Baltic Cruise Leaving UK Late May

[tring]

We are due on a Baltic cruise as far as At Petersburg and back from the UK in May/June.  I know of cruise ships visiting Sweden, Denmark and Norway in 2021, but not of any that went further than that (including Tallin and other ports to the south of the Baltic Sea). 

 

Just wondering if cruising is likely to re start to those places by May or if the ports may already have opened.  I appreciate no one has a crystal ball, but given that covid tends to become a lot less predominant in the summer, I am being hopeful, but not sure if the countries in question will want to accept cruise ships anyway.  

 

Would anyone like to fill me in with any news from those countries about cruising or perhaps tender an informed guess?

[CruiserBruce]

Who knows? All speculation...things change way too fast in the Covid world.

 

Don't know there is any scientific evidence Covid wanes in the summer...many countries had summer surges in 2021, including the US. Its lack of evidence like that, that cause anything to be speculation.

 

And believe me, I am interested, as we have a cruise out of Copenhagen in July.

[tring]

1 hour ago, CruiserBruce said:

Who knows? All speculation...things change way too fast in the Covid world.

 

Don't know there is any scientific evidence Covid wanes in the summer...many countries had summer surges in 2021, including the US. Its lack of evidence like that, that cause anything to be speculation.

 

And believe me, I am interested, as we have a cruise out of Copenhagen in July.

 

I do accept that, though must admit I am surprised there was a covid surge in the US last summer. 

 

What I was wondering is if anyone knew if cruising was taking place in the Eastern Baltic late last year with cruise ships sailing from Europe.  I know that UK ships were not going there, but it was late summer before we were allowed to cruise abroad and at that time our ships tend to go south.  Also the EU countries were, in some cases, accepting other EU ships, but not non EU ships. Perhaps someone with knowledge of cruises from the continent, or of how the government's of Eastern Baltic countries are viewing travel, (particularly cruises), at present, which will help both of us understand the possibilities.  Still a few months until the Baltic cruise season starts though - our cruise will likely be one of the first due there.

 

Must be far more difficult for you as, I assume, flights will be needed to Copenhagen from the US.

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by tring

[hallasm]

As CruseBruse is saying “Who knows” - situation might change.
Cruises to Denmark, Sweden, Estonia or Norway might be possible but St Petersborg imight be questionable - nobody can answer your question right now. 
If not possible to visit St. Petersburg many Baltic cruises will be cancelled.

Personally I would not book flights now - I have some travel planned for April and June and have not yet booked the flights. 

 

[CruiserBruce]

9 hours ago, tring said:

 

I do accept that, though must admit I am surprised there was a covid surge in the US last summer. 

The "Delta" surge...it started in July, lasted well into the fall.

[tring]

5 hours ago, hallasm said:

As CruseBruse is saying “Who knows” - situation might change.
Cruises to Denmark, Sweden, Estonia or Norway might be possible but St Petersborg imight be questionable - nobody can answer your question right now. 
If not possible to visit St. Petersburg many Baltic cruises will be cancelled.

Personally I would not book flights now - I have some travel planned for April and June and have not yet booked the flights. 

 

 

Yes, difficult days, though your comment has been useful to us, so thank you.  In fact we have had a hotel stay in SPB and river cruise to Moscow, so that is the least desirable of our ports from our perspective.  Ours is a 16 night cruise with 9 port days (2 in SPB), so unlikely to be cancelled if only SPB is the problem.  We could change it to another cruise before we pay our final balance (due mid February), which is what we are keeping in mind, but it is an excellent itinerary which complements a good number of other Baltic ports we have previously visited (apart from two previous visits to Fredericia, the others are all first calls for us).  The other ports being three in Sweden, Tallin, Riga and Warnemunde. 

 

Our main fear is that the cruise will go ahead, but we will have to do ship's excursions in all ports, though we have now considered that and decided we would probably still want to go ahead with it, even if that was the case.  We could do half day excursions in most ports whilst staying on the ship in Fredericia and SPB (if we go there), hopefully making the most of the long days and decent weather.  The main fear is that other countries will not have us because of our high covid numbers, though it seems the numbers in London are now starting to stabilise and even decline slightly, (though the rest of the UK are about two weeks behind London with their statistics).  Still seems good reason to feel hopeful of improving situations as we move forward though, but we will keep a close eye on things over the next month.

 

Thanks again,

 

Barbara 

 

[tring]

3 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

The "Delta" surge...it started in July, lasted well into the fall.

 

I thought our delta surge was later than that, we were still opening up in July with all restrictions being lifted in England around the middle of that month, though that was also a time when we had got a very large portion of the population vaccinated (most have now had boosters as well).  We are lucky that vaccines have been taken up so well, compared to some really low rates in many other countries.  We do have very large infection rates of Omicron now, but with the vaccines the death rates are a lot lower than in other surges, which had less people overall infected.  The problem is though, because of the much higher number infected, a number of more vulnerable, (usually unvaccinated people) are being hospitalised, as well as there being a lot of staff off ill or isolating because they have been in contact with someone who tested positive, so hospitals are struggling.  It is quite annoying really as many vaccinated people who are testing positive are actually symptom free, also our numbers look so high because we have a great deal of testing taking place (everyone is asked to pick up free boxes of tests and do them regularly at home).  

 

Perhaps we have a different idea of summer too, which to us is May until August, our weather changes a lot once we get into September, especially in the north where we live.  Our scientists talk about how there is a lot less transmission when people are outdoors and have windows open etc., rather than being closed into more badly ventilated and crowded places in the winter.  Once we hit autumn the colds and flu have always started to appear here.

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by tring

[Pace67]

This is the answer I got from the tour operator in Saint Petersburg when I asked the question about ports being open for our May 2022 cruise:

I would be glad to assuage all your worries, but I am afraid I cannot say anything definite. As of now, Baltic ports are closed (they are always closed in January, as the navigation is over). The situation will be clear closer to the time when the navigation restarts in April. Meanwhile, all St Petersburg museums, restaurants, cafes, shopping centres and other public places are open for visitors - we are almost back to regular life here (except for wearing masks and QR-codes confirming vaccination / negative PCR tests - they are required everywhere in public places).

[tring]

21 minutes ago, Pace67 said:

This is the answer I got from the tour operator in Saint Petersburg when I asked the question about ports being open for our May 2022 cruise:

I would be glad to assuage all your worries, but I am afraid I cannot say anything definite. As of now, Baltic ports are closed (they are always closed in January, as the navigation is over). The situation will be clear closer to the time when the navigation restarts in April. Meanwhile, all St Petersburg museums, restaurants, cafes, shopping centres and other public places are open for visitors - we are almost back to regular life here (except for wearing masks and QR-codes confirming vaccination / negative PCR tests - they are required everywhere in public places).

 

Thank you very much for sharing that reply.

 

I do not think the cruise season starts until the very end of April and that is pretty much confirmed by the SPB entry here :-   https://www.cruisetimetables.com/cruises-to-st-petersburg-russia.html

so possibly could be well into April before it is clear what will happen, though the ferries going there from Finland and Estonia could well start earlier than that.  I suspect there will be a conversation taking place between the cruise lines and the port for a while before the cruises are due to arrive as well.  I am also wondering if the political situation may worsen and have an impact, though when Crimea was removed from cruise schedules a few years ago, the SPB cruise calls seemed to be taking place as normal.

 

We are due to be docked there on 31st May and June 1st, so will just have to wait and see.  Since it looks like you will be travelling form the US, I hope it works out for you,

 

Barbara

Edited January 20, 2022 by tring