cmph

Oh my gosh! That's horrible! We went to the museums just a few days before that. It seemed like the ferry was half-full of groups of kids (tweens and young teens) heading to Grona Lund, so it certainly looked like a popular place.

I'm not surprised UK residents would have better and cheaper options for Europe. Some Americans do swap out sim cards to keep costs down. We weren't interested in fussing with that, especially multiplied by 4 people. My husband and I needed to stay connected to home for a variety of reasons (extended family check-ins, pet, repairs happening in our home while we were away, etc.). It would have been enormous pain to have anything other than our usual cell number. AT&T just charges a flat fee for us to use our phones exactly the same way we would in the US.

They have an "at-sea" plan, but the international day pass works on land only, using local towers. I guess cost is all relative, but for 4 people to have daily cellular service in foreign countries for 2 weeks, $250 seems a lot more reasonable to me than the cost of NCL's unlimited WiFI times 4. And honestly, it was better than NCL WiFi, b/c it actually let you stream videos, etc. (YMMV based on itinerary of course.)

In case it helps you, I'm happy to share my experience. We (husband, me, and our two teens) were just on a Dawn 10nt Baltic, port-intensive (no sea days). We also have AT&T, all 4 of us on the same plan, which has unlimited data, etc. I made sure that International Day Pass was activated for all our devices before we left. It only triggers when it actually connects to a foreign tower, after you turn off airplane mode. So you do not need to worry about it charging you when you aren't using it. Also, it's only $10/day for the first person on the plan, and then $5pp for the rest of the people on your plan using it that day. On 8 of the days that it activated, it sent me the same message: "Hi, it's AT&T. Great news! You have our best international package, International Day Pass, on this line. This means you can use your phone like you do at home with unlimited talk/text and the data included in your AT&T plan for just $10/day. Pay only for the days used abroad with a max of 10 daily fees per line per bill. Additional lines used the same day are only $5/day. Go to att.com/IDPTravelTips for details. Enjoy your trip and safe travels!" All said and done, it was not terribly costly. I was paranoid it wouldn't work as described, but that was unjustified. We had a pre-stay in Stockholm for a couple days, so for 4 of us triggering day pass for 13 days, it was only ~$225 extra on our last bill. I expected a full $250 - $25/day times 10, so maybe one last day will show up on the next billing cycle. To me, this was a much better deal than ship WiFi. I thought about adding the at-sea package, but we decided that we didn't need it since we'd be in port everyday. My daughter and I have iphones but my husband and son have androids. She and I had no problem using imessage with each other onboard while in airplane mode. I also used imessage to communicate with a few family members back in the US while in airplane mode onboard. We all attempted to use Telegram and Whatsapp onboard in airplane mode, but neither worked.

@daydream1 Safe but boring is really the best way to capture it! My husband is very used to it, so he just laughed it off. My 14yo is pretty new to celiac and was not thrilled. @Ladyshopper23 yes - we got a letter in the room about the special diets coordinator. I didn't realize that made a difference to the pre-ordering process though? The letter just made it seem like they were acknowledging the 'allergies'. That is pretty frustrating, if you have to talk to them to get access to the full scope of offerings (but no one tells you), especially since communications between staff was lacking. We talked to dining first thing when we boarded, and from that point on, we were always guided to the dining room maitre'd for pre-ordering. If that is where they direct everyone, then it seems like the special diets coordinator should arm them with a list of what can be pre-ordered. I thought the supply issues were at times understandable/forgivable, but sometimes they seemed like either bad planning or avoidable outages (e.g., eggs started to disappear), considering this was a port-intensive itinerary (literally no sea days). The lack of knowledge on the part of the guest-facing staff annoyed me more than the fact that they were out things, though, to be honest. Our breakfast snafu experience was just really strange and uncomfortable from start to finish, largely b/c it was almost like they didn't believe we had followed their standard protocol and pre-ordered; plus, it seemed like they just tossed out the pre-order once they realized it couldn't be fulfilled, so we were in this uncomfortable he-said/she-said.

We just sailed on the Dawn, our first NCL. Both my husband and son have celiac. The experience was... ok. No one got sick on a 10nt cruise, I will give them that. They did try to gluten my son in Cagney's - he ordered the lamb chops and specifically said "without the barley risotto of course", but guess what it came with. (We were right by the prep area and could see a somewhat heated exchange between the cooks and server.) Their disappointment was largely in the offerings. For sure, they have supply issues in Europe. (and before anyone asks, yes, of course we submitted the form in advance, for each of them, so they certainly knew gf people were going to be on board.) They had none of their gf mix for pancakes (ran out the previous cruise), so that was off the table. Unfortunately, that was unknown to the wait staff, which caused a lot of confusion our first breakfast; they still hadn't communicated this out at large the next night, when we had to be the ones to relay "no, we can't order that, the kitchen doesn't have the ingredients." Bread options were weird, like burgers served on bagels b/c they had run out of buns too. Some of the labeled gf entrees had menu subs b/c they were out of the protein. They have plain ice cream/sorbet nightly, but it was pretty low quality (ice chunks in it, maybe yet another supply issue). The soft serve was also chocolate only (guessing another supply issue). Anyway, aside from the supply issues, they really just wanted them to order from the labeled gf menu items for the MDRs, which was very limiting. There were no offers to have appetizers or soups made gf for dinner, which never had anything gf aside from maybe a salad on the 7 nights we ate there. The only special-order dessert offered was a flourless chocolate cake. When they did make (off-menu requests (like 2 in 10 days), they were received somewhat oddly. Ex: the kitchen staff "might say no". (Why not have a list of things that CAN be pre-ordered then?) So many of the things that we thought would be gf were not, like chili, risottos, flan (which is gf in Moderno but not the MDR?). They did ok in the 3 specialty restaurants, for the most part, but be prepared to advocate for yourself and be very specific (which we just didn't think to do). Like - you can order the filet that comes with blue cheese ravioli at La Cucina, and they didn't think to sub in gf pasta. Seemed like an obvious thing to me, but we didn't ask, and they didn't get, and they won't make gf pasta without a pre-order. Lesson learned. My two only used the buffet for breakfast (sealed yogurt, hard-boiled eggs that could be wiped/washed, sealed honey nut cheerios, whole bananas). This isn't any different than any other buffet situation, though. For lunch - they were specifically told not to go to the buffet, and to go to the MDR for embarkation lunch... where there are no gf entrees. We asked what they could eat, and our waiter just pointed at the salad and crustless quiche on the appetizer list. It took a few tries to convey that we were asking for more than that, and finally the kitchen agreed to make the pork chop gf. The MDR was only open for one other lunch, so we mostly ate in the pub, which could do sandwiches and burgers gf. To the credit of the maitre'd we usually saw - he had the room number memorized and never ever forgot to come get the pre-order. That was much appreciated. Our verdict - pretty safe, but adjust expectations for the food, depending on the ship and itinerary. It wasn't the great experience I had read about on here, for us, anyway.

To clarify, I was only referring to Under Kastenjen's meatballs in the section you partially quoted from, which are gluten-free. They did not need to be special-ordered, as their recipe is gf.

We just got back from 2 weeks in the Baltics (10-night cruise plus pre-stay in Stockholm), and the only time foreign currency touched our hands was when a canal cruise operator in Riga accidentally overcharged by 10 euros and gave us that amount back in cash. I never even got out my wallet to use a physical credit card - I used Apple Pay exclusively. My husband doesn't have an iphone and had issues in a couple places with Google Pay, but Apple Pay always worked. If I wasn't right there, he used his physical credit card without issue.

We just returned from our Baltic cruise. We also used Rick Steves' Tallinn walking tour, and I annoyed my teens by reading aloud to them about the sites. I personally wouldn't have done it any other way. We weren't entirely sure what we'd do at the end of the tour, but we took a lovely walk through a park back toward the cruise terminal. So interesting to see playground equipment and day camp groups alongside the historic sites there! Only lowlight was stopping in a convenience store near the cruise terminal and finding white pride paraphernalia on display. The kids and I were looking at drinks in a refrigerator when my husband saw the back wall with all of that (signs, guns, shirts, you name it), fronted by 2 aggressive looking guys, and quietly muttered "holy hell, we need to get out of here right now." It was unexpected and awful after our nice day. 3/4 of my family LOVED Visby! So pretty with the ruins and gardens. (Our 14yo son thought the ruins were ugly and prefers cities, so he thought it was terrible compared to Stockholm - can't win 'em all! His sister, on the other hand, wants to move there LOL.) I used this for preliminary guidance: https://backroadplanet.com/how-to-explore-visby-on-your-own/. I plotted out our route on googlemaps and saved them to my email to pull up that day. IMO it would be a complete waste to book a tour in Visby, b/c it was so nice to just wander at your own pace. The sites have informative signage in English, so you won't need reference material or a guide to explain anything. It doesn't feel like it has any tourist-traps the way that Tallinn and Gdansk do, just a pleasant place to visit. Can't help with Kristiansand, as that wasn't on our itinerary.

We just got back from our Baltic cruise and did a couple days pre-stay in Gamla Stan. The ferry between there and the area with the Vasa museum was SO easy. I think it sounds daunting to those of us who do not have this option (especially landlocked US areas that have little mass transit). They had booths running at both ends, so you do not need to worry about figuring out the app. The app seems easy enough for one person, but it's faster to buy multiple tickets at the booth if you have different fare rates for your group. You can also scan your credit card to get onto the ferry and totally skip the app and booth, but you can't get a discounted fare with that method. We are only a single data point, but we got to Vasa around an hour after opening, and I did not think it was crowded during our time there. I didn't notice the crowd picking up, either. However, you will find that dining options over there are limited compared to Gamla Stan, so I'd time things to be on Gamla Stan for lunch. There is a food truck at Vrak, but it was already out of some foods by early afternoon. We ate at the Viking museum eatery, which was fine but a bit limited (mostly traditional Scandinavian foods); we much preferred the Swedish meatballs at Under Kastenjen on Gamla Stan. We weren't as short on time, but we had somewhat limited energy due to jet lag and were annoyed with ourselves for getting the "special" Vrak+Vasa deal. Vrak was (sorry for the bluntness) a real disappointment after the amazing Vasa experience. We wished we had gone to the Viking museum instead. We had promised our daughter we'd go to the ABBA museum, and 3 museums in one day was definitely our limit. Vasa was just so amazing, and anything after that is pretty much dwarfed in excitement, so don't feel badly about skipping all the others!

We just returned from our trip, so I wanted to report back on successes or lack thereof. 🙂 Good news is: no one got "glutened" the whole 2 weeks! Stockholm: -Under Kastanjen https://underkastanjen.se/ - great!! We ate here twice (lunch the first day, dinner the next), wonderful Swedish meatballs that are naturally gf, great gf chocolate cake.- Bishops Arms https://www.bishopsarms.com/vara-pubar/stockholm/gamla-stan/ - kind of a weird choice for Sweden, but it was convenient, and they had gf buns for burgers plus safe entrees. We seemed to be the only non-locals in there.- Vrak – Museum of Wrecks cafe - this did not work out. They only had a food truck outside, instead of the indoor cafe, and the truck had enough bread for 1 sandwich and nothing else. We instead went to the Viking Museum next store, which also had a casual eatery. My husband got some traditional pickled herring dish that he enjoyed, and my son again got Swedish meatballs, which he liked, but not as much as Under Kastanjen's. -new addition hotel breakfast (Hotel Gamla Stan) - amazing breakfast buffet included with stay. SO good. They had one side set up as all gf - bread, crackers, yogurt with toppings, mini-panna cottas, mini-chia seed puddings, 5 kinds of smoothies. And you could ask for made-to-order gf pancakes. The non-gf side had things that were also safe (just be forewarned about cross-contamination from other guests) - eggs, breakfast meats, etc. We all agreed this was the BEST hotel breakfast we have ever had, and the attention to variety for gf was a huge and pleasant surprise. Helsinki: Sadly, many things were closed for midsummer, so our day's plans were not what I had hoped for when i began planning months ago. We ended up at Cafe Carusel on the Eira hop-on/hop-off stop. The food situation was dicey, from a meal perspective, but they had an ice cream case near the register with 3 Friends, a Finnish brand of ice cream marked as gf. My son was so happy! He loved his first bar so much that we went back and bought him a second variety. He's very sad that this isn't sold elsewhere - much better than similar items we have in the US, he says. Hamina, Finland: new addition Konditoria Huovila Oy - we stopped at this tiny cafe in the center of town during OYO time on our tour. They had a gf chocolate cake in its own case, which the workers dished for you. Everything else was self-serve. I'm not sure if there were any meal options, and language would be an issue if you don't speak Finnish. We could easily mime for the piece of cake, and everything else (from cups for coffee to all the non-gf baked goods on the counter) was self-serve. This was an unexpected find, as we were only originally stopping in for drinks and to use the toilets. Visby: Holy Kebab - they had actual gf wraps for the kebabs. Huge! The guys were both very happy with their meals. Tallinn: new addition Kohvik Must Puudel - this was a good stop for a light lunch. They had safe gf fries and sweet potato fries as well as a number of salads. My son isn't one for salads, but he was fine with fries and the halloumi/watermelon dish. My husband and I had two different salads that were quite good and both gf, just not very large for a main meal (fine for a hot day though). Gdansk: - Lody Soprano ice cream - soft serve, I think they had 6 flavors available, and you could swirl two for certain flavors. I had blackcurrant, just to get something different from the US. I think my daughter had chocolate/vanilla, and i know my son had salted caramel swirled with vanilla. They do not have cups, but they have gf cones and were very careful in handling the cone. - Kawiarnia Retro - second treat for my son here! (NCL had pretty sad gf dessert offerings on our cruise, tbh, not super interested in making things specially, oftentimes just bad ice cream with ice chunks in it, soft serve machine not always working and never had more than chocolate flavor. So we let him splurge on this port day with 2 treats.) He loved his salted caramel cheesecake brownie, which my husband snagged a bite of and reported was delicious. Riga: Better Bread - great (tiny!) bakery. We turned this stop into lunch, as they had goat cheese filled pastries plus dessert items (we tried brownies, an apple dessert, cardamom bun, and chocolate bun). We were there on the late side for lunch, probably 1:30, 2, and I think we decimated half of their remaining items with our order. So I would recommend not waiting too long in the day. And be forewarned it is tiny and easy to miss. They had a few tables outside, so we were able to eat there, but in bad weather - there is nowhere to eat; it's just an ordering counter inside. Warnemunde port day: Zum Feinspitz in Schwerin - this was a slightly strange experience. We got there, and it was locked even though it was prime lunch time. We tried to find something else nearby, but Germany is just difficult for gf. After a couple of misses, my husband ducked back over to see if they'd reopened, and it had. It was just the owner working, and he was happy to make anything from scratch, but we were short on time. I told the guys just to get food there, and my daughter and I (who have no dietary restrictions) went elsewhere for the sake of time. They enjoyed their Austrian pancakes, and they were appropriately grateful to have anything gf in Schwerin. Klaipeda: Soviet Nuclear Weapons Site (NCL) Excursion - this had an included meal, although there is no way you'd ever go that far out for a meal (nor would I recommend it). But if you happen to be reading this and booked the same excursion - it's somewhat complicated, as no one speaks anything other than Lithuanian, and it's very rushed. We had our guide ask about gluten, and he was very confused at first about what gluten was. The cold beet soup was naturally gf, and the "potato dumplings" were just meatball-ish things in halved potatoes. They sort of appeared to be fried, which made me nervous, but my son was starving and ate them; he wanted no part of the cold pink soup. My husband ate the soup and the meat part of the potato things. They had water on the tables and were handing out beer as the first choice, but you could ask for other drinks (one of them was a lightly alcoholic drink with "bread" in the name, but they also had coffee). We wished we had rushed through the food and taken more time to enjoy the grounds, which were gorgeous - ponds, sculptures, playground equipment, etc. Hope this report is helpful to some folks, and please feel free to ask questions about anything!

I'm by no means an expert, so others who are will surely chime in - but I'd personally go with Hamburg. It's an easy train ride to Kiel. We have a port stop in Kiel on our cruise this summer, and many (most probably) people go to Hamburg or Lubeck for the day instead of staying in Kiel.

To add to what Schmoopie17 said - for our upcoming cruise, I kept an eye on prices myself, and when they dropped over Thanksgiving weekend when everything was closed, I emailed my PCC. He processed the lower prices for our reservations when he returned (after the sale had actually ended), no questions asked. Didn't even have to talk on the phone! The other advantage has been to have him do the various add-ons x2 for our two reservations for the same cruise. Super easy to do most everything myself, and honestly that is my preference, but it gets tedious if you have multiple reservations (with multiple primary accounts) for the same cruise.

I couldn't find anything gf in Kotka, and we're there on a Saturday! That is unfortunate about Helsinki; I have 2 places to choose from on my list (we're there all day, on a Friday). By the way, not sure if you saw in the previous posts (after that one of mine that you had quoted) - Kiek de Kok is open. When I first started researching, I guess they had their winter hours up, but they were updated at some point. I'm not sure if that same scenario is possible for other museums.

Oh wow, well that hyphen makes a big difference! It doesn't show up that way on Chrome, but maybe it's struggling to translate Estonian to English. I have it set to automatically translate, but it doesn't quite get everything right. Thank you for sharing!

Hi! Where did you find that info about Kivi Paber Kaarid? Their site lists their hours as: "PT 12-22 | KN 12-23 | RL 12-02" Translated, that's SunTues / WedThu / FriSat. Did you happen to find other information that conflicts with their website? I have been assuming their site is correct, and it hasn't been updated for newer, summer hours. I don't believe google is correct, in this case.

I was able to make multiple reservations for a single MDR on the Dawn for June. We had a few undecided nights, though, and after talking it over with the family, I went back to book the rest of the nights. Every time I added anything to my cart, whether it was an MDR or any of the specialty venues, no matter what time - it would disappear when I went to check out. Same thing whether I was on the mobile app or my computer. I thought the site was having issues, since I had had absolutely no problem the first round - but after a week of that, I had my husband try to book them via his account (2 rooms, one under each of our names). He successfully booked every restaurant/time I had earmarked, so it wasn't an issue of availability. I ended up calling tech support to find out what was wrong with my account, b/c I don't want any surprises down the road, but they couldn't find anything at all to cause this. Super glitchy IT, that's all I can say!

@ChiefMateJRK you must not have seen my post that followed yours. NCL has to make it through Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, and Denmark without any tax/duty/misc snafus LOL.

We're sailing out of Stockholm - port-intensive Baltic. I'm figuring they will discover a whole new country (or countries) to have issues with for our cruise lol.

ROFL - I was just reporting on this thread to my husband and telling him that it seems like there is a lot of confusion on what exactly comprises the UK. Your comment was well-timed and got a chuckle out of us. 🙂 I'm very glad we declined the package for our June cruise on the Dawn.

I'm not sure that is always the case. At least, it wasn't for us. We're on a Baltic this summer, and when we booked - it showed the soda package for my daughter (2nd passenger in the room with me). Maybe b/c she wasn't yet 18 when we booked? Of course, we had to put her birth date to book, but maybe the system is not sophisticated enough to distinguish age at booking vs. age at sailing.

Yup, and while I 100% understand NCL doesn't want people to book conflicting activities - it's not like this was the ONLY way to prevent that. The architecture of the site is the problem, and there are a number of ways to revamp that and still prevent people from booking conflicting activities. ah well, we're not in charge! 😉

We have not tried to book different excursions for people in the same cabin, so I'm not sure what would happen in that case. The only exception I have seen is if you book a HOHO bus. Other than that, I can't see anything other than my booked excursion for the ports that we have something booked. The first time I noticed, I though "wow, did we choose a bad one, b/c it's the only one available!" Then I noticed the pattern. It's too bad they can't just grey out the option to book but still show the full list in case you change your mind, or your mobility level changes. If I had known, I would have taken notes or screenshots.

I didn't find it too hard to navigate through the excursions listings by port on myncl, but you're right that it doesn't give you enough info in that brief view. It's a minor frustration only because that site is slow as molasses, and More Details loads a new page. I learned to just open all of the excursion options we'd possibly consider in new tabs, b/c at least I didn't have to keep going back and forth to the main page. Aside from the extremely slow loading time, my other issue is that, once you book an excursion, you can't see any other excursions for that port that might even vaguely conflict. I guess they do not expect anyone to change their minds and cancel the original booking in favor of an alternative.

Oh my, that would have been perfect! My kids are the exact same age, in a funny coincidence. However, we are on NCL later in June. (So apparently all the cruise lines think it's a great idea to go to Tallinn on a Monday!) Thank you anyway, and I will have to talk to my family about the private tour possibility.