Review of day in Warnemunde & thanks to Travelanni

We have just returned home from a trip to Europe, which included a 2 week Baltic cruise. One of our ports of call was Warnemunde. I hope this review may encourage other cruisers to get out there and make use of the marvellous train system Germany has!

I would also like to thank Travelanni for all the info she has put on Cruisecritic and her website. This enabled me to plan a day which my husband and I enjoyed very much.

Following Travelanni's advice I bought a day train pass online before leaving home. This was very good value. As it was a Thursday we had to buy the 1.90 euro tickets to get us from Warnemunde to Rostock before 9am, in order to catch the 9.07 to Schwerin. Here we enjoyed wandering the town, visiting the cathedral, and spending most of our time in the castle and grounds, which is well worth a visit.

We caught the 13.53 train back to Rostock from Schwerin. Here we did not use the tram to get into the centre of Rostock - it only took us 10 minutes to walk from the railway station to the Steintor. We followed the city wall round to the Kroplintor. Then onto the Marienkirche, which is very impressive. More wanderings around the Neuer Markt area, before walking back to the railway station.

Having got a train back to Warnemunde, we walked as far as the lighthouse area and along the Am Strom before returning to our ship about 6pm.

We enjoyed all the sights we saw this day, particularly Schwerin Castle. If you have a day in port in Warnemunde, Schwerin is a very worthwhile day trip and easy to do on the train. We were impressed with the smart trains and efficient service.

Thanks again to Travelanni for all her tips.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Its a shame that many people don't consider the Warnemunde area for shore excursions, it really is a nice area and has a lot to see.

We were in Warnemunde in late Aug of this year during an Oceania cruise on the Marina. There seemed to be a lot to see and do there, so I hired a private guide for the 6 in my group through Tours By Locals (TBL). (BTW, TBL arranges for tours in many cities around the world, as I came to discover.)

I had never heard of them (think I read about them in one of the CC threads somewhere) but they were easy to deal with. The emails setting up the tour went smoothly. Our guide, Britt B, was born in another part of Germany but has called Rostock home for quite awhile now. She was on time, didn't smoke, spoke excellent English, was very friendly and enthusiastic, and was very informative. She loved answering our zillion questions.

We had her for 10 hours. She brought a van and an excellent driver. We spent the day touring Bad Doberman, Wismar and Rostock. We had time at the end to drive through Warnemunde on the way back to the ship. I'd hire her again in a heartbeat.

Thanks for the comments about things to see from Warnemunde! The cruise we have planned for the Baltics next year will be there, unfortunately, on a Monday.. when I checked the various towns and their castles, everything like that is closed on Mondays.. Is Schwerin worth the visit anyway, or should we focus on other towns do you think? Thanks for any opinions!

QuattroRomeo..mmmm......hard one! Personally I do not think we would not have gone to Schwerin if the castle had been closed. Seeing the inside turned into a big part of our visit. That being said, if everything in the area is closed on Mondays and we had trouble finding something else to visit, maybe we would have reconsidered.

The outside of Schwerin castle is rather nice too, and there are extensive grounds to wander through if you have a nice day and want a walk! In particular the gardens behind and close to the castle are small, but very pleasant. You can also do a boat trip out on the lake which surrounds the castle. We did not do this as we wanted to get back and have a look at Rostock as well before having to get back to our ship.

The cathedral in Schwerin is also worth a look, and there is at least one museum. We are not really into museums, having got rather museumed out over the years of travel, so I can't comment on the museum - and maybe that is also closed on Mondays!!

Don't know whether this helps much!?

Thanks kiwi! Guess we'll need to research all the towns, to see what non-castle things there are to see. It sounds like you enjoyed Rostock, so at least that's a start!

Just wanted to bring this to the top of the page again. I notice on another thread Travelanni is back on deck, and wanted to make sure she sees my thank you to her!

I thoroughly recommend any cruisers with a day in Warnemunde make use of all the extensive information posted by Travelanni, and try the excellent German train service to go somewhere interesting! We had a great day this way! My husband was doubtful about my plans, but his worries were unfounded!