Advice on Baltic cruise

[stopstudy]

Hi Everyone

 

I'm looking for my second cruise and my wife and I are thinking of taking the 12 day baltic cruise. We are wanderers and like to get off the ship maybe take a bus/subway and just go our way and figure things out.

 

Our first cruise from Barcelona to Istanbul was great! Quite a few cities where we could get off the ship and see things ourselves without paying for an excursion.

 

I'm not sure about the Baltic cruise. I know in St. Petersberg that we will need to pay for an excursion but how about the rest of the stops. We have been to Berlin, so we would be happy enough to stay and walk their sea side town but I don't know about the rest

Thanks for any advice

[JsMom2]

Hi Everyone

 

I'm looking for my second cruise and my wife and I are thinking of taking the 12 day baltic cruise. We are wanderers and like to get off the ship maybe take a bus/subway and just go our way and figure things out.

 

Our first cruise from Barcelona to Istanbul was great! Quite a few cities where we could get off the ship and see things ourselves without paying for an excursion.

 

I'm not sure about the Baltic cruise. I know in St. Petersberg that we will need to pay for an excursion but how about the rest of the stops. We have been to Berlin, so we would be happy enough to stay and walk their sea side town but I don't know about the rest

Thanks for any advice

 

DD and I did the Baltics on Crown Princess last year. The ports are VERY easy to do on your own. Just do the research ahead of time, and you'll be fine. A great resource is the DVD you can buy for $20 at johnlawrencecd.com. John is a former CD on Princess and an expert on the Baltics. His DVD will tell you exactly which bus to take where etc.

 

We used Alla tours for St Petersburg, and they were wonderful!

[Ms belp]

The Baltics are definitely on my "To Do" list. I would go for it! You can figure the excursions out like previous poster said.:)

[lhall85917]

We did the Baltics last year and had a great time. Many of the ports are very doable on your own - we only booked Helsinki and Stockholm tours through the ship. As others have said, check out the ports of call board to get ideas for what you would like to do. My review is here if you are interested - http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=43601.

 

This is what we did -

Copenhagen - walked into to town and did the Blue Netto canal cruise. We loved this!

Warnemunde - walked off the ship and strolled through town - lovely little town. They also had a boat cruise that we did but didn't care for it as much, it was more a tour of the boat yards than a scenic cruise.

Tallinn - walked off the ship and wandered around town. We had a great day and really loved this stop!

St Petersburg - independent tour with Anastasia set up by one of our roll call members - no need to do this through the ship, find someone on your sailing to do this with

Helsinki - we booked Porvoo and Country through NCL and loved this tour! Porvoo is a small, quaint town and then we went to a family's horse farm. We aren't horse people, but really enjoyed this tour

Stockholm - we didn't make specific plans then decided to do the waterway tour and a town tour through NCL. Neither was great and we were a little disappointed although we did enjoy going to the Vasa Museum

 

I wasn't sure that we would enjoy all of these stops as much as we did because I tend to be a more "Caribbean" type of girl :rolleyes:, but it was absolutely wonderful and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to others. It is very doable on your own.

[SallyUK]

We did the NCL Baltics last year too. Very easy to do your own thing, with the exception of St Petersburg.

 

In Copenhagen we walked through the city and towards Tivoli Gardens. Its flat, easy to walk around and relatively compact, though the walk to Tivoli is a bit of a trek as its the over end of the city. We also took the canal cruise - much easier and cheaper to do yourself than the ships version.

 

Warnemunde: easy to see yourself and walk around, don't recommend the harbour cruise though, it is very industrial and all in German, so unless you speak the language and/or enjoy looking at post-communist heavy industry not worth it. The town is very pretty, but once you get outside its shipbuilding, coal etc.

 

Talinn, easy walk off the ship and up the hill to the old City. Very few public toilets in Talinn though, so go before you go ;). There's a very helpful tourist office in the old City that can provide you with maps.

 

St Petersburg - ship or prearranged tours are the order of the day here. Recommend doing whole day tours rather than two half day tours as the trip back to the docks can be a bit of a trek in St Pete's traffic. We loved Catherine's Palace, Peterhof and the Hermitage and its well worth seeing all three, as well as trying to shoe horn in some time to see the city.

 

Helsinki - very easy to do your own thing, we took the tram to all of the major tourist places but did use the (paid) NCL shuttle bus into the centre. Also took the Harbour Cruise, which is lovely if it isn't cold.

 

Stockholm - went to the Vasa Museum. Important: go there first because its mobbed once the tour groups arrived. On your own you can out manouvre them. Loved the quirkiness of the Nobel museum too, it has a cafe where you can eat fairly cheaply by local standards (lovely food too) and when you flip your chair upside down it will have been signed by a Nobel laureate, so you can see who you sat on.

[hxl2001]

I agree with the previous posts - We were on the NCL Jewel Baltics cruise last year and, with the exception of Russia, you can do most ports on your own.

 

Copenhagen - we took a city bus that stopped next to the ship (can't remember the number but I'm sure its in a post somewhere) to Tivoli. We spent the rest of the day slowly walking back through the city towards to ship - stopping at many places along the way including the Blue Netto Canal tour. Taking the bus near the ship saved a lot of walking - since you only had to walk back to the ship rather than walk both directions.

 

Warnemunde - since the town is small we did take the NCL Lubeck / Wismar tour in the morning then walked around Warnemunde when the tour returned.

 

Talinn - walked of the ship and all over town - very easy to do - there are several posts or guide books with walking tours described.

 

St Petersburg - We had arranged a private tour for 8 people (arranged through the Cruise Critic boards). Using a private tour (and a smaller mini bus) we were able to move around much faster and see more than the large ship tours. Our guide managed to get us to the front of the lines (which could be very long at some sites) and also took as to 'local' restaurants and even on a subway ride (couldn't do that with a large tour group). I would recommend the tour company we used.

 

Helsinki - Used the NCL shuttle to get into town. Then took the local tram on a tour around the town getting off the tram at various stops (again described in many posts). After the tram tour we walked around the downtown area on our own.

 

Stockholm - Took the early NCL tour to the Vasa Museum and City Hall since I'd read the Museum got very busy later (and I think we were in Stockholm on a day when the local bus services wasn't running very often). Asked the driver to drop us off in the Gamla Stan area on the drive back - spent the rest of the day walking around (with the help of guide books etc) - walked back to the ship at the end of the day.

 

Let me know if you need any more info.

[helpthejuggler]

We did the same first cruise Barca to Istanbul. Then did the 12 night Baltic for our 2nd.

 

Both great trips - agree with all the descriptions above.

Warnemunde you can also take the train to Rostock for a few Euro for a couple of hours.

 

Diffs....

More consecutive Sea days on Baltic

Lots more time changes in Baltic

Cooler weather,

Less 'history' in the Baltics,

Baltics a different country for each port,

more currencies.

Less familiar languages

The run of sea days at the end is nice to relax through

Try for an cruise dates that gives you St Pbg on a weekend (lots less traffic)

Baltic ports are probably places you have never been to before

 

Any idea where you will go for a 3rd cruise - it saves me thinking too hard

[stopstudy]

Thanks everyone

I think I'm going on a cruise

[sinclaj]

Thanks to everyone for all the information you gave about things to do at the various ports.

 

We're doing this cruise in August and this is exactly the type of information that is so helpful.

 

Thanks again

 

Judy

[suz1607]

For a third cruise consider either "around the British Isles" or the Greek Isles -- very different and both great