it will take you to Rostock city center.

 

The road signs are extremely easy to follow in Germany and we had no problem navigating for city to city. The drive is picturesque and relaxing. In each city (except Gustrow), we parked and walked aroung the city center (Zentrum).

 

Public parking works two ways in Germany. In garages, you get a ticket when you enter and when you leave you insert the ticket into a ticket machine located at all entrances. The machine shows you what you owe. After paying, your ticket is validated. This enable you to leave the garage. The parking lots have ticket machines. You estimate the time you will be gone and purchase tickets form the machine. The ticket is placed on the dash.

This site may not be the best one, but it does provide locations for train stations and detailed maps. Hope it helps. http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichel...MaHomePage.htm

We dock in Warnemunde. Which Avis location is the one we want to get a car? I'm guessing it's the first one. As they close at 6PM (and surely we will return the car after that), anyone know how that works?

Avis - R9S

Grubenstrasse 29, Rostock, 18055 , Germany

(49) 0381-2021180

Sun Closed; Mon-Fri 07:30AM-06:00PM; Sat 08:00AM-11:00AM

OR

Rostock Airport - RLG

Am Flughafen Rostock, Rostock-Weit, 18195 , Germany

(49) 0381-2021170

Sun Closed; Mon-Fri 07:30AM-06:00PM; Sat 08:00AM-11:00AM

 

We shared a car with another couple. Henry booked it with Hertz and they gave him Rostock as the pickup. We noticed a Hertz sign at the pier in Warnemunde and the guy gave us a VW Passat (stick shift). You should tell Hertz that you want to pick up at the pier. We told the guy that we would return the car at 8 pm, so he came back at that time.

 

The gas cost us about 50 Euro. Parking near the Zoo in the same garage as Hertz was 15 Euro. We did the hop on hop off bus (Berolinas) @ 19 euro per person. The Tourist office near the Zoo station sells tickets. There are at least 3-4 companies that offer HOHO services. The whole circle takes 1.5 to 2 hours, but we got off as we went instead of doing an orientation circle first.

 

Dileep was a passenger in the car that I rented from Hertz. I was not sure it would be worth the hassle beforehand, but I would do it again. The cost savings are nice, but more important to me was the additional 60-90 minutes in Berlin over the excursion timing.

 

Posted limit was 130 kph, traffic was light until you reach Berlin with many cars moving at 150 kph and faster. Occasionally, there were short sections where the speed limit was reduced to 80 or 100 kph, as for road repairs, and these limits seemed to be obeyed strictly. Oh, and if you're not in the act of passing someone, stay the heck out of the left lane.

We booked a Hertz car to be picked up in Rostock, but were able to get it right at the pier in Warnemunde. The Hertz guy called the Rostock office and took care of it. You have to tell him what time you plan to return the car (8 pm?) so can be there.

The only auto rental agency port side in Warnemunde is Hertz and I was told they only have cars brought in from Rostock for those who've pre-booked. I'd made a reservation through an agent in the Toronto Hertz office who told me he couldn't give me a confirmation number but that everything was in place. Well it wasn't. In fact, the young girl had no pre-bookings and only one vehicle available for rental: a mini-van for 65 Euro. Considering that it was only 5 Euro more than the expected Citroen, I grabbed it.

Driving to Berlin on the A19 was effortless and it only took 2 hours to get to Berlin City Centre. We parked in a "parkhaus", a parking garage a few blocks east of the Brandenburg Gate for 1 Euro/hour. [/url]Unter Den Unden is the main drag leading up to the Brandenburg Gate and is lined with souvenir stores that were of the best quality I had seen the entire trip. The t-shirts and knick-knacks had a creative flair unlike the mass produced items usually found in these shops. I even purchased a tiny bit of the Berlin Wall for 2 Euro. The Brandenburg Gate is to Berlin what the Arch De Triomphe is to Paris. At its foot is a lifesize photo and timeline detailing its fascinating history. Crossing through the gate to Tiergarten Park in old West Berlin, we were immediately reminded of those who were murdered trying to cross the wall by a block long display of photos with descriptions detailing location and murder date of each victim. The Holocaust Memorial one block south of the gate is a field of 2000 rectangular concrete slabs of varying height, which are placed on uneven ground. Walking through the maze of stone was disconcerting. Did it signify the anonymity of the countless murdered, I thought? A few wrong turns and you could easily lose the person you came in with.

Making our way down to the Sony Center to visit the German Film Museum at Potsdamer Platz we were constantly reminded of the former Berlin Wall. Buildings erase much of the former wall but the permanent indentation in the ground with sporadic pieces of wall or gold plate memorials tell us that Berliners do not want to forget. The Filmmuseum Berlin was the highlight of our day in Germany. Highly interactive and informative, we were taken through a journey of Germany's film history from past to present. The interactive kiosks allowed us to explore the techniques and styles of Germany's greatest directors from Eisenstein to Wenders to Werner Herzog. The most fascinating exhibit was that detailing the propaganda films made by the ****s. I never knew that there was a film starring Emil Jannings that depicted the British placing their women and children in concentration camps! The Marlene Dietrich tribute included many of her costumes, memorabilia and the ability to view scenes from all of her films. It was slick, creative and a steal for only 6 Euro. We could have spent a full day in the Filmmuseum Berlin alone but alas, it was 5PM and we had to return the van by 7PM. It never occurred to me that it would cost 50 Euro to fill the van with diesel! The deal I thought I had gotten that morning suddenly slipped away. Still, the return train ride would have cost us 60 Euro each and most importantly we had the freedom to determine our own trail.

Can you see Berlin in 5 hours? Definitely not. It was a little rushed and definitely not a comprehensive visit but in those 5 hours we experienced some of the most moving and fulfilling moments of our entire trip. In fact, I would have traveled 5 hours just to spend an hour at the Filmmuseum. On return, we even had a few hours to explore the seaside town of Warnemunde, which is a 10-minute walk from the ship through the train station. Picture a seaside resort with beer gardens, beach shops and miles of sandy beach and you'll get the idea. Grabbing a Bratwurst and a couple of Rostocker beers up on deck while sailing out to the enthusiastic waves of German locals was a great way to cap the best day so far of our Baltic trip.