Review of Baltic 12 night on Navigator, 6/15-6/27/18

Husband and I took this cruise last month and I promised myself I would share here since you've all been so helpful with sharing your own experiences!

Be warned, I'm a bit technically challenged and don't take near as many pictures as I should, but I will do my best.

With that, here's an attempt at the first day's cruise compasses.

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Looking forward to your review.

Ok, I warned you all, let's hope the feet don't show up in these pics!

Here are some notes left in our cabin about the port transportation options and particularly St. Petersburg. We booked a tour with Royal in St. Petersburg and were some of the first off the ship. Don't know for certain if they really held back nonRoyal tours.

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Ok, I kinda-sorta got pictures working, but I should start at the beginning. We booked this cruise about 15 months prior in anticipation of our 20th anniversary this year. We're from the US and the ship sailed from Southampton, so it took a bit of work to get ourselves over there, but saw that the Southampton Holiday Inn was often recommended here at cruise critic, so we stayed there for a night prior to sailing.

Since there are so many stops with different currency on this journey, we decided to just take our chances using credit cards everywhere. Of course, this bit us when the cab from the train station informed us that he did not take credit cards and he kindly drove us to the nearest ATM here we paid dearly for our decision. At least we had planned to spend a few days in London after the trip, so we were probably going to need the extra currency anyway.

The hotel itself is nice, room was small, but the onsite dining was ok and we knew we were just going to eat and sleep, so it served the purpose. When we were eating breakfast at the buffet, we noticed other cruisers already walking to the terminal around 10am and since we had nothing better to do, we grabbed our bags and went. Official checkin was supposed to be 11am, but they let us in, got us our seapass cards and as we finished up they announced suite guests could enter (junior suite was a big splurge for us!).

We got in so early, the drink package guys were still setting up and had not yet poured the free champagne (don't worry, we circled back...a few times).

Yes, we got onboard right after we ate breakfast and yes, we still made the Cafe Promenade one of our first stops.

The majority of passengers were British, so it was unsurprising that the food was not what we were used to on the Caribbean cruises.

The second photo is the milk options on the buffet. Whole or skim. That's it. I'm a 2% gal, so that was weird too.

Also, I found the Frosties box to be amusing, just because I love Frosted Flakes and I also enjoy seeing words in other languages. Btw, grab your Frosties early, I only saw them on day 2!

Yes, there are separate breakfast lines for a British breakfast and an American breakfast.

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Day 2 was a sea day and Formal night. Also lost another hour of sleep, but the cruise director promised to return it at the end of the cruise!

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Day 3, Oslo. Sunrise 3:53 am! Thank God for light blocking curtains

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We booked Royal's "Best of Oslo" tour because it included 2 of my husband's must-see attractions: Vigeland Sculpture Park and the Viking Ship Museum. There was also a short stop at the Olympic Ski jump.

One advantage of taking the tour was that we were dropped off at one end of the park and picked up at the other end, so less walking overall. They also rearranged the order of visits so we made it to the park while overcast and were inside the museum when the rain started. Worth paying $51/person? I dunno, but it did include the museum ticket which is about $12.

The ski jump was really just a quick photo op, gift shop and bathroom stop, less than 30 minutes.

Sorry, all of the Viking photos are on my husband's phone, but it was a very small museum, just three ships and some artifacts and a gift shop. We had about an hour there and it was very crowded.

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If you plan on shopping, there is a VAT refund available.

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Day 4 Copenhagen

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We did not book an excursion here, but felt daring enough to try public transportation based on what we had read on cruise critic.

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You can see the bus stop from the ship (we were on deck 11 for the first pic), so it is easy to get to.

We were a bit worried about currency again as we were told the buses only take local currency and no one could confirm if tickets were available prior to boarding. Happy to report that there is a ticket machine prior to the stop (pic #2) and it does take credit cards. There is also a currency exchange stand, but we did not check their rates. For the record, Royal also offers currency conversion onboard, but we did not use it.

Third pic is the schedule for the two buses at the stop.

Throughout the trip, we had fun identifying what we could and could not do based on signage. Appears that ping pong is ok on the bus.

Some brave folks did walk all the way to town, but I would not recommend it, there are sidewalks, but it is a long walk to get to anything interesting.

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Forgot to mention, there are free city maps available upon leaving the ship, which are handy when wandering around, like we did.

We got off the bus not far from the Botanical Garden, walked past the Royal Guards (which I believe were in the process of the changing of the guard) to Nyhaven.

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We also visited Amalienborg, Frederik's Church (We did not climb the dome) and Kastellet. These are all in easy walking distance of each other. Then we were pretty close to the Little Mermaid statue, so we took a quick look with tons of other tourists and made our way back to a bus stop.

Our room attendant left us a nice bunny (?) that evening and a little sign indicating we would lose another hour that evening.

That night, around 12:30 am, we passed under the Great Belt Bridge. The ship has such little clearance, it's quite a sight, but very dark so our pictures were so-so. The good news is we'd go back under in daylight on the way back.

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Thank you for the review, it’s bringing back some good memories from when we did this cruise a few years ago on Adventure.

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Nice review!!

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I was on this cruise too! Thank you for sharing; we had a fab time

Looking forward to your review. We have put a Baltic Cruise on our list for 2020, and my wife would love something roundtrip from UK.

Can I ask - were their a lot of families with children on your cruise? Our son loves Navigator, but being a longer cruise, we don’t want to take one where there are few children.

Thanks.

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Welcome to all of you that are following along, I'll try to keep plugging on here and there this week until it gets done!

RSLeesburg - No, we didn't see too many families, mostly older couples. We're in our forties and felt pretty young on this cruise! That being said, if your son enjoys the kids club, I'm sure he'll still meet a few onboard.

Another thing you should know is that the weather is a bit cool for much swim time. Pools were almost always empty, though the hot tubs did get some use. This would be a deal breaker for a lot of kids. There were blankets available to check out (like towels normally are) for lounging and watching the big screen movies.

Day 5 - Sea Day

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The Top Tier event was held in Studio B and we were treated to plenty of drinks and a great extra ice show.

Treated ourselves to Giovannis. Food was good but the service was slow. Took two and a half hours to get through dinner!

World cup games were being shown in Vintages and on the pool movie screen. Lots of excited fans onboard.

You have you stay up pretty late for the sunset, but it's worth it!

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Day 6 -Tallinn

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There was a ticket booth for shuttles right outside the ship. $10 roundtrip per person and they did take cash (also accepted euros and credit cards).

Lots of cobblestone/uneven roads, as you'll see in the picture and there are some hills outside of market square. Just fyi for those with walking difficulties. Normally I wouldn't have noticed, but my husband had ankle surgery 3 months prior and we had to take it slow.

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I am sure my husband is not the first to be so amused by the name of the museum in the first picture. The second one is St. Mary's cathedral.

We didn't ride this train, just saw it go by. It's a sightseeing tour through Old Town.

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We needed a rest and some food, so we picked a cafe at random. The restaurants all have a lot of outdoor seating, with blankets because of the chilly weather. I'm not posting the picture, but I bundled myself pretty well we waited.

I got the venison burger and it wasn't too bad. Then, we did some chocolate shopping!

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