Just back COnstellation July 3-17 Baltic

[celem]

Here is the "General Observations" section of my journal. I'll answer any questions, if possible. We only took one ship tour, in Gdansk. St. Petersburg was a private 2-day tour with American Express/Baltic Travel. In all other ports we did our own tours with the Rick Steves guidebook as an aid.

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General Observations:

Overall:

We rated the overall cruise experience as Good.

- The ports were wonderful with a free shuttle in all ports except St. Petersburg and Oslo. However, with so many ports back-to-back and only one "At Sea" day, we were generally exhausted. Next time we'll select an itinerary with an "At Sea" day between each port and more ports with overnights.

- Stockholm was our favorite, probably influenced by our being there for four days, which made for a relaxed visit.

- St. Petersburg was the most impressive port, with its rich, lush palaces and cathedrals.

- We were surprised at how 2,000 people can be on the ship yet it doesn't seem full in most spaces - in some cases quite deserted. However, this is not the case for the pool areas, especially the AquaSpa and hot tubs, which were always very crowded and at full capacity. Likewise, the restaurant was noisy and strained at full capacity. Often the meals were slow causing the meal to last up to 2.5 hours. With 1,000 people per sitting, the restaurant is just too big to be efficiently operated.

- Food: the meals were good but not great, meaning not gourmet as experienced in past cruises. For example, Renaissance and Regency had better food than Celebrity serving gourmet in the main dining room. Of course, they are both gone and Celebrity is now said to represent the best of current mainstream cruise lines. Still, we expected better than "good". Some meals were less than good as Celebrity tends to over cook and under season. Everyone that we talked to shared the same opinion.

Entertainment:

- Better quality than on any of our previous cruises on smaller ships.

[Brahmama]

Here is the "General Observations" section of my journal. I'll answer any questions, if possible. We only took one ship tour, in Gdansk. St. Petersburg was a private 2-day tour with American Express/Baltic Travel. In all other ports we did our own tours with the Rick Steves guidebook as an aid.

--------------

General Observations:

Overall:

We rated the overall cruise experience as Good.

- The ports were wonderful with a free shuttle in all ports except St. Petersburg and Oslo. However, with so many ports back-to-back and only one "At Sea" day, we were generally exhausted. Next time we'll select an itinerary with an "At Sea" day between each port and more ports with overnights.

- Stockholm was our favorite, probably influenced by our being there for four days, which made for a relaxed visit.

- St. Petersburg was the most impressive port, with its rich, lush palaces and cathedrals.

- We were surprised at how 2,000 people can be on the ship yet it doesn't seem full in most spaces - in some cases quite deserted. However, this is not the case for the pool areas, especially the AquaSpa and hot tubs, which were always very crowded and at full capacity. Likewise, the restaurant was noisy and strained at full capacity. Often the meals were slow causing the meal to last up to 2.5 hours. With 1,000 people per sitting, the restaurant is just too big to be efficiently operated.

- Food: the meals were good but not great, meaning not gourmet as experienced in past cruises. For example, Renaissance and Regency had better food than Celebrity serving gourmet in the main dining room. Of course, they are both gone and Celebrity is now said to represent the best of current mainstream cruise lines. Still, we expected better than "good". Some meals were less than good as Celebrity tends to over cook and under season. Everyone that we talked to shared the same opinion.

Entertainment:

- Better quality than on any of our previous cruises on smaller ships.

 

 

 

I am very interested in the do-it-yourself tours you took. Could you go into more detail? For example - where did you find the ATM? Did you take HOHO buses? Did you take a canal boat? Did you find interesting places to eat? etcetcetcetc!

[celem]

Re: "I am very interested in the do-it-yourself tours you took. Could you go into more detail? For example - where did you find the ATM? Did you take HOHO buses? Did you take a canal boat? Did you find interesting places to eat? etcetcetcetc!"

 

First, my wife and I don't much like ship's tours and tend to avoid them when prudent. Ship's tours cater to very large groups which greatly limits what can be seen and, of course, controls what is seen. Also, our taste often differs from what is offered by ship's tours. With this itinerary, all of the ports, except for St. Petersburg, are easily seen on your own. The cities are all generally very civilized, safe and compact. For the most part, they are best seen on foot plus a little local public transportation or taxi.

 

We simply used the Rick Steves' Scandinavia 2004 guidebook to help us with what to see. Our taste doesn't always agree with that of Rick Steves so we would pick and choose from among his suggestions. However, his suggestions are usually a pretty good match for our taste.

 

What we attempted to see in each city was beautiful architecture, art museums, botanical garden, public markets (both food markets and flea markets) and local cuisine. Following Rick Steves helped in finding these in most cities except for the botanical gardens, which always required asking the local Tourist Information office.

 

We enjoyed Stockholm the most, probably because we spent fours days there and were able to see almost everything that we wanted to see in a relaxed manner. We purchased the 3-day Stockholm Card and utilized it for trains, busses, museum fees and even a free harbor cruise. We saw much of Stockholm even venturing 20 miles North by train to see the Botanical Garden and two museums and also another 20 miles South of the city to go to a flea market.

 

We used a ship’s tour for Gdansk, Poland as the time in port was very short, almost no English was spoken by locals and the train connections were a more difficult, in my opinion, than other cities where we utilized the trains, such as Germany and Stockholm, where they were easy to use. In retrospect, we probably should have used a ship’s tour for Oslo because our time in port was just too short, and Oslo a bit too large to do adequately on our own given the very short time in port.

 

Riga is easy to do on foot – don’t miss the Resistance Museum. Also, if you are into public markets, as we are, Riga’s is one of the largest and most interesting.

 

Tallinn is also very easy to do on foot. We not only saw all of the requisite sights in the Old Town, we also went shopping in the progressive New Town. Tallinn is the most progressive of the Baltic states, benefiting from an influx of Finnish investment.

 

Rostock is easy to do on foot once you have used the efficient German train system to get there. Personally, we also found Warnamunde to charming and we enjoyed a pleasant meal outside the tourist area, after some wading in the ocean beach.

 

As far as ATMs are concerned, we never had any trouble finding one. They were very common in all cities except for Russia, where we used a Currency Exchange to get a few Rubles, but we mostly used dollars. We tried to use local currency everywhere because when local vendors accept dollars they round up, resulting in a worse exchange rate than offered by an ATM or Currency Exchange. Excess local could be exchanged at the ship’s bank for the next port’s currency, in many cases.

 

As far as “Interesting places to eat”:

 

- Stockholm: 11:45 walked 700m W of ship caught Bus #1 to Hotogret for lunch of Fish Soup at Kajsas Fisk Restaurang, recommended by Rick Steves - WONDERFUL ! It was probably the best meal that we had in Stockholm.

- Copenhagen: After arriving at Copenhagen Central train Station at 6:30PM, we immediately went to eat dinner at a restaurant near the station and Tivoli that was recommended by Rick Steves, the Bryggeriet Apollo, which is also a micro-brewery. Gail had rump of lamb (Lammeculotte) and I had Plaice, a flat "Danish Plaice" fish (Ovnbagt rødspætte) that tastes more like lobster than fish. Wonderful! The food was the most enjoyable that we have had on the entire cruise.

- Copenhagen: We took shuttle & then walked to City Hall. While enroute we found Rick Steve's favorite bakery (Kransekagehuset) for a couple of danish - very good by the ones that we had in Germany were better.

- Copenhagen: We then caught the #26 bus to the Carlsberg brewery. The tour was interesting, although you don't see the actual brewery, just exhibits. However, you do get two large sample beers. Gail's favorite was Carl's Special. Our second beer was a wheat beer (Hvede - pronounced veed-la.). We sat and talked with a Danish couple (Bjarne & Anamarie) over our beers beers. They were from Aakborg in Northern Denmark, home to Aalborg Akvavit, Denmark's most famous aquavit. They were very pleasant and we had a nice conversation.

