Baltic shore excursions on Regatta

[liveinmb]

I will be on the Regatta June 29. I was wondering if anyone had taken any shore excursions from the cruise line. Most of the tours say activity level is moderate. What exactly does that mean? I have difficulty walking for long periods of time without resting. Has anyone done any of these tours and can give me any recommendations.

 

Thanks for your help.

Rhea

[lcand1923]

Hi Rhea,

 

Since you haven't gotten a reply from any Oceania Cruisers, I want to share my Father's and my experience on the Marco Polo Baltic Cruise in 2003.

 

Dad was 80 years old when we took this cruise. He uses a cane due to nerve damage from two back operations. He needs to stop every quarter mile or so if walking for any distance.

 

The shore excursions with the Marco Polo were listed as Moderate. This listing was primarily due to walking on cobblestones and/or no places to sit.

 

Dad skipped a church on State Square in Helsinki because he would have had to climb 80 steps without a handrail. We also had to cut short the tour in Peterhoff Gardens because there was no place to sit and rest. (I asked the tour guide where we could meet her. She gave me excellent directions that allowed us to see a large portion of the Gardens -- with benches -- on the way to the meeting point. The tour was going to a portion of the gardens that did not have benches.)

 

Dad was able to do every other tour without difficulty.

 

(I have sent an email to Oceania's "Contact Us" link asking what criteria they use for Easy, Moderate and Heavy. They told me it is explained in the Shore Excursion brochure that they send with the tour documents.)

 

Hope this helps,

Connie

[barwalt1]

I would be very careful. I can't walk stairs. We used Red October in Saint Petersburg and I can say I was totally exhausted. The entire area is not exactly handicapped friendly. There are stairs everywhere with no handrails. and though they are very close together it still was a real effort.

I later heard that if you make reservations in advance there are elevators in the Hermitage and the palaces. I would suggest making private arraingments in advance.

We have gone on tours where people in wheelchairs do well on tours marked dificult and others that were marked easy where I had problems.

Again if there is something you really want to see make private arraingments in advance.

[Andee]

We toured St. Petersburg with RO last July. One member of our group of four has difficulty walking. We were able to use the elevators in the Hermitage without advance arrangements.

 

In Peterhof, we had one of the bike-rickshaws guys take her on a tour ($5) of the gardens and meet us at the Mon Plaisir Palace, which we toured together.