Star Baltic - June 6-15th - Quick Review

[OzCanuck]

A quick review of our June 6-15 Star Baltic cruise..

 

First a little about us – 40 somethings with a 2.75 year old. Ok, I know some of you would question the logic of taking such a young child on a Baltic cruise, but he has no vote, and we want to keep traveling. I have very few expectations for traveling with a child his age, so when it goes well I am very happy. When it goes bad, well, at least it’s not going bad at home.

 

We flew in from Toronto the day before (though our AC flight was three hours late, which burned through a lot of toddler patience (and parent patience.)) Stayed at the Crowne Plaza Towers. Plan ‘A’ was thwarted when we realized it was a national holiday in Denmark and Fields was closed for the day, so we trained it into town and walked around a bunch.

 

Caught the NCL bus transfer to the pier, where we went quickly through security and into the suite check-in area. Omar O’Besso is the concierge (excellent!) and Clint was our butler.

 

In terms of cabins… this is our 5th NCL cruise and our 5th NCL cruise in a two bedroom SC suite. With this cruise we make Platinum (and so would junior if the rules allowed). For this cruise it was 11510, which is the most forward SC on the port side – we have always had a similarly positioned cabin.

 

I don’t really want to do a day-by-day travelogue, but overall here are my thoughts..

 

Dining:

 

Versailles - The service in Versailles was awful. We tried it twice for dinner and our toddler ran out of patience almost the same time I did. And as much as an apology plate of strawberries in the room is a nice gesture, I don’t really want it.

 

Aqua – Service was MUCH better, but as you all know the ambiance is much different

 

La Cucina – we generally eat here once or twice, and it was decent with very attentive service

 

Ginza – ate here twice and received EXCELLENT service. In fact, we came back the second time just because the service was so good. The food is only so-so, but our little guy loves his edamame so that is well worth the expense

 

Cagney’s – being our 5th cruise in a suite, Cagney’s holds few surprises for us. Breakfast service was quick and attentive, and we only ate lunch there on embarkation day. As with many fellow cruisers, this place is the biggest suite perk for us.

 

Red Lion – not so bad, popcorn and beer.

 

The Grill – we did eat outside in the Bier Garten on the two sea days, enjoying veggie burgers and beers. No complaints, except the corn was overcooked but I guess that’s just being picky.

 

Buffet – someone mentioned there’s a buffet on board. I couldn’t find it.

 

In terms of the MDR food, I will caveat by saying that we are vegetarians, so the choices are fairly thin on the ground. I like the new menu, there were some good dishes this time, and overall we were happy with the food.

 

A note on our concierge, Omar. I liked him a lot. Friendly guy, I don’t think we taxed him too much – just MDR and specialty reservations, and priority disembarkation. Always came around in the mornings in Cagney’s and asked about our plans and offered tips for the day. That’s all I expect really.

 

We didn’t use our butler Client that much – ordered in one lunch and one breakfast. He was quick, friendly and kept the coffee stocked with what we like.

 

We ended up not doing any ‘Guppy’ activities, though we did use the playroom a couple of times and the jungle jim room when it was open. To the parents who encouraged their 16 year old to climb around in something that was clearly intended for the under 6 crowd…..not sure where your heads are at but it doesn’t make it fun for the rest of the kids. Anyways, I digress.

 

We did trivia a few nights, watched a bit of soccer, spent some quiet time in the room… all in all our time on the ship was pretty good. Apparently there were some shows in the theatre but we never made it to any of them. This is in direct opposition to our previous cruises, where we’ve taken junior to the shows. Avoiding them was not by design, it was more just a timing thing. He never really adjusted to Europe time zones so everything was a bit awkward from naps, to dinner, to sleep time, etc. etc.

 

Overall, the Star is a solid, middle of the road cruising product. No complaints at all. The Baltic was glass-smooth the entire cruise, with the exception of the Stockholm exit and evening, but even that was only tiny swells – so we generally had great cruising weather.

 

Ports..

 

In Rostock we did a shore excursion on the Molli steam train. This isn’t offered often due to timing. We did it specifically to keep junior entertained (what toddler doesn’t like trains?). He could have done without the visit to the Cistercian monastery/church beforehand, but whatever. The train ride itself was entertaining, it goes straight through the centre of Bad Doberan, and then down close to the seaside. Afterwards we had tea and cake in a seaside resort. It was a beautiful, cloudless day – perfect really. We got back to the ship around 2pm and decided not to go out again that day. Still jet-lagging fairly heavily.

 

We were a bit late getting off the ship in Tallinn and just went for a nice walk in the old town (well, not so nice if you’re pushing a stroller on a cobblestone street.) Forget all this stuff about walking maps and blah blah – just get lost in the old town and see the sights. Had a pizza and some beer at a little hole in the wall restaurant – good food and ambiance but I have no idea where it was or what it was called. It was a little off the beaten path and not terribly crowded. It started raining a little bit on our way back to the ship but only for a couple of minutes.

