Mr&MrsHendricks

Hello there!

We were in Hamburg in January with my folks on QV. Docked at Steinwerder.

It's too far to sensibly walk, but a frequent shuttle is put on that runs to the centre of town.

Minature Wonderland is superb..but I'd recommend booking, as even in Jan there was a 90 min wait.

Also consider a water boat tour type thing.

There are several companies that run them -come out of M Wonderland, go over the bridge, turn left and they're down there.

Well worth doing as get the see some of the massive dry docks, go through some of the smaller waterways in the city....and our trip went out to Steinwerder and alongside QV.

What's also very doable if tickets for MW are all gone, is getting the train from the Hauptbahnhof out to the beautiful city of Lubeck. A doddle to to. A Google will get you train times/frequency.

Plenty to do in Hamburg by yourself, and no need at all to do an overpriced ships tour.

Have fun!!

Mr H.

Hi!

We've not (yet) stopped in Southampton so can't comment what it's like to stay there.

But having visited Portsmouth a couple of years ago we'd happily go back for longer. A fascinating historic place with loads to see and do!!

There's an hourly direct train from Portsmouth & Southsea station to Southampton Central. Takes 58 mins leaving at 42 mins past the hour. £10.10 single ticket.

(£10.90 for a day return if you were to stop in Sou and head there for the day)

Regards,

Mr. H.

Ps... We're on QE in December and stopping overnight in Winchester to see the Crimbo Market. A beautiful city and well worth a visit!!

Saver Fare all the way!!!

We were there in Jan this year....and docked out of town. It was a 40 walk into the city which was easy enough to do....or pay $6 I think for the bus. If you dock at the Hafencity then it's only yards to the sights!

Saver Fare. Don't waste your money.

Regards,

Mr. H.

Hello there,

Query on behalf of friends. They will be on the Splendour and docking in Venice on 29th August.

What do experienced RCI cruisers think will be the earliest disembarkation time?

They're able to cart their own luggage so can do 'self help disembarkation' -if that an option- with no trouble.

Our friends are wondering if it would be possible to get to Venice Santa Lucia station to catch a train at 0850hrs........is this doable???

Tickets would already have been bought.

Any comments and thoughts appreciated!

Many thanks,

Mr. H.

Hello there!

Do Self Help disembarkation and you'll have no trouble getting the 0930 to Waterloo. We've always managed to get the 0900ish one with plenty of time to spare. Taxi from docks to Southampton Central takes 10-15 mins max, and is less than a tenner. Tell the driver London side to save you lugging luggage!

You prob won't find the tickets any cheaper by booking early, but at least you can reserve a seat.

Have a grand trip!!

Regards!

Mr H.

Hia,

We used Alla in St Petersburg 4 years ago and they were spot on. On our experience I would recommend them, but we have also heard very good reports of other independent tour operators in SPB. Do your homework and you'll find an itinerary to suit.

The advantages of an independent operator are smaller groups on a minibus, at about 2/3rds the price of a ship's tour, against larger groups on a coach at a stack load money more.

Shipping lines will do their utmost to con you into one of their tours (or in our experience they did) by peddling misinformation and basically blatant lies about having to have a visa or use a ships tour.

Yes, if you want to see the place by yourselves, you need a visa. But there's nothing to stop you using an independent tour firm, and don't be bullied into waiting for all the ship's tours to depart before you get off.

St Petersburg is a magnificent place, and no matter who you go with you'll have a great time. But a bit a forward planning and you can save a bomb.

Enjoy yourselves folks!!

Regards,

Mr. H.

Ps....a ride on the Metro is a must if you can sort it. Also, get out on deck for the sail through the flood defences on departure. Very impressive. Plus you pass an island with a small former naval base on the starboard side. Worth seeing.

Hello there!

You won't be disappointed with Lubeck in the slightest! It's a beautiful city.

We visited a couple of years ago, but rather than do the ship's tour, we wandered up to the main Hamburg railway station (hauptbahnhof), bought a couple of tickets and jumped on the direct train.

Lubeck Hbf is less than a mile from the city centre, and an easy stroll that took 10-15 mins max.

We tend to avoid ships tours when we can, and find it good fun to go under our own steam where possible. And save quite a bit of money too!!

Have a super trip!!

Regards,

Mr. H.

QE is just making her way up Southampton Water now so looks good for being docked at 3.30.

 

I am sure there will be a lot of people on board who are not sure how they are getting home tonight.

It's been a bit of a bouncy ride, but not as bad as I expected (stateroom at the stern of the ship). We've been kept fairly well informed and the opportunity for an extra lunch couldn't be missed. Not sure how we'll get north of London tonight and just been informed it's snowing at home. Wish we were staying on board

Evening!

fantasy51, have you and your chum considered getting the train?

There's a direct Oxford to Southampton Central service will cost you £27 Second class, or £40 First for a Return ticket (less any deductions with any railcards you may have...) and normally takes 90 mins max in each direction.

There may though be engineering works on your day of sailing (a Sunday) so it may take a bit longer, but if you're thinking of travelling down the day before then this won't affect you.

Plenty of cabbies outside the station and the ride to the dock is less that a tenner in fare.

More details here http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

Regards,

Mr. H

Hello there.

We've chosen the CA grade cabin on several occasions and have found them perfectly fine!! Their location has always suited, and the obstruction only means you can't look down....well you can, but just onto a tender or a life boat.

Ok, that said, the tenders and their hoists are slightly larger than the lifeboats..but their mechanism etc are still a couple of feet or so below the balcony railing.

Regards,

Mr H.

Evening!

Depending upon your date of travel, you can get to Glasgow from Southampton on the train for as little as £55. Do some investigation here http://www.nationalrail.co.uk for further details.

If you do chose to fly, I'd ditch the idea of the earlier flight, even with self help disembarkation.

Regards,

Mr. H.

Morning folks,

We did the QE Baltic in May 2011, and I've posted on this topic before, so I've cut, pasted and slightly adjusted my earlier missive....

May I resubmit these observations for your consideration..?!

St Petersburg.

On the advice from some chap we met on a previous cruise, (in the QV aft deck hot tub...great place for top tips) we ditched the thought of a Cunard tour and looked at the independent operators.

On his recommendation we booked with Alla Tours.

From our experience I would recommend them, but we have also heard very good reports of other independent tour operators in SPB. Do your homework and you'll find an itinerary to suit. And save yourself a packet!!!

The advantages of an independent operator are smaller groups on a minibus, at about 2/3rds the price of a Cunard tour, against larger groups on a coach at a stack load money more.

However Cunard will do their utmost to con you into one of their tours (or in our experience they did) by peddling misinformation and basically blatant lies about having to have a visa or use a ships tour.

Yes, if you want to see the place by yourselves, you need a visa. But there's nothing to stop you using an independent tour firm, and don't be bullied into waiting for all the ship's tours to depart before you get off.

St Petersburg is a magnificent place, and no matter who you go with you'll have a great time. Don't forget the camera of course, but don't make the mistake of feeling as though you have to photo everything. If you do you'll spend all day looking down a view finder and not appreciate properly the fine sights that surround you!!

A ride on the Metro is a must if you can sort it; our Alla guide was more than happy to do this!

Also, get out on deck for the sail through the flood defences on departure. Very impressive. Plus you pass an island with a small former naval base on the starboard side. They're probably about 2 1/2 hrs after departure. We only just made second sitting. But it's worth seeing.

Stockholm. Great place. Again, don't bother with ship's trips.

http://www.visitstockholm.com/en/To-...ckholm-Top-10/

Just have a read of this and decide what you want to see!

Also, the museum and sculpture park at Millesgarden is worth a look and a doddle to get to. Get the T-Bana to Ropsten then jump the little tram or the bus to Baggeby. http://www.millesgarden.se/?languageID=5

Copenhagan. Wonderful Wonderful!

Yet again folks, forget any silly ideas about doing ship's trips! There's a HOHO bus that runs from the quayside. When we were there on QE some passengers were very VERY annoyed that they'd done a Cunard bus trip to town when the HOHO was massively cheaper! If you fancy a nice easy stroll along the waterfront, then don't even bother with the bus. The walk into town, past the Little Mermaid (actually not that impressive) will take 30mins a very leisurely pace. The Kastellet and Amalienborg are worth walking through, and the Nyhavn is pleasant to stroll through- but it does get busy. This is where you can catch a boat tour, which I recommend you seriously consider. The Tivoli Gardens are walkable to. They're putting in a subway system at the mo, so what you may find is that a number of the large squares are all dug up and surrounded by hoarding, but that doesn;t detract that much from a great city!!

Tallin. Lovely lovely place. Quite easy to walk to the old town from the quay. Some nice little streets and fine buildings, and a good view from the top of the hill! We did though encounter the world's worst busker who managed to draw quite a crowd!! A super place though!!

Kristiansand and Warnemunde we've not been to, but both are very nice I hear! (our trip called at Olso and Travemunde instead)

You'll have a great time! Mind you all enjoy yourselves!

Regards,

Mr H.

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Hi Hawaii,

I'd go along with what several other posters have commented: ditch the thought of the ship's tour, and do your own thing. Get the shuttle the Blankenberge and get the train from there. There's simple and easy to use ticket machines on the station, the journey is about 15 mins and costs next to nothing. A bit of Googling and you can find the train times before you go.

We've done it several times and it's a doddle.

Google maps tells me the station is about a mile from the centre of town. Took us about 20 mins a a very leisurely pace.

And a full day is nowhere near enough for this beautiful city!!

Regards,

Mr H.

Hi,

We've had them and have had no complaints whatsoever.

You're correct in you're assumption of the obstructed downward views....! Looking outwards is fine!!

I think these cabins are adjacent to the tenders, rather than the smaller lifeboats.

Regards,

Mr. H

There are some far more preferable airlines than the anticipated horrors (based on Trip Advisor) than Delta.

We flew United into NYC and from San Francisco last January. Flight to NYC was fine, flight back (12 hrs plus) didn't even have seat back entertainment which I sort of presume is standard these days. On the plus point it was £400 cheaper to fly to Newark rather than JFK (and the transfers are usually faster). Staff, food and luggage allowance perfectly fine

MrsH

With increasing traffic of cruise ships ports in the Baltic tend to be overcrowded. So the cruise lines will reduce their ports subsequently.

 

In 2011 QE had to cancel Oslo to go to Luebeck instead where she was most welcomed.

I think we were on this cruise - called at Travermunde for Lubeck. Travermunde was such a lovely small port and the welcome so great from the people that we didn't get to Lubeck. We 'had' to book another cruise with the excuse of going to Lubeck. I'd go back to Travermunde on a Cunard ship for the welcome / sailaway tomorrow if I could!

However, I don't think I'd be able to choose which Baltic port to drop as we enjoyed every one of them,

MrsH

Thanks all for the advice so far...While this appears expensive, the "cheaper" private tours are only that way if you can find others to go with you. ( which is our problem at this time)

 

Barry

We used A**A and they were exceptional. I'm thinking of going back to StP and probably would go with them again. There is no need to find others who will go with you as they simply group together all passengers booked with them. We had an excellent group of 14 who had never met before but were of similar mindset and physical ability. No waiting for the errant passenger who held up the whole bus! If you want to go in a smaller group, they can also arrange this for you. Food was fine, but if you're a vegetarian, take something from the ship as my first course was vegetables in broth followed for main by vegetables without the broth, but I think this may have been a translational issue. Next time I would simply specify does not eat meat as the first course the others had of cheese and salad looked great to me!

MrsH

The only bitterness about St Petersburg was caused by the incorrect information and propaganda peddled by Cunard, and their attitude towards passengers/guests who didn't book with them.

 

There is a group of us planning a two day tour with Alla in August and have been requested to meet them at dockside half-hour after the ship has docked in St. Petersburg. Could you please explain how Cunard caused you so much aggravation? Did they actually, physically, refuse to let you disembark until all the "Cunard Tours" had left or was it just an announcement and you could have left if you were at the gang plank?

For 2-3 days before we arrived at St Petersburg, all information was 'you can only go ashore on a Cunard tour or private taxi organised by Cunard'. The evening before arrival we received disembarkation times - Cunard tours from 07.15, Cunard taxi, then independent tours. Do not believe this. We visited the Pursers desk many times to clarify this and luckily had printed information from Alla and the Russian visa website. We gathered close to the gangplank at 06.45 (approx 20 of us in total) and were first in line as soon as the captain had announced the ship had cleared immigration. One Officer came past and stressed to the staff 'no independent tours', I was asked 'are you on tour?' and could answer yes truthfully as the question was open. However, we were prepared as a group to stand up for ourselves. If you are ready to go early as we were, Cunard cannot use the argument that you will slow immigration for their tours. A fellow cruiser was a Russian speaker and was prepared to take this up with immigration for us but it didn't come to that.

In all we had a fantastic time in St Petersburg, beautiful weather and a stunning city. Again we feel we had much better value for money and a tour responsive to what we wanted to do rather than a set itinerary. We didn't let this small issue sour what was a wonderful cruise for us.

We're just back from a QE Baltic.

A few observations.

Cunard will try to tell you that you must have a visa, or be booked on one of THEIR organised tours in order to see St Petersburg.

Do not be bullied by them into believing this is the case- it is simply not true.

Cruise passengers can stay in Russia for up to 72 hours WITHOUT a visa IF they have booked tours with a recognised tour company.

Further details here http://www.visitrussia.com/visas/visafreeentry.htm

This gives the option of booking with an independent tour operator in St Petersburg, which is what we did. (Alla Tours)

Our party was 14, in a minibus with driver and excellent guide, and we had a super time over our 2 day tour.

We feel we had FAR better value for money than those we spoke to who had been on bus trips (30-40 per group) organised by Cunard.

The only bitterness about St Petersburg was caused by the incorrect information and propaganda peddled by Cunard, and their attitude towards passengers/guests who didn't book with them.

I would happily and very comfortably book an independent tour operator should we visit St Petersburg again.