travelreviewer

Hi - Wondering if anyone has thoughts on the Viking Homelands Excursions (or even private ones)? We are going in August - Have already joined others in Roll Call to do a private 2 day tour in St. Petersburg and a private tour in Berlin as well. Saw the Flam Railway get VERY good ratings on another thread, and will do that, too. Wondering thoughts on Pulpit Rock in Stavanger? Copenhagen Excursions? Helsinki? Gdansk?

Any insights would be awesome. I also love things that are a bit 'off the beaten path' , so don't hold back

We went on the Viking Homelands cruise in May 2017. We took a 2 day tour with TJ Travel in St. Petersburg. It was a private (very reasonable and great driver and tour guide, fluent in English and excellent knowledge of history and city) tour and we saw all the sites we wanted to see including private early tours of the Hermitage and Catherine's palace. They were very accommodating asking us if there were other museums, palaces, or buildings we wanted to see as we drove through the city and countryside. All of the other included tours were very good, though since we had been to Berlin for a bout 4 days we took the alternate Rostock tour instead which was excellent. It is a worthy alternative as it is about 3 hours by train each way to Berlin and your really need to spend a few days in Berlin otherwise it is tantamount to looking a 30 minute Rick Steves video. If we hadn't been to Berlin previously, we still would have done the Rostock tour. 5-6 hours of transit is not worth it when you only spend 3-4 hours in a city the size of Berlin with so many museums to visit. It is very worthwhile to spend 4 days in Berlin one of which should be in Pots dam 30 minutes away by S-Ban.

Enjoy your cruise Viking is an excellent cruise line and itinerary.

We booked this cruise a couple of weeks ago and are using Viking Air. For anyone who has done this itinerary with Viking Air, can you please let me know the airline that was used. We are sailing Stockholm to Bergen. I am starting to arrange private excursions and would like to have an idea of what flights may be available to us. Thank you in advance.

KLM to Bergen through AMS

BA to Los Angeles through LHR