afto

Another vote for Alla, but I think all of the well-known companies would do as good a job. Link to my detailed Baltic cruise review is my signature line, and this has details of our Alla tour in St. Petersburg (and Moscow), if you are interested. The Baltic has been our favourite cruise itinerary so far. Enjoy!

The water is glassy smooth -- looks like a lake, but this is a memorable sunset sailing the Inside Passage to Alaska on the Solstice, May of 2015.

2 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

 

There likely would be drivers there between 8:30 and 9:30 but my advice would be if you are sure you want to do a taxi tour to set it up in advance. Setting it up in advance would guarantee it and you would also be able to arrange it with a driver who has good reviews. 

Thanks for this advice; it is much appreciated.

22 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

There is no surcharge for Blue Flag taxi tours on any day. The hourly rate of $50  for 1-4, $70 for 5-7 stays the same any day. ( 3 hour minimum)  There is not a surcharge for metered taxis on a Saturday. The surcharges for metered taxis are on Sunday’s, holidays and midnight to 6:00 am.  Those are 25% for 1-4 passengers and 50% for 5-7. 

Thanks so much for that  -- I am happy to be wrong about the surcharge. This sounds like it would be the best option for us. I may check on my roll call and see if anyone is interested in sharing. Would you recommend trying to set up the taxi tour in advance, or would we be likely to find drivers waiting at about 8:30 on a Saturday morning in May?

I am also arriving on the Summit in May and am interested in this topic. Does anyone know if the blue flag taxi tour rate would be higher on a Saturday? I have heard that regular taxi rates could be 50% higher on Saturdays than week days. 

Thanks.

Thanks for taking the time to put together this very interesting and useful review. I am loving the photos, especially those gorgeous evening shots of the ship and the sunset. 

Thank you Norris and Carol for dropping in on the Celebrity boards and providing us with this wonderful travelogue. Amazing photos as always. I am showing them to DH who has thus far been reluctant to consider Norway.  I love your sense of humour and this has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen on Cruise Critic. Stopped me in my tracks and had me laughing out loud.  Safe travels to you on your future cruises. 

Flam

(pronounced Flom. The J is silent and invisible)

On 10/24/2019 at 11:17 AM, Bimmer09 said:

 

The weather on shore was benign for the most part and we only got wet on the boat to Lysefjord and I had no head protection and can't work the camera while holding an umbrella. The camera got soaked but kept shooting as it's weather-sealed. Since I came home I had two falls within seconds of each other on a muddy slope and the camera flew into the air and landed with a thud in mud just as I did. I cleaned the mud off as best I could with some Kleenex and wipes and kept on shooting even though my clothes were caked in black mud.

OH NO!!! Hope there was no lasting damage!

Thanks for this excellent review. I am so sad that the forward outdoor deck area is no longer available for the common folk. Not sure how much of a difference it will make to my overall experience, but I did not know about this when booking a Bermuda cruise for next May, so I am disappointed.  Thanks for taking time to post all the great photos; following and looking forward to more.

I don't drink Dubonnet much any more but I have always found it hit or miss as to whether you can find it any of the bars on board.  The last time I ordered it on Celebrity (3 years ago?) it tasted so vile I thought that the the waiter had brought the wrong drink; he brought me the bottle to show me. In any case, I couldn't drink it and I put that down to the bottle going "stale" since it wasn't a popular beverage and had been sitting around too long. Maybe I am wrong about that; I don't know enough about this to say for sure. I don't order it any more. 

When we were on the Constellation in May it was almost impossible to get a drink in the Ocean View, even if it was not very busy, unless we tried physically approaching a waiter. Waving was not successful; we seemed to be invisible.  Even after approaching a waiter it was sometimes a problem.  We ate one whole meal (including salad and dessert) while waiting for the drinks to arrive that we had managed to order when we sat down. The waiter never reappeared.  We had to go to the bar and ask the bartender to find out where our original waiter was; could not leave because he still had our cards. Ten minutes later, the cards appeared.  This is not the service that we had experienced on 10 previous Celebrity Cruises; we laughed it off at the time - the "drinks desert" in the OV - but it was surprising to us. Maybe just a staffing problem on that particular cruise, and hopefully not the sign of a new trend. (Yes, we know that the drinks card should be sitting vertically on the table; that was not the problem.)

You could try the Braugasthaus Zum alten Fritz in a nice location on the waterfront in Rostock. It serves German specialties; I had venison goulash, which was delicious. The restaurant is quite large; it has its own brewery as well. There is outdoor seating in good weather.  Not sure about how to get there on public transportation but it is not too far from the centre of town.

A couple of years ago, we had a whole DIY day planed for our stop in Warnemunde and then Celebrity switched us to the Rostock port.  Transportation from the Rostock port is a bit more complicated unless your cruise line offers a shuttle.  We decided just to take a tour instead, which went to all of the places that we had planned to go on our DIY adventure.  This was very convenient, with a Rostock port pick-up.  We didn't waste time waiting for busses, we had lunch included, and the advantage of a knowledgeable guide. I would recommend this if you are looking to do something other than Berlin. If you plan to stick with a DIY plan, I also second the suggestion above to check travelanni's web site: it is full of useful information.