- Rostock: We ate a “Bratwurst Mit Curry” that was wonderful. No bun - you pick up the long bratwurst with your fingers and dip into the curry. It included a very good baguette that you also dip into the curry. We copied the locals at our stand up table to learn how to properly eat it.

- Rostock: We walked back to the train station and utilized an Internet Café next to the station. 30 minutes for 1.5€ ($1.83). Gail purchased coffee for both of us while I sent emails. The coffee was strong but good and they provided the little cookies that Delta Airlines serves. While walking to the station, we stopped in a bakery and purchased two of the best Danish pastries that either of us has ever eaten - wow!

- Warnemünde: We ate dinner at a fish restaurant "Warnemünder Fischerhaus" along the east shore of the Alter Strom. We split a nice salad and brat herring (fried herring) with potatoes and onions, which was preceded by wonderful fish soup. Gail had white wine while I had a Rostocker Beer. It was a pleasant meal with friendly staff.

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[Brahmama]

This was very helpful information and I have copied the part that referred to the ports we are visiting. We have a bit different itinerary as we have only 12 days.

We are particularly interested in Stockholm but will have only 6 hours to explore. What a pity.

Since you were there several days, you must have visited many of the sites. Could I have your impression of the following - from which we will choose where to visit in our very short time.

Vasa, Nordic Museum, Skansen, Royal Palace (changing of the guard in particular), Gamla Skan walking tour.

How would you rate these?

It appears that all are within walking distance - so perhaps we won't need the Tourist Card.

 

And thanks again.

[celem]

Vasa: We both very much enjoyed it, and my wife doesn't usually like this sort of thing but she was so impressed that she takled about it for days.

 

Nordic Museum: We visited all of the exhibits and Rick Steves gives it three stars, but to us it was only a one star. Like I said, everyone's taste is different. This museum is about Nordic lifestyles with exhibits of clothing, shoes, furniture and decorating, etc. Rick Steves loves this sort of thing but it is of much less interest to us. Only you know if your taste agrees with Rick Steves on this one. We found the National Museum of Fine Arts much more interesting and give it three stars yet Rick Steves only gave it one star - once again, differences in taste.

 

Skansen: If you can believe it, even with four days in Stockholm, we didn't go to Skansen, although we did go to a similar open-air folk museum in Norway. If you have ever been to Williamsburg, VA, this is similar. While we were not uninterested in seeing Skansen, we simply knew that, with our taste, it was lower in priority than things that Rick Steves doesn't even mention, like the Botanical Garden, so we just selected other goals than Skansen.

 

Royal Palace (changing of the guard in particular): We toured the Royal Palace and all of the associated museums as they were all included in out Stockholm Card. We enjoyed it, especially the Royal Armory museum in the basement. We watched the changing of the guard. Rick Steves rated it as two stars and we agree. We've seen the same things in London and while interesting, it wasn't at the top of our list, but, as I said, everyone's tastes are different.

 

Gamla Stan walking tour: Gamla Stan is VERY small and very easy to walk. Simply using Rick Steves' walking tour will show you most things of interest. Vasterlanggatan is the main tourist drag and is filled with tourist shops that are just like tourist shops everywhere, yet people feopple fill it up so full in the evening that it is like a sardine can. The prettier sights are away from Vasterlanggatan and Rick Steves points them all out.

 

 

 

This was very helpful information and I have copied the part that referred to the ports we are visiting. We have a bit different itinerary as we have only 12 days.

We are particularly interested in Stockholm but will have only 6 hours to explore. What a pity.

Since you were there several days, you must have visited many of the sites. Could I have your impression of the following - from which we will choose where to visit in our very short time.

Vasa, Nordic Museum, Skansen, Royal Palace (changing of the guard in particular), Gamla Skan walking tour.

How would you rate these?

It appears that all are within walking distance - so perhaps we won't need the Tourist Card.

 

And thanks again.

[Brahmama]

Thanks for all the info and opinions about Stockholm. We are limited in our time there, but it sounds like a place we will return to on a land trip.

 

Can you tell me where the Constellation was docked in Stockholm? And if you happen to know if this is where she *always* docks? I have read that there are 3 different docking stations and one is an hour away from the City.

[amfc]

Try this website http://www.stoports.com/ and just scroll down to the date you will be there and it should indicate where you ship will be docked!

[MSBYRDY]

Could you possibly elaborate on your AMEX tour there. We're considering this one for our May cruise and would love to hear more about what it entailed and how you thought it was handled. How many people were in your group?

 

Thanks for any information you can provide.

Marilyn

[celem]

The AMEX tour was operated by "Baltic Travel". They used a standard size tour bus but only filled half of the seats so our group was less than half the size of the ship's tours. As I recall, we had about fifteen people. We saw everything that we wanted to see in St. Petersburg including the inside of Peterhof's palace, which Red October wanted to skip. However, in order to see everything the pace was brisk. The provided lunches were good and the guide was quite good with perfect English and very knowledgable.

 

Our only problem was a delay getting started the first day, but it wasn't the tour's fault - the ship made independant travelers get off of the ship according to numbers and some of our group was last off.

 

We enjoyed the tour very much, it covered a bit more than the ship's tour and was a bit less expensive. It was considerably less expensive than Red October, which we also considered.

[MSBYRDY]

Thanks for the prompt reply, didn't know if you'd notice it. LOL Appreciate the information, we're trying to decide between Red October, Denrus and AMEX.

 

On the city tours portion, were you able to get out for photo's or just drive by? How long was spent at the Hermitage and Peterhof?

Marilyn

[slivers]

A question about dinner hours: We're on this cruise just one year later (Jul. 2, 05). Our TA told us to expect Main and Late seatings to be later on this cruise to allow for pax to get back from excursions. On Constellation in Caribbean & Western Europe, Main was 6:15. It was 6:00 on Summit trans-Canal this month. What were dinner times on your cruise? Thanks.

 

Steve

[jimbo23]

A question about dinner hours: We're on this cruise just one year later (Jul. 2, 05). Our TA told us to expect Main and Late seatings to be later on this cruise to allow for pax to get back from excursions. On Constellation in Caribbean & Western Europe, Main was 6:15. It was 6:00 on Summit trans-Canal this month. What were dinner times on your cruise? Thanks.

 

Steve

 

In Russia and Warnemunde Constellation provided an evening buffet Russian and German themed on the ship until about midnight so if you missed the evening meal it was not a problem

 

Jim

[eileen & jay]

Bumping this post current as quite a few of us will find helpful info on this thread for our July 2, 2005 Constellation cruise of Scandinavia & Russia.

 

Thank you "celem" for posting your daily journals.:)

[gopackgo]

Celem and any others,

 

I noticed Celem said that they were in Stockholm for 4 days so they could see things at a leisurely pace. Could you also see most things at a decent pace in 2 days or would we be rushed?? We are currently scheduled for 2 solid days there before our cruise starts. I am thinking about going a day earlier so we have 3 solid days. Would you recommend that? We are early 50's and I have bad feet so I can't walk real fast and need to sit down every so often.

 

Thanks,

 

Ginny

[gopackgo]

Celem,

 

Thanks so much for the detailed diary of your stay in Stockholm on the other thread I had posted!! I am sorry - I forgot I had posted that entry. I did it just before I left for a week, last week. Anyway, no need to repost it all!! Thanks for help.

 

Ginny

 

I think I will try to arrive in Stockholm to allow us 3 days there. It sounds wonderful.

[celem]

In answer to "Silvers" questionabout dinner hours being late - jimbo23's answer matched our experience, also.

 

In response to "gopackgo" regarding "is 3 solid days enough to see Stockholm": No, but it isn't enough to see San Francisco, New Orleans, New York, Chicago or London either. Just pre-plan on seeing two or three high points per day and forget about the rest. If you rush too much you won't enjoy the trip.