 

St Petersburg was great! We were the first people off the ship (thanks, Omar). We had booked a two day tour with SPB. Unfortunately the day got off to a late start as they had not brought the child car seat we had booked. In the end, they actually bought a new one for us. This meant our three hours in the Hermitage was reduced to about an hour – but – that’s ok. An hour was more than enough for us based on the crowds and dragging junior along. Our tour guide, Olga, was great – very patient and knowledgeable. That first day was a bit of a blur actually – we saw the church on spilled blood, had lunch at a great little vegetarian place near the Hermitage (definitely not on the tourist trail), saw the Peter/Paul fortress and a few other things. Back at the ship for suppertime.

 

The second day we started at St. Isaac’s, went to the farmer’s market, and then on to Varschavsky Railway Museum. This is not on most itineraries, but I HIGHLY recommend it, even if you’re only marginally interested – and definitely do it if you have kids that like trains. Dozens of old soviet engines, cars, missile launchers, heavy guns, etc. – very cool place.

 

After that it was off to Peterhof and then on to Catherine’s winter palace. Definitely great sights! And, the day was amazing – cloudless and warm. Unfortunately junior fell asleep just as we pulled up at the winter palace – this meant that I had to carry him for the entire time we were there – but I wasn’t going to miss it.

 

Helsinki was cool and rainy. We took a taxi to Stockmann’s, then had lunch downtown and took a taxi back to the ship. I actually didn’t take one photo all day.

 

I had planned to be up early to set up my time lapse camera for our sail into Stockholm, but instead elected to get some extra sleep. We were very late leaving the ship – almost 10am. We took the hoho boat over to the old town and wandered around, catching the changing of the guard. After walking around for a while we headed over to the Vasa museum – but – at the last minute decided not to go in. We only had about 30 minutes to run through it, and we both agreed we would love to come back to Stockholm some time. So – we just wandered around the island before heading back to the ship.

 

Here is the time-lapse of us sailing out of Stockholm if anyone is interested:

 

 

Debarkation was a breeze – we left the ship right at 8:50 and caught our limo at 9am. Because it was a Sunday, there was no construction traffic (quite a long queue for a taxi though). Our limo driver told us that the previous week it had taken 2.5 hours to get to the airport. Thankfully that was not the case with us as we would have missed out 12:20 flight back to Toronto.

 

So all in all – it was an excellent cruise from both a ship and an itinerary standpoint. This is the best way to see the Baltics, or at least get a bit of a flavour for the cities and sights.

 

If anyone’s interested I’ll post a few photos from the ports but it’s all fairly well-trodden ground photographically… I still have the Copenhagen and St. Petersburg time lapse videos to build and will add them.

 

Edited June 20, 2014 by OzCanuck

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[Susie51]

Thank you for your review.

[herdingdogmom]

Thanks so much for taking the time to post your thoughts. We are on this cruise next May. Hopefully the construction around the port will be finished by then.

 

You are kidding about not finding the noisy, school cafeteria style buffet, right? I avoid the Garden Café as much as possible.

 

Terrific time lapse video sailing from Stockholm.

[OzCanuck]

You are kidding about not finding the noisy, school cafeteria style buffet, right? I avoid the Garden Café as much as possible.

 

Terrific time lapse video sailing from Stockholm.

 

Thanks... yeah I know where it was and may have walked through it but of the five NCL ships we've been on, it was the scariest..

[MATHA531]

I was on the same cruise; spent a week in London post cruise and just got home to NY. Won't go through the whole thing but will make some points, most of which are nit picks as I thought the cruise was overall great. But...

 

In any event, I usually pair my summer cruise with a holiday in Europe after teaching the spring semester and preparing to teach a summer course to pay for it! Spent three days in Paris and flew to Copenhagen on Thursday 05 June. Stayed at the Park Inn near the airport and kept agonizing over getting to the new pier. In any event, I read a lot of stuff from Daniash Viking in another forum here and decided to rehearse part of the trip with my 24 hour Copenhagen card in hand. The hotel is located right on the Metro which is elevated at that point and has a lift to the tracks. Went to the station near the department store (forget its name now). It's underground there but has a lift to the street level. Saw one simple street to cross to catch the #26 bus to UNICEF. Turned out to be a piece of cake. Then sent off to Tivoli for a vwery pleasant evening. The next day, not wishing to have crowds on the #26 bus left early, caught the 0919 UNICEF #26 bus. I was the only cruiser on it. Was wondering what would happen at UNICEF. Need not have worried. As we approached the last stop, UNICEF, there right in front of us was...the Norwegian Star still unloading from the last cruise. Could not have been simpler. Only problem was how early I was. Had to wait 45 minutes for the porters to begin accepting baggage for our cruise but weather was very pleasant at that point. (It deteriorated later in the day). Embarcation thus was a breeze and was FREE because I had realized the full value of my 24 hour Copenhagen card the previous day.

 

Cabin was interior. Perfect for a Baltimc cruise in June with the white nights. Who wants the light shining through a balcony or port hole at night at 3 AM? (Good excuse for being a cheapo). Cabin was fine. Only complaint is television has NOTHING of interest to an American. I get it why there have to be German stations and other languages but would it really cost all that much to put on say CNN instead of the BBC World Service (which I get at home anyway) and ESPN international? Of course later in the cruise, we get all the World Cup games and enjoyed watching England lose to Italy. There's a nitpick for you.

 

FOOD...Always a subjective topic on Norwegian cruise reports. The obvious corporate policy is to skimp on food in the MDR's (and is probably the worst of any cruise line I've taken and it's three now, Holland America, Carnival and Norwegian) to get you into the specialty restaurants. (I did eat at Teppanyaki, a problem as there is only one teppanyaki table which can accomodate somethhing like 8 or 9 and since it take 1.5 hours, only a limited number of seating available). Now the new nit pick. They had prime ribs on two nights...but only in the Market Cafe (the first night and the last night). Maybe they also had in the mdr but I stopped checking the menus. Also lobster. Well we had a meet and greet and the restaurant head honcho was there. He told me the lobster would be served on the third night (Estonia night) but only in the buffet. But it was advertised as a seat buffet night in the daily. Well, the buffet was jammed. Expected lobster tails, right? Uh uh. There was a lobster, shrimp pasta served with lots of pasta and little lobster and shrimp. Later on I saw the restaurant manager again and said I had read that say on the Breakaway they served lobster tails in the buffet on what was termed lobster night. He claimed not so even on the Breakaway. Nit pick 2.

 

The cruise is very port intensive and not all that much time on the ship on many days. Buffet food was okay as a matter of fact pretty good but not all that much variety as compared to other cruise lines I have been on. Also the grill was open a couple of days as noted above. There was supposed to be a BBQ on sail away form Copenhagen but it rained so it was cancelled. BBQ was held on Sunday, the first of two sea days after Germany on Saturday. On the whole, food was okay but nothing to write home about. (Breakfast for me was always the buffet, one glass of oj, one glass of apple juice, rice krispies and milk, an English muffin, four or five bacon slices (no bacon police), corn beef hash and an omlette. Not bad at all. (Have to be carful with too much coffee on an excursion day as you never know about bathroom stops if you know what I mean).

 

MORE NIT PICK to be continuedd.

[OzCanuck]

And sorry to everyone as we missed the Meet and Greet which we had enthusiastically signed up for. Unfortunately we were having a challenging morning with junior - and the time just completely passed us by..

[MATHA531]

To continue...

 

PORTS...Typical Baltic cruise itinearary. Rostock, Tallin, St. Petersburg (overnight there), Helsinki, Stockholm. Use Alla Tours for Germany, Russia and Sweden. Their tour guides were great. No complaints especially in St. Petersburg. Of course Russian passport control is a pain but they are more or less efficient. Slava, our guide in St. Petersburg, was fantastic and I cannot say anything in the slightest negative. I took the slightly toned down tour with a little less walking but I feel I got good value for money. The guide for Germany was pretty good too, an Irish student majoring in German history. Of course there's a long bus ride. Stockholm guide was good too although the boat ride I could have done without. The Wasa is fascinating of course. I took ship tours for Estonia and Finland. I wanted catggory 1 tours without too much walking and they were okay. No complaints here at all.

 

ENTERAINMENT...I prefer the old fashioned way of a different show every night rather than the Epic/Breakaway/Getaway mega shows which you reserve for. They were for the most part entertaining. My favorite was a Russian husband and wife gymnasts. The cutest part was there was a little lion prancing around with the husband. At the end he said while most lions prefer meat, his little lion prefers ice cream. (SPOILER).

 

Quite frankly, not that much more went on around the ship. Not all that many kids on this cruise as the schools in North America are still in session. No comedian that I could see. Disco party every night in Spinaker Lounge. Not much at the swimming pool (weather considerations of course, it was cold a lot of the time). Not bad at all for this party pooper anyway but I would have preferred a comedian. (NITPICK).

 

DEBARCATION...Interesting. Because of scheduling considerations, I booked a 1630 flight from CPH to LGW on EasyJet. Didn't want to hang around the airport all day and really couldn't risk an earlier flight. So I decided to take the Copenhagen excursion which then ended at the airport at 1330 which wasn't bad timing at all for the flight. That made disembarcation easy. They gave us special baggage tags but debarcation seemed to go very smoothly over all. No nitpicks here.

 

One other thing about debarcation and I may post this also in the Copenhagen thread. Remember Norwegian has moved into the new Oceankej terminal and used C330 both for emarcation on this cruise and debarcation. It has been well know tht bus #26 does not offer weekend service to UNICEF. Well as we were pulling away at around 0930 guess what I saw? (Remember it's Sunday morning). That's right. I saw bus #26 at the bus stop icking up passengers. Apparently the Port Authority has prevailed on the local Copenhagen transit authority to run bus #26 out to Oceankej (Unicef) on at least Sunday morning so if I had say a 1300 flight, I might have been able to save quite a bit of money by using the bus/metro combination to the airport (but then again, I never had any Danish currency. Everything I did in Copenhagen was on a credit card, Sweden too and of course there was absolutely nothing to buy in Russia.

 

On the whole, certainly good value for money.

[OzCanuck]

Just to finish this off..

 

Here is a time-lapse of us leaving St. Petersburg. You can see the Queen Victoria disappearing right at the beginning, a few hydrofoils to and from Peterhof zip past as well...

 

The interesting bit is really around 3:45-4:15 - we pass by Kronshtadtskiy island and past the massive St. Petersburg flood control barrier. Pretty cool:

 

 

Also here is our rather boring departure from Copenhagen. You can see the lay of the land and the three minimalist cruise terminals at OceanKaj:

 

[alise007]

Thanks for the helpful details!

 

We are trying to figure out if we should take a cab from our hotel or some other transport. I hadn't run across the #26 bus option yet. Assuming the kids can help with some of the luggage!

 

We are staying at the same hotel pre/post cruise about a 10 min ride from the main train station.

 

Wandering around Tallinn sounds fun! We do that a lot --kids favorite has been Prague!

[jvsnana]

OzCanuck I have a question about the NCL transfer you took...

Did you get the transfer directly from your hotel or did you go back to the airport to catch the NCL bus?

Thank you for the great review...lots of good tips:)

[decemberpsyche]

I was also wondering what transfer you used to get to the ship, as hubby and I are going on that cruise at the end of August.

Also which tour did you choose from SPB? That is who we will probably use for our tours.

[OzCanuck]

We actually booked the hotel through NCL - the price was only marginally more expensive than booking directly with the hotel, and it included breakfast AND the port transfer. I believe they were charging 20 euro pp for the transfer directly at the hotel. It was quick, direct, and we got a free tour of downtown Copenhagen on the way.. The pier to airport transfer is $30 US if you book in advance.

 

In St. Petersburg we booked the 'highlites' tour with SPB. But - we did make several changes to it (they are very, very flexible if you know what you want to do). As mentioned above, we included the Varschavsky railway museum which was well worth it and didn't really take much away from the other things we saw. I would have liked to stay at Catherine's Winter palace a bit longer but we were approaching cut-off time for the ship departure so we had to leave (and hit a massive traffic jam on the way back as well). I think we had about 45 minutes to spare when we arrived at the pier.

[decemberpsyche]

We actually booked the hotel through NCL - the price was only marginally more expensive than booking directly with the hotel, and it included breakfast AND the port transfer. I believe they were charging 20 euro pp for the transfer directly at the hotel. It was quick, direct, and we got a free tour of downtown Copenhagen on the way.. The pier to airport transfer is $30 US if you book in advance.

 

In St. Petersburg we booked the 'highlites' tour with SPB. But - we did make several changes to it (they are very, very flexible if you know what you want to do). As mentioned above, we included the Varschavsky railway museum which was well worth it and didn't really take much away from the other things we saw. I would have liked to stay at Catherine's Winter palace a bit longer but we were approaching cut-off time for the ship departure so we had to leave (and hit a massive traffic jam on the way back as well). I think we had about 45 minutes to spare when we arrived at the pier.

 

That would have given me a heart attack.

[OzCanuck]

[/color]

 

That would have given me a heart attack.

 

Well it wasn't so much only having 45 minutes on arrival at the pier - it was being stuck in a traffic jam and only having about 90 minutes to get back that was stressing me out.... Anyway, they knew what they were doing and they weren't worried about getting us back in time. It was just a big back-up at a highway interchange coming back from Pushkin.

[jvsnana]

We actually booked the hotel through NCL - the price was only marginally more expensive than booking directly with the hotel, and it included breakfast AND the port transfer. I believe they were charging 20 euro pp for the transfer directly at the hotel. It was quick, direct, and we got a free tour of downtown Copenhagen on the way.. The pier to airport transfer is $30 US if you book in advance.

Thank you for the info!