Here is the link to the Alla Tours web site. We chose the Hanseatic Rostock and Molli Steam Train tour.

https://alla-tour.com/tours/

Your plan sounds doable.  You can spend as much time as you like at Suomenlinna, depending on whether you plan any inside visits. We spent about 3 hours there, going at a very leisurly pace, walking from the main ferry landing to Kings Gate and back again. I have more detail in my review if you want to check it out from link below.

I recommend train rather than the Connexion bus, as the bus takes much longer to get back to Centraal Station if the traffic is heavy. Advantage of the bus is that it stops RIGHT outside, so you would save yourselves some steps at the end of the day.  We went there by train and home by bus. Zaanse Schans is a fun outing for a half day or longer; there is lots to see there.  Very photogenic, with the windmills, domestic animals, canals, flowers, etc. The clog-making demonstration takes place inside a clog shop that includes a little museum with some interesting exhibits. You can't miss it; it's near the main entrance to the site. Enjoy!

4 hours ago, fleckle said:

 

"Showtime" in the dining room, where they would bring out a big tray and show you all the desserts each night before needing to make your decision of which dessert to order.

 

 

Yes! This I miss. I have often been disappointed by desserts that SOUND wonderful according to the menu description but turn out to be not at all what I expected.

Great photos! Glad you saw plenty of bears and other wildlife.

I don't have a photo but many times the clips are bright plastic in the shape of a fish or tropical bird. They are meant to be used to keep your beach towel from blowing off the chair. They are not used in the solarium. When you see them out on loungers in the sun really early, towel very neat with nothing else it's pretty obvious they are being used to save the chair.

 

I have removed someones belongings before when the people adjacent (both sides) said they had not seen the people and they had been there for well over 1.5 hours.

I have these clips and use them to prevent having to constantly be rearranging a towel that is trying to slide into an uncomfortable position. Also useful for identifying my chair after coming out of the pool. I would never leave the pool area with the clips on the chair/towel other than quick trip to the loo.

Thanks so much for your input, AnhaltER. We are still mulling this over.

I did just check the Oslo Pass web site which still indicates a number of sites where the pass can be purchased, including the hotel that I mentioned. I don't know about the place at the pier; it was not an option for us last year anyway because our port call was so early in the morning.

Wow, this thread got ugly quickly!

I have a serious follow-up question: why would Celebrity restrict some kinds of food from being brought on board? It would never have occurred to me that this it would pose a problem if I wanted to bring some locally-purchased snacks back with me from a port of call. They allow candy, pastries, etc. So why not meat? Just curious.

When we visited last year, the Oslo Pass was newly available in an online version that you could activate on your phone. I was not keen to experiment with that and decided I wanted to have the pass in hand. We read some reports indicating that there can be delays in picking the pass up at the Oslo Visitor Centre and, besides, our ship was docking quite early in the morning so we wanted to get on with our day before the Visitor Centre opened. So we purchased our passes at the Thon Panorama Hotel, near the pier. Many hotels sell them -- check the details on the Oslo Pass web site. Note that you cannot pick up a pre-ordered pass at the hotel; you have to just buy them on a walk-in basis and pay locally. Remember that there is a senior version of the pass, if you qualify. Public transportation is quite easy to use. We had no problems travelling to Vigeland, VIking Ships, and Folk Museum by bus. If you get back on the #30 bus again after you visit the museum (get back on at the stop you got off at) and continue for a few minutes to the end of the line, you will be at the Fram and Kon-Tiki Museums. If you still have time, you may be able to visit one or both of those museums, which are also covered by the Oslo pass. We had a long port day and were able to make quick visits to both. There is a nice waterfront park area there, with views across the harbour. If your ship is docked at Akershus Castle, you will be able to see it from there. If it's a nice day, you may enjoy taking the passenger ferry back from here to the pier in front of City Hall. It's a short walk back to the dock from there.

Oslo has a lot to offer tourists. Hope you enjoy your day there.

When we were there last year, the passes could be purchased from the tourist booth inside the terminal, where there may be a long line. In theory, they can also be purchased from a machine at the bus stop, but doing so is kind of complicated; in our opinion, the machines are not user friendly and we ended up going back to the terminal to buy the passes. If I recall correctly, it's about 700 metres from the terminal to the bus stop, but it's flat and I don't think it would be a difficult walk with luggage.

Thanks for the input folks.

 

We can't change our sailing date so we are stuck with the terminal well away from Stockholm

 

Has anyone gone in from there?

Trickster, you might want to take a look in the Northern Europe forum for answers to many questions about transportation, sightseeing, etc. I wrote a fairly detailed review on a Baltic sailing last year; most of the "review" is about the ports rather than the ship. The itinerary was slightly different from yours so it may not be all that useful, but if you want to take a look at it, click on the link in my signature below.

Your positive attitude obviously contributed so much to your enjoyment of your trip.

Thanks so much for sharing with us.