Baltic cruises

[abb4k]

Compared to other cruises (Caribbean, Alaska, etc), how choppy are the seas on the Scandinavia/Russia cruises? I realize the answer changes hourly, but in general, are the Baltic itineraries relatively calm or relatively choppy?

 

As you can tell, we are considering booking one of these for summer 2009, and just trying to determine how critical a midship cabin would be.

 

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[jhannah]

Although the seas can do anything, our Scandinavia/Baltic cruise in the month of June was smooth sailing all the way.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We have had it both ways -- calm one time -- choppy another.

[eh2zed]

Ours was smooth. #1 overall cruise for us.

[taxmantoo]

The Baltic Sea is usually pretty calm. We did it in June and had no problems. We were however on NCL leaving from Dover and the North Sea crossing can get pretty choppy. Leaving from Copenhagen, you will avoid that.

[ScottishMaid]

Is yourcruise Copenhagen round trip? or do you sail from or to Netherlands or England? The part out in the North Sea could be rough, but probably not.

[Ine]

I know Northsea has a bad reputaton, but in general it is o.k.

The times we sailed it was always very smooth.

[Druke I]

Our two trips on the Baltic have been with smooth seas - but there are no guarantees upon the oceans.

 

If you do go on a Baltic cruise, I highly recommend going on a ship that includes the Kiel Canal in its itinerary. It traverses a very pretty part of Germany.

 

Only the Prinsendam in the HAL fleet is small enough to clear the bridges along the Kiel Canal.

[Sirdar]

We did the Baltic in July of 2007 aboard the Veendam. The seas were generally smooth although somewhat rougher than the Med. I doubt that, absent a storm, you will have much of a problem.

[RuthC]

I've sailed there twice. The first time was round-trip out of NYC (meaning there was a huge variety of seas), and the second time was round-trip out of Copenhagen.

Both cruises were quite calm in the Baltic, and fairly smooth in the North Sea.

YMMV. ;)

This is a particularly lovely area of the world in which to cruise. The sail through the archipeligo to/from Stockholm is one of the world's most beautiful.

[European_CruiseGirl]

Hi, you can expect calm seas (on the average) between May-August. September starts to be a bit choppy and October-March are the worst.

[Cruising Ham]

We cruised the Baltic last July. We wore patches because we had no idea what to expect. The first day/evening had some waves, but nothing anyone could remotely call "rough". The rest of the Baltic was pretty smooth.

 

The shocker was the North Sea. It was like glass. I'm not kidding, it looked as though we were sailing on glass. I've rarely seen any body of water larger than a small lake that smooth. It's something I never expected.

[goody1]

We've cruised the Baltic twice, and out of a total of 24 nights had one stormy night. We're doing it for a third time next August on the Eurodam which is our first HAL cruise.

[BigBearLady]

Our two trips on the Baltic have been with smooth seas - but there are no guarantees upon the oceans.

 

If you do go on a Baltic cruise, I highly recommend going on a ship that includes the Kiel Canal in its itinerary. It traverses a very pretty part of Germany.

 

Only the Prinsendam in the HAL fleet is small enough to clear the bridges along the Kiel Canal.

I second the Kiel Canal suggestion. I went on the Prinsendam this past August and it was a great trip. We did have some heavy seas when we arrived near Bornholm, an island off of Denmark. The port was closed and we had to proceed on to Copenhagen early. I can highly recommend the Kiel Canal portion of the trip. Lots of locals come out to wave to us and I was waving back!

[abb4k]

I appreciate all the kind input on Kiel. Strangely, the Eurodam itineraries for 2009 list Kiel. Is that ship also able to transit the canals now?

[Druke I]

I don't think the Eurodam can "fit" in the Kiel Canal. The listing is probably for a port call at the city of Kiel, not a transit of the canal.