which ship for best Baltic experience?

[anniecat]

We are looking at a early summer 2008 Baltic cruise. Which line/intin do you feel is the best. We want an overnight in St Pete for sure...but what ports are a must see...and which are not so hot. Most likely prefer HAL or X or Princess.

Ideas? Advice?

thanks

[eldercruser]

Personally, I would not recommend Princess, since their ships are too big to make the trip through the archipelago to Stockholm - one of the highlights of the Baltics experience.

 

Have not been on Celebrity, but did do this cruise in 2003 on HAL and enjoyed it so much doing it again in 2007. Don't see how you could go wrong with either line. Try to book a 12 day itinerary to maximize your port experience. Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Tallinn and St. Petersburg should all be a part of your itnerary.

[elin]

We are looking at a early summer 2008 Baltic cruise. Which line/intin do you feel is the best. We want an overnight in St Pete for sure...but what ports are a must see...and which are not so hot. Most likely prefer HAL or X or Princess.

Ideas? Advice?

thanks

 

We were on Oceania Regatta summer 2005 for the Baltic. We loved the itinerary (3 days in St. Petersburg), as well as Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Tallinn, Bruges, Amsterdam, Gdansk etc.

One thing that was really nice about the smaller ship (684 pax) is that we could dock at the English Embankment right in St. Petersburg. It was also beautiful to take the trip into Stockholm (we started in Dover) through the archipelago.

For ports, we loved Copenhagen, Stockholm, Bruges, Amsterdam, and Helsinki. We did the "day" trip to Berlin which was great, but very travel intensive. Gdansk we spent some time in the town but went to Malbork, which we both liked. Tallinn while nice was not my favourite port. St. Petersburg was the real highlight of the trip and the three days there were really special.

We tacked on 3 days at the end and went to Oslo which we loved.

Enjoy, it is a beautiful part of the world.

Elin

[spearmint]

We have only used Celebrity (5 trips) and cannot answer for other lines. However, our Aug.2006 Baltic Cruise on Constellation was fantastic. We used ship's tours except for Saint Petersburg, where we used DenRus and were really pleased with their service (although others we met used Red October and were just as happy, I think).

Read up on some of the comments on the Celebrity site re: comparisons to other lines. You will find that people are prone to Celebrity for food and elegance over other lines, although HAL seems to me to be close. I think that it depends on what kind of cruise experience that you want e.g. casual/elegant, active/more sedate, late night entertainment etc.

As to ship's or any other tours, that will depend on your physical state, I think. Many of the cities are walkable, and you will enjoy the sites if you do your homework so that you know what you are seeing and where/how to find it. We found that we preferred the (ship's) tours because we wanted to be taken to the sites and have them explained to us.

I expect that you will enjoy whatever line you choose to use. :)

[dileep]

We are looking at a early summer 2008 Baltic cruise. Which line/intin do you feel is the best. We want an overnight in St Pete for sure...but what ports are a must see...and which are not so hot. Most likely prefer HAL or X or Princess.

Ideas? Advice?

thanks

 

We enjoyed our cruise in May 2005 on the Celebrity Constellation.

http://www.archive.org/details/BalticsCruise2005

We did overnight in St Petersburg and we did not use any of the ship's tours except in Klaipeda, Lithuania.

[mushroom]

Although I will not be doing this cruise until July, 2007, I'm willing to predict that it is the perfect cruise for seeing all of the important Baltic ports. In addition, we're getting the Kiel Canal as a bonus. A lot of the larger ships do not include Oslo. This one does. The ship is less than 800 passengers - which I consider a real "plus".

[Willsot]

We were on HAL Westerdam for a 10-day Baltic cruise summer of 2005 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Best friends were on HAL Rotterdam for a 12-day last summer and also gave great reviews.

[HomeLover]

I have been to the Baltic 3 times, once on HAL and twice of RSSC. If you have your own visa, the smaller the ship, the better. The larger ships dock in St. Petersburg at the commercial port and it is impossible to get out of unless you are on someone's official tour.

The Navigator docks, usually, in the city on the neva river, so you can walk off the ship at any time, and see the sights, with or without a guide. I assume the Prinsendam might be able to go there, but if not, they would probably be at the passenger cruise dock, which is not great, but better than the commericial port. I walked into the city from the ship;

It depends on how much you want to spend and what you want to do.

I loved the Prinsendam, but have not taken it on the Baltic cruise

[Bill S]

We took the Prinsendam for our Baltic cruise last year and the Kiel Canal transit was one of best highlights of any cruise we have taken! Not many cruise ships can make it under the many bridges which span the canal, but the Prinsendam can! We felt it was the ideal ship for a Baltic cruise, or for that matter, anywhere. She quickly became our favorite ship.

I do not know why, but we were docked in the commercial ship yard at St. Petersburg--not a very nice or convenient place for a cruise ship, but at least the Red October crew was there promptly both mornings to meet us!

[Brucemcdou]

Hi, Anniecat - Just to suggest another option, I know you said that you prefer HAL or X or Princess, and we normally prefer Celebrity for longer cruises ourselves. However, for reasons that are too involved to explain here we ended up doing a Baltic cruise on the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas last fall. We were fully prepared for a more "mass market" experience than on X, and we were actually pleasantly surprised.

 

The Jewel is a lovely ship, with large, comfortable cabins. We had a D1 balcony, larger and nicer than non-CC balcony cabins on Celebrity. The Jewel's public spaces are pleasant, with lots of wood, although not as elegant as Celebrity. Its officers and crew are consistently friendly and service-oriented - perhaps not as polished but more outgoing and friendly in an "American" way (not everyone would consider that a plus...). The Jewel had much nicer repeat guest parties than Celebrity, where the officers actually mingled and chatted with the passengers. On the flipside, the food is nothing to write home about, the wine service is abysmal, the specialty restaurants just don't compare, and we missed some of the more "polished" aspects of Celebrity, but we we had no regrets for having sailed the Jewel.

 

I'd particularly note that the Jewel goes round-trip from the UK (Harwich), so the flights are easier (and cheaper) to arrange than for a one-way cruise. Also, the itinerary (at least for us in 2006) was somewhat front-loaded with ports, and we had two full days at sea to recover at the end. We didn't use any ship excursions as we just explored most of the cities on our own - they're very easy cities to navigate. The exception was St. Petersburg where we enjoyed a great two-day Red October van tour arranged by a fellow Cruise Critic member.

 

Regarding ports we visited Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg and Talinn. Talinn was the only one that we could do without - it's pretty but it's not much compared with the others. I'd have happily had another day in any of the other cities, or perhaps a German or Polish port town.

 

Regarding alternatives I would certainly think that HAL would be comparable to X, and the various smaller ships would give the opportunity for a different experience. I would second the comment about the sail through the Stockholm archipelago being a highlight - we stayed on our balcony for at least an hour watching the passing islands and countryside as we sailed away.

 

Perhaps the lesson we learned is that if you are normally partial to more upscale lines, a port-intensive itinerary is one where it might be OK to experiment with more casual lines as you're off the ship more. Overall the Jewel surprised us with a very pleasant experience.

[NancyIL]

We were also on a 12-day Jewel of the Seas Baltic cruise in July 2005. I echo everything Bruce said about the ship. We explored the ports on our own with the help of Rick Steves' Scandinavia - which covered all the ports except St. Petersburg. For that port, the Eyewitness St. Petersburg guidebook was very helpful. We booked a 2-day tour for 6 of us with DenRus in St. Petersburg and were very pleased with our tour.

 

We arrived in London the day before the ship sailed, and took the train from Liverpool Street Station to the port in Harwich the next morning. We also took the train back to London after the cruise ended and stayed for 2 days. Midway though our cruise, a bus and 3 rail stations were bombed in London, and we had been in 2 of those rail stations and had ridden a bus on the route that was bombed just 6 days before! It made touring London afterwards a different experience.

[Maxwell42]

Personally, I would not recommend Princess, since their ships are too big to make the trip through the archipelago to Stockholm - one of the highlights of the Baltics experience.

 

I just read on another board yesterday that the Star Princess has been approved for the trip through the archipelago to Stockholm, and Princess has updated her itineraries accordingly. Good news, I think - we are booked on the Star Princess on June 11. :)