NCL Spirit Ultimate Baltic 17 Aug - 1 Sep cruise report

[trosebery]

Our cruise:

Sat 17-Aug 5 pm SHIP DEPARTS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Sun 18-Aug 10 am - 7 pm HELSINKI, FINLAND
Mon 19-Aug 7 am Tue 20-Aug 7 pm ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Wed 21-Aug 7 am - 4 pm TALLINN, ESTONIA
Thu 22-Aug 9 am - 5 pm RIGA, LATVIA
Fri 23-Aug 8 am - 5 pm KLAIPEDA, LITHUANIA
Sat 24-Aug 7 am - 3 pm GDYNIA (GDANSK), POLAND
Sun 25-Aug 7 am - 9 pm ROSTOCK, GERMANY
Mon 26-Aug 11 am - 8 pm COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
Tue 27-Aug 12 pm - 11:59 pm OSLO, NORWAY
Wed 28-Aug AT SEA
Thu 29-Aug 7 am - 7 pm AMSTERDAM (IJMUIDEN), NETHERLANDS
Fri 30-Aug 7 am - 6 pm ZEEBRUGGE (BRUSSELS/BRUGGE), BELGIUM
Sat 31-Aug 7 am - 7 pm LE HAVRE (PARIS), FRANCE
Sun 01-Sep 5 am SHIP ARRIVES AT SOUTHAMPTON (LONDON), GREAT BRITAIN

 

I was travelling with my 22-year-old daughter and my 14-year-old son.

 

We flew out of Toronto Pearson (YYZ) and connected through Heathrow. We were worried about our connection as we had only 1 hr between flights, but our first flight (British Airways) was actually 1/2 hour early and we didn't have to go through immigration in Heathrow. (We did that in Stockholm.) The flights themselves were fine. Average coach flights. At least we had 1 piece of luggage included.

 

In Stockholm, we took the Arlanda Express to the city centre. This was very easy. Really, if you have a central hotel, don't bother with a taxi. We bought the tickets online before we left (since they're discounted if you buy in advance), and they gave me a verification code that I just showed to the ticket-checker on the train.

 

Our hotel was named the Central Hotel and it was pretty much across the street from the Arlanda Express/Central Station. We could walk to Gamla Stan (the Old Town) and take the tram to Djurgarden (where many of the museums we wanted to see are located). Breakfast (a buffet with ample choice) was included. We selected this hotel because it could accommodate 3 people in one room (2 twin beds and a fold out). It was nice and quiet despite its central location and I'd happily stay there again.

 

We arrived mid-afternoon and just strolled into Gamla Stan for the late afternoon/early evening to try to reset our body clocks but we went to bed early and therefore woke up at 5 am. . . . So we went to the Central Station and did a self-guided subway art tour. (Google "Stockholm subway art tour" for recommendations/directions.) Since we'd also bought transit passes for the day, after breakfast, we took the tram to Djurgarden and visited the Vasa Museum (at opening), the ABBA Museum (slightly after opening and it was already quite crowded), and Skansen -- less for the folk museum and more for the Nordic animals zoo. (We especially enjoyed watching their wolverines.) We then went to the ICEBAR at the Hotel C (across from the station) for drinks, followed by dinner in the attached hotel restaurant. The ICEBAR was a lot of fun. (Drinking mixed vodka drinks from a glass made of ice!) The dinner was only okay. At the ICEBAR we actually met up with others from our cruise whom I'd met via the Cruise Critic Roll Call and our cruise Facebook group! The next morning we visited the royal palace, the best part of which was the Armory -- which is actually more clothes and carriages than weapons. Note that we actually paid the admission to all the places we visited individually rather than buying the Stockholm Card since for the short time that we were there, the card would not have paid for itself (especially since my daughter as a student often qualified for discounts).

 

I would highly recommend Stockholm as a place to start or end the cruise. There's a lot to see -- we hardly exhausted the city, and there's even more beyond (like Drottningholm). Also, if your cruise visits Stockholm for the day, you're either in port at Nynashamn (some distance from the city) or your time is cut short by the slow sail in and sail out through the Stockholm archipelago -- which is very pretty (I enjoyed watching it on the sail out), but I didn't feel I needed to see it twice.

 

To get to the cruise port, we simply took one of the many taxis near the Central Station -- not cheap, but very easy. NCL embarkation was very quick. (We were there around 1 pm.)

 

Okay, the ship itself (Norwegian Spirit) is not shiny and new. Occasionally we'd notice minor wear and tear (e.g. a chip on the edge of our sink in the bathroom). But the staff did an excellent job of keeping everything functional and clean. We had no complaints. Okay, one complaint: the walls are pretty thin, and our room, Forward on Deck 5, did vibrate noticeably when the ship was pulling in and out of port, but neither interrupted our sleep.

 

Sometimes communication from NCL and the ship wasn't the best -- for example, they changed our Helsinki port times a week before we left, but only about half of us got the email. The rest found out at embarkation. In Oslo, the dock they'd posted on their information board was not the same as that on the Oslo port website (and the Oslo port website was right). Etc. But since I'm an obsessive researcher and always overly prepped anyway, this didn't bother me.

 

Entertainment was fine. We saw a few of the shows -- magician, juggler, acrobat, violinist, etc. (It was never a problem getting seats in the theatre. Turn up on time because you can't walk in the doors on Deck 7 after the show starts.) We turned up to most of the sunset or pub trivias in the afternoon and evening (and won a few times!). We were rarely out or even out of bed after 9 or 10 pm as we had early mornings and busy days, and most other cruisers we spoke to seemed to be doing the same!

 

The food was fine -- typical cruise line food. We didn't bother the specialty restaurants. Mostly we ate in the more-casual Garden restaurant as they didn't mind my teenage son wearing shorts. We ate in Shogun (the Asian restaurant that's included) twice and the buffet for breakfast and the occasional dinner. Breakfast at the buffet was a bit of a madhouse in the morning -- everybody was eager to disembark ASAP in the mornings -- but we always managed to find seating, if not inside then outside on the terrace.

 

And we could sit out on the terrace because we had amazing weather -- we didn't get rained on once! It was a bit hot (around 27C) the few days we spent in Germany, Denmark, and Norway but most days were around 21C. Even with the occasional hot day, cruising the Baltic in peak summer is definitely more pleasant than cruising the Mediterranean in summer! (We cruised the Med last year and just *melted*).

 

Ports:

 

Since my son and I had been to Helsinki before and visited the usual highlights (Market Square, the Church in the Rock, etc.), we decided to get out of the city and visit the Nuuksio National Park, which is less than an hour from the cruise port. We booked a tour with Feel the Nature, who picked us up outside the cruise terminal and took us on a guided hike. We picked wild berries (blueberries, lingonberries, and bogberries), did some bird spotting (the marsh tits were adorable), and had a snack break consisting of some traditional Finnish savoury and sweet pastries and some coffee or juice. We then went to meet their local reindeer and feed them some lichen. (There was also the Haltia Nature Centre right nearby, which we could have visited if we hadn't wanted to hike or if the weather had been miserable.) My teenage son especially enjoyed this day. (If we hadn't gone to Nuuksio, we probably would have independently taken the ferry to Suomenlinna and then visited the public Loyly sauna for another very Finnish experience.) Note that the cruise port is not convenient to the city center.

 

Our next port was St. Petersburg, which is usually the highlight of any Baltic cruise and definitely needs at least 2 days. The first day, there may be a slight delay with Russian immigration. (This is the only port where we had to go through immigration.) Last time we went to St. Petersburg, on the Regal Princess, it took us about 40 minutes in line at immigration. This year, the authorities were allowing ship's tours off first and independent operators were only allowed into the port at 8:30 am. We were allowed off the ship shortly before 8:30 am and had *no* lines at immigration and were through in minutes. I don't know if this was because they'd staggered the groups or because the Spirit was just a smaller ship, but we appreciated it!

 

Note that you are not allowed off the ship without a ship tour, a Russian visa (which can take months to obtain), OR a tour with one of the many independent tour operators that offer visa-free tours (always the best option). Last time we booked a small-group tour with SPB Tours (max 16 people) and very much enjoyed it. SPB Tours, Alla Tours, and TJ Travel are the 3 biggest tour operators in the region. Ulko Tours is another one you'll see everywhere. They're based out of St. Petersburg but offer flat-rate tours in the other ports too (such as the one we took in Helsinki last time). Their St. Petersburg tours are reliably very good; their tours in other ports are more variable in quality.

 

This time we decided we wanted a private tour since we wanted to have control over our itinerary and switch out some sights for others. I had the best response from Red Sun Tours: since they're a smaller company, the owner Elena emailed me back directly and demonstrated that she'd actually read my email by offering me a couple of different customized sample itineraries. We were able to visit favourites from our last visit like the Peterhof fountains but also trade out the always-crowded Catherine Palace for the Grand Maket Russia (which was so cute), the Peter and Paul Fortress for the Soviet Arcade Games Museum (which gave you 15 kopek coins and let you actually play the games), etc. We were also able to request a lunch at a Georgian restaurant since I'd never tried Georgian food before. If people have the budget, I *strongly* recommend setting up a private tour in St. Petersburg -- or maybe forming a small group with others on their Cruise Critic Roll Call, but the smaller the group, the easier it is to bypass the lines. And the more personal the experience: other people who were on small group tours with the larger companies were given audioguides in the Faberge Museum; our private guide gave us our own tour.

 

Even if doing a small-group tour instead of a private tour, I would recommend going with one of the smaller operators like Red Sun Tours for a more personal experience (their small groups are 8 people instead of 16 people). They may not offer tours in other ports -- but you can still book tours with SPB, Alla, etc., and there are other tour operators in those ports anyway.

 

For example, in Tallin, Estonia, we had an excellent tour with Traveller Tours. Our guide met us at the port and then took us on a walking tour of the Old Town (which is an easy walk from the port), followed by a bike tour of some of the modern Tallinn districts like Kalamaja. I really enjoyed this tour, both the old and modern Tallinn, and would recommend this company. (The tour was also cheap! 105 Euros for a 4-hour tour for 3 people.) One thing that I would recommend to visitors to Tallinn is to get off the ship and into the Old Town ASAP. When we did our walking tour starting at 8 am, the streets were mostly empty. When we hopped on our bikes and pedaled away around 10 am, we were noticing that it was starting to get crowded, and when we came back to drop off the bikes around noon, it was packed!

 

Fortunately, we had an afternoon activity planned that took us outside the Old Town again: about 15 minutes walk from the Town Hall is the Rotermann district and the Kalev shop where we participated in a chocolate truffle making workshop! I'd set this up by emailing the shop directly and recruiting participants on our Cruise Critic Roll Call and Facebook group. The shop also offers marzipan-painting workshops, but I much prefer the taste of chocolate! Estonian chocolate is very good and very reasonably priced. It was only about a 20 minute walk back to the ship from the shop.

 

Next we were in Riga, Latvia. It's a beautiful city, but my son did not want to spent the day looking at Art Nouveau architecture so I booked a tour that included a visit to Gauja National Park and the medieval castles of Turaida and Sigulda (along with Gutman's cave) before finishing in the city with a walk down one of the most beautiful streets for Art Nouveau architecture (my son could tolerate a street of it) and a walking tour of the old town. The castles were okay. I wouldn't say that they were a must-see and they're a bit of a drive, but my son was happy to get away into the green space. We shared this tour with a couple I'd met on Facebook and I booked it with Nordic Experience. They are a tour company that offers tours in ports all around the Baltic *except* for St. Petersburg. Two things I appreciated about them was that (a) I had good communication with them in advance and they were willing to customize our itineraries (modifying the sample itineraries on their website) and (b) they were able to invoice people for credit card payment in advance. (No worrying about collecting money from other members of the group or worries about no-shows.) Their guides were also very good with excellent English, and -- most importantly for cruisers -- they were excellent at keeping the groups on schedule and delivering us back to the port exactly on time. Note that unless you want to go out of the city as we did, you can walk to pretty much everywhere from the port dock.

 

Klaipeda, Lithuania doesn't really have much cruise infrastructure. They weren't letting private tour operators into the port and we had to take a shuttle bus into and from the Old Town -- which was a PITA as we were meeting a private operator as we were heading to the Curonian Spit (accessible by ferry). We'd booked the tour with Ulko Tours (the St. Petersburg company), and it was just okay. If I were to book it again, I probably would have gone with Nordic Experience here too even though they were more expensive. The attractions on the Curonian Spit are the Hill of Witches with its wooden folk sculptures (get there early before all the crowds -- the one plus to our tour was that we were there first), the small Amber Museum and Gallery in Nida, and the dunes of Nida, which were . . . a lot of sand. Wow, it's hard to walk on sand. There were also cormorants and herons and swans and other bird colonies around. We then got a quick overview of Klaipeda's tiny Old Town. Overall, I'd say that this port is okay but hardly a must-do in any cruise itinerary.

 

Gdansk, Poland is a must-do. It's Old Town is beautiful -- rebuilt after the WWII devastation -- and it's got many interesting things to see nearby. We visited Stutthof Concentration Camp (very affecting). Others loved Malbork Castle, et al. Of course everyone also stops at the Solidarity shipyard. We toured with Nordic Experience again here. Since so many people wanted to see Stutthof, we wound up with a group of 13 people! (We had a mini-bus.) Note that this is one port where you want to plan your transportation. Gdynia is a fair distance from Gdansk and the traffic is terrible.

 

We did not go to Berlin from Rostock. Though the cruise lines try to sell this as the port for Berlin, the city is a 2.5-3 hour drive from the port. The ship tours took the train, which was *not* better as the train was not air-conditioned and Berlin was hot that day. Last time we were in port here, we took a tour that went to Warnemunde, Rostock, and Schwerin (look up the Friends of Dave tour). This time, we went to the Rostock Zoo and the Marine Science Center for their Seal Encounter (which was awesome). It was just a fun day. Couple things to note here: Warnemunde and Rostock are different ports. Warnemunde is the convenient port, right by the seaside town and the train station. Rostock is the industrial port that's a PITA to get to and from, especially on a Sunday when the public bus only runs once an hour. The taxis in the port are looking for fares to Berlin. The ship was running shuttles to Rostock, but there was a long line for it. Know the timing of the public buses or be really persuasive with the taxi drivers! Also, although the Marine Science Center is technically in Rostock, it's just across the river from Warnemunde and you can take the cheap (and continuously running, even on a Sunday) public transit ferry across.

 

In Copenhagen, we took the public bus (buy a ticket before you get on) to the Rosenborg Castle, which was way too crowded. You could buy a timed ticket online, but we were really only interested in the Treasury and we'd seen it before anyway, so we bailed and went to Amalienborg instead (no lines whatsoever). We ate hot dogs along the canal in Nyhavn and took a canal cruise, walked past the Gefion fountain and the Little Mermaid, and went back to the ship as it was too hot for us and all the air-conditioned museums are closed on Mondays! (Also, Duncan and I had spent several days there before and we were all feeling a little tired by now.) Heading back to the ship before the all-aboard time was not a bad idea as we were in port at Oceankaj and the buses back -- both the public bus and the Hop On Hop Off -- were packed and turning people away in the last hour before all aboard (some people barely made it back).

 

Oslo has a beautiful sail in along the Oslo fjord. Here, we bought the Oslo Pass that included public transit and walked from the dock to the public ferry to the Bygdoy Museums (air conditioned and not closed!): the Fram, the Kon-Tiki, and the Viking Ship Museums, all very different and very good. If we'd had more time, we probably would have also visited the Open Air Folk Museum, which some of our fellow cruisers really enjoyed, but we wanted to meet up with some friends of ours. We had dinner with them and an evening stroll through the Vigeland Sculpture Park. (Some people were annoyed that our port times were noon to midnight, but we appreciated the evening to meet up with friends!)

 

Amsterdam has a lot to see, and inconveniently we were in port in IJmuiden, which is some distance from the actual city. Public transit into the city would have involved a bus and two trains. We could have booked a private car transfer, but we decided if we were doing that, we might as well book a tour, and again, we booked with Nordic Experience (one of the few companies willing to pick up in IJmuiden). I customized our itinerary to include the Van Gogh Museum (and our guide gave us an excellent guided tour), a canal tour (which was okay), and a visit to Zaanse Schans and its windmills (clog making! cheese! etc.) I will have to go back to Amsterdam sometime to see more of it -- like the Red Light district, which I couldn't visit very well with my 14-year-old son.

 

From Zeebrugge, most cruisers went to Bruges and loved it, but we did a trip to Flanders and WWI sites -- my son's vote, and since I was dragging him to Giverny and Rouen in Normandy instead of the WWII landing beaches, I caved here. It was an enjoyable day. I especially enjoyed the Passchendaele Museum (although maybe "enjoyed" isn't the right word here) and I appreciated the Canadian memorials, but what was most surprising to me is that farmers are still finding debris from WWI in their fields -- unexploded shells, et al. WWI still scars the landscape.

 

So last time from Le Havre, my daughter and I visited the landing beaches and Bayeux with Overlord Tours. This time we visited the gardens at Giverny -- very crowded but very beautiful -- and the city of Rouen. The cathedral, medieval buildings, astronomical clock, etc. make for a scenic walk, but we were also interested in Joan of Arc and ducked into the "Historial" where they tell the story of Joan of Arc in an audiovisual presentation projected on the walls of the rooms of the old palace (the old crypt and kitchens and tower rooms, etc.). We had audioguides translating the French for us, and I noticed we were the only non-French-speakers in there!

 

Disembarkation in Southampton was trivial (we'd been through an immigration check on the sea day on the ship). Smiths for Airports met us at the port and there was no traffic on a Sunday so we were back to Gatwick with time to spare. Many of the planes out of Gatwick were delayed for some reason, so our plane was a little late back, but since we weren't connecting this time, no worries!

 

All in all, it was a fabulous cruise and I'm so happy I booked it. I was a little nervous about sailing on the Spirit as I'd heard some negative reviews of it, but I found everything about it perfectly adequate, especially for such a port-intensive itinerary. And the fellow cruisers we met aboard were wonderful. (If you're reading this review, hi!) 

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll try to add some photos if I can get CC to show them.
 

[trosebery]

Stockholm Central subway station:

And Stadion, my favourite:

The Vasa:

ABBA Museum:

Skansen:

Also see attached video for playful wolverines.

 

Stockholm ICEBAR:

Edited September 6, 2019 by trosebery

[trosebery]

(I will add more photos later after I'm sure that they're actually showing up?)

[imlulu]

Sounds like a fantastic but hectic cruise! Pictures are not showing up for me. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by imlulu

[trosebery]

Hmm, okay. Is this photo working for others?

 

Stockholm Central subway station: