luvtravel88

For hand made espadrilles, try La Manual Alpargatera. Go before 1:30pm or after 4:30pm. They are open until 8:00pm every night. I have not yet been there but have heard about them from other people and they are mentioned in Rick Steves Barcelona book. I'll be going there this fall. Check out their website. I believe they're in/near Barrio Gotic.

We have booked with https://www.shuttledirect.com/en/ for our upcoming cruise in May

They seem to have a few options

 

 

 

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Thanks!

I’ve booked my mini van with these

https://gettransfer.com

 

Once you put your requirements you will receive offers via email from different vehicles with different prices.

I’ve paid €39 for a minivan that can carry 8 pax & cases but there are only 4 of us, if that made a difference in the offer price.

 

 

 

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Thanks for the info!

... which you never mentioned anyway. If you had been more precise I might have been able to help you with a more concrete response.

 

Btw this is called sarcasm, and I see you don't have much of that either :)

You know Enric, I can banter back and forth with you as much as you'd like, but I believe CC is meant to be used for people that are looking for information and to expand their knowledge.No place for sarcasm. As you can see from my heading, I have been a CC user for a long time with many posts.

The date I'm arriving is not pertinent. I just wanted to know if it would be easier to hire a private ride into town rather than taking a chance on a problem at the airport.

I'll look for my help elsewhere.

Are there daily demonstrations in Louisville? Because there aren't here in Barcelona.

No there aren't and I was not being a smart ****. I was asking for information. I don't remember where, but I had read that there was a demonstration planned on the date that we were arriving. Don't worry, I won't ask for any more help from you.

We have taken many Viator tours over the years and most of them have been very good. If you research the various tour companies in Barcelona and then look at Viator, you can often figure out which tour company that Viator is selling. The descriptions on the Viator site are generally the same verbatim that you find on the company's website. You can then read the reviews of that company to decide if you want to book with them.

One nice thing about using Viator is that they do offer 100% refund if you cancel within 7 days. If a tour cancels, which did happen to us once, they refunded our money the same day.

All that being said, we do book directly most of the time. It may be a bit more expensive than what you've found on Viator, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Is there ever a problem getting transportation from the airport if there is a demonstration going on? Should we chance getting transportation from the airport into the city, using transportation from the airport, or would we be better off paying extra and arranging private transportation prior?

Thanks!

We are arriving into BCN on Sept. 21, 2018. I read somewhere, (although I don't remember where) there is a large protest that has been organized for that day. If that is the case, will it be difficult to get transportation away from the airport into the city center? We are staying near Playa de Catalunya.

Thanks!!

Take a look at Hotel Casa Camper. Reasonably priced. Light food, snacks and drinks 24/7. Honesty system for alcohol. Breakfast included. Right next to Playa de Cataunya.

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We have several tours planned through SPB tours. Will the tour company tell you who else from your ship is on the tour so we can meet before leaving the ship?

I don't know. Alla didn't tell us who was in our tour. Our tour had a VERY active Roll Call and we had someone on our trip keep very organized spreadsheets on the Roll Call for each port of call.

When someone would decide to take a tour with any particular company, they would make it a private tour and then would have the Organizer on the Roll Call, put their private tour on the spreadsheet for it's port of call. Often within a day or two, the tour would have filled up.

And the way that would work is that whoever wanted to take a tour, would go to the tour company itself and sign up for, My(Kim's) tour, or whoever the leader of the tour was. They would then either contact me directly by email or post on the CC that they had joined the tour and they would let the Keeper of the Spreadsheet know they had joined the tour, so she could add them to that list.

The Keeper of the Spreadsheets also had made a master list of who was on our Roll Call. She had their CC handle, their first names, their reside area, their cabin number, their dining time, their pre and/or post cruise hotel and anything else someone wanted to have them add. This was a fantastic resource and would allow you to make plans with others, such as sharing a taxi or getting together for dinner. It also had cabin numbers so if you needed to contact someone by phone on the ship, you easily could.

I have to say, I was so impressed with these spreadsheets that I have become the Keeper of the Spreadsheets for a cruise that we're doing Sept. 2018 and already have about 15 couples that have signed up. If you look below my name, you will see the start of the tour share lists for this cruise. We don't have anyone that has organized any tours yet as it's still a bit too early, but there is the start of the master list.

As the leader of 3 tours on this most recent trip, I made a list of the participants for each trip, then requested private email addresses in a post. I then emailed everyone the place and time for a meet up for our tours, and if I didn't already have it, I asked for their cabin number. On the ship, I called each tour participant to remind them of the time and place of meet up, the night before our tour. I usually just left a message. Most people called back to say they got the message and thanks for the reminder.

(OK OCD rearing it's ugly head!)

I have to say, I don't know if we were lucky with the people on our groups or if it was from my planning, but everyone was always at the meet up and on time for each tour.

Well Dazey, this was a very long answer to your very short question!!:D

Kim

Kim - I note that you paid for all of your Alla Tours in Russia. How did you pay? I'm concerned about carrying that much cash. Did you pay via credit card, in Rubles, how?

 

Thanks much.

We paid with a credit card.

We did take some rubles with us and were glad we did. We decided to get ice cream at GUMS in Moscow and they only accepted rubles. We were the only ones in our group that had any, so we paid for everyone's ice cream and they paid us back in euros. It seems there were a couple of other places that we needed some ruble coins to use the bathroom.

You can purchase several types of currency at kiosks in large American airports as well as most International airports, but none of the ones we went to sold rubles, so you would need your bank to get them for you. The ship also doesn't have them.

The problem we had was that our bank gave us 5000 rubles notes, which are worth about $100. We wanted smaller denomination notes and had to wait until we got to Russia to buy something so we could get change.

Kim

Not trying to be too pedantic, but I hope this was a typo; in Oslo, they'd be dressed in Norwegian costumes, not Dutch ones--and the photo does show typical Norwegian costumes. Note that the style of the national costume can vary significantly from area to area in Norway. (This includes the jewelry that is part of the costume in each area.)

You are so right!!! That was an error on my part. I will certainly change it in my own travel log. Thanks for catching it.

And honestly, it was hard for me to keep up with the different wording of the areas we visited, and of course we moved almost every day. We had Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, German, and Estonian.

Kim

St Petersburg as we can't DIY there.

I've re read you explanation of how you went through immigration and notice you mentioned Alla tours.

Sorry I missed that.

Were you able to use them in any other cities and if yes, when did you pay?

 

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Hi Jackie,

We used Alla in Russia, Helsinki and Tallinn. You paid at the end of your first day in Russia. They took us to a large souvenir shop and had a table toward the back. We toured in Helsinki before Russia, but we paid for all 3 tours in Russia.

Alla was very great about communicating with me. I was one of the tour leaders for the 2 capital tour and they make it very easy for others to join a private group. We had 16 until 2 weeks before we left, and a couple had to cancel their trip due to health reasons. They cancelled with Alla, no problem, and Alla contacted me to let me know they had added a couple from our ship into our tour. They gave that couple my info to contact me so I could give them our meet up place and times.

We used SPB in Oslo and they did a really good job as well. We hadn't prepaid with them, which you can do, and I had planned to pay on the day. They changed their rules right before we left and they would no longer accept a credit card on the day, cash only. Well of course I only had a credit card. We didn't discover this miscommunication until the end of the tour when I mentioned that I still needed to pay. They were very gracious about it and invoiced me through email and we paid it as soon as we got home.

Thank you for the review. What is your opinion on having a group of 16 people on a St. Petersburg /Moscow tour?

Having a group of 16 was fantastic! We were small enough that there wasn't much lag time. We were able to get quickly off and on our van. We were large enough that we had a separate driver and guide, which I think is safer.

Another great thing is that it's enough people on the tour that it makes the price reasonable, but few enough that you can see and be close to your guide.

We were given audio boxes and ear plugs on our first day, which we kept for all three days. This was great, as we were able to hear our guides without having to be right next to them.

We met up on the ship each morning so we would all be pretty much together as we went through Immigration. There's nothing worse than being ready to go and having to wait on someone.

Kim

Yes please for the tour company you used. I'm looking for a different itinerary from 2015, so want to explore all options.

 

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Hi Jackie,

Which country/port are you interested in knowing the tour company we used?

Kim

Glad to help guys and thank you for your kind words!!

I'm retired as well so have plenty of time to do research, but for me planning is a lot of the fun and I love the anticipation. If you'd like to know specific tour company's we used, I'd be glad to share. As far as their quality, I would take all of them again.

Kim

Thank you Jmecme!

Yes, there was a LOT of planning. I began about a year before.

Kim

Thank you everyone for following. I finally re-created the first thread and finished it up.

Just a few final thoughts.....

When we travel we try to make the most of our time and see and do as much as we can balanced with our poor old body's needs. You know.... sleep!

We decided long ago that we can't control every aspect of our travels no matter how much planning I have done, so we just need to go with the flow. We may complain to each other, and I've given my opinions here, because that's what a review is for, but really, we just don't let the small stuff bother us. No vacation is going to run perfectly smoothly all the time.

For those of you thinking about this itinerary, it was a fantastically wonderful trip, but it wasn't a vacation. We were exhausted when we got home and it took a few days of good sleep before we felt rested again. Of course you could choose to do less, but then you wouldn't get to see as much!!

Now for some small stuff...

~If you have select dining, try to decide on the times you'd like to have dinner when doing your planning, and make your reservations online before leaving for your trip. There were no 6:30-7:30 reservations left on board. You could go at those times but you'd likely have to stand in line and wait for a table.

~If you go to select dining about the same time each night, they will hold your same table for you if you wish.

~If you're staying at a hotel pre or post cruise and you like to use a washcloth when you bathe, take your own and a zip lock bag to put it in, because many hotels don't offer them. They are considered a personal item.

~Get in line very early on the first day in St Petersburg, as it takes a long time at Immigration.

~If you're taking private tours, arrange for a meeting spot on the ship so you can all leave together. It makes leaving for the day so much easier, when you're not waiting on someone.

~If you'd like to have anything for your stateroom, be sure to ask your steward. They are very accommodating. We asked for some additional hangars the first afternoon and when we returned from dinner, they were on our bed. We also asked for ice the first day, and it was changed morning and evening everyday, thereafter.

There is a coffee and tea bar in the Hideaway on Deck 7 that is maintained 24/7 and is wonderful to use in the mornings or when coming back on the ship in the afternoon.

~If you're going to any kind of organized activity on the ship, arrive at least 10 minutes early or you may not get a seat.

~Use the CC boards a lot! There is so much information here that makes your trip so much more pleasurable and become active on your roll call. We had a ready made group of friends before we ever boarded the ship. We took some tours with some of them, met for drinks several nights as a large group, and went to Qsine together one night. It was so nice to run into people that we knew and several of us still keep in touch.

Now on to planning for our next great adventure.... to Spain and Greece on the Eclipse next September. Happy planning everyone!! Let me know if you have any questions.

Kim

Hi Luvtravel88.

 

Bob and Chris from Australia calling.

Loved your review and fantastic pics of your Baltics Cruise. It looked absolutely fantastic.

It is on our bucket list that's for sure.

Can you please tell us the best time of the year for this cruise, weather wise.

 

Regards Bob.

Hi Bob,

I think June, July and August would probably be the warmest months, but it's so far north, that is could be cool and rainy even then. We were very lucky at the end of May and we only had a short shower two different days and the temperatures were very nice. We took layers for any type of weather and even had a couple of packable down jackets as well as umbrellas.

You may want to google annual temperatures for the individual cities you'll be visiting as well as monthly avg rainfall.

You can get lucky or unlucky anywhere you go. We did a 3 week land tour through Italy several years ago in June and it rained all but 5 days!

Happy planning!!

Kim

We left Skansen and headed to the Vasa Museum. This was the most impressive museum we went into on our trip. This was a ship that had sunk in the middle of the harbor in Stockholm only 300 feet into its maiden voyage. We spent about 1 ½ hours here, walking through the exhibits and viewing the film that had of the recovery of the ship. The ship was cleaned and put back together with 90% of the original wood. Areas that are not original have been intentionally left a different color. It was all very fascinating. We could have spent quite a bit more time here, but ran out of time. There were a lot of people here, but it was a very large museum so didn’t feel overly crowded.

Some pictures of the ship:

A replica of what the ship looked like.

A cross section of the ship and what workers would have been doing.

We arrived back at our ship about 6:00 and went to the dining room for dinner. We sat next to the same couple again and had a lovely dinner.

After dinner, we went back to our room and made sure we had all of our belongings.

We had decided a while ago, that we would leave the ship on our last evening rather than waiting until the morning when there would be a mad dash off the ship. We had a 9:30am flight, and working backward time wise, we figured we'd have to be off the ship by 5:30am to be at the airport on time.

We left the ship about 8:30 with all of our luggage and when we scanned our cabin card to leave we didn’t hear the loud horn noise. We were off the ship about 8:40 and had some time to wait for our private taxi. It was the easiest disembarkation we had ever had! Of course, you had to take your luggage off the ship yourself, but since almost no one else was leaving at the time, it was easy to use the elevator and leave the ship.

The port terminal was pretty big with lots of chairs and free wifi, so we sat there to check email. Another couple we had spent a lot of time with were also leaving and we met up with them there and chatted for a few minutes.

We booked a private taxi with suntransfers and they were a bit early, which was great. We said our goodbyes and then we were off.

The ride to the airport was about 45 minutes and we arrived at the Clarion Arlandia airport about 9:45.

I chose this hotel because it was actually at the airport between terminals 4 and 5.

The hotel was fine with really pretty lobby and convention areas. It was a really huge hotel and we walked quite a way to get to the entrance and then to get to the restaurant area the next day.

The room was small but functional with a walk in shower. We faced the airport runways, but we never heard any noise.

If you choose to use this hotel, be sure to make your reservation many months ahead. They were sold out by January for our May cruise.

Thursday, June 1

We got up at 5:00am, got cleaned up and went to breakfast about 5:45. Breakfast was a long walk from the elevator and wasn’t really easy to find as it was kind of tucked away but we did find it and it was really great. It was a buffet with several tables of hot and cold items. We had a full breakfast as this is a travel day, so meals might be difficult.

We checked in about 6:30 and made our way through security which took a while. We found our gate and had about a 2 hour wait.

We boarded when we were called and the flight left on time and was uneventful. I watched 4 movies and dozed a little. DH read and listened to music. The flight was almost 9 hours and we landed on time in Atlanta.

We had about a 3 hour layover in Atlanta and it took about an hour to go through Immigration, collect our bags and go through Customs.

We went to our gate and waited for our flight to be called. We boarded about 30 minutes before our flight, but then sat on board the plane for a while, because the manifest didn’t match the passengers on the plane. They finally figured it out and we left about 30 minutes late.

We were only about 20 minutes delayed in landing and Mom and Dad were there to pick us up.

We got home about 9:00pm, exhausted and happy to be home.

I'll finish up in the next post with a few final thoughts.

We left the Ice Bar and then it was time for lunch. Thomas took us to a Swedish restaurant called Ulla Winbladh.

We had excellent Swedish meatballs. The waiter was very nice and helpful to all of us.

After lunch Thomas headed to Skansen, which was an open air village where different types of Swedish abodes had been moved from their original locations to this village.

They had an area where they had people showing the crafts that might have been done in a village. We saw a glass blower and a dry goods store.

They also had an animal area with indigenous animals.

We think this was an albino reindeer!

Although not indigenous, I thought the peacock was very pretty. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but I was afraid I'd miss his feather spread if I took too long setting up my shot!

We were underwhelmed by this area and although it was later in the day, there was almost no one here. If we had not been to other interpretive centers other places, I’m sure we would have enjoyed it more. Thomas walked through with us, and gave us some information about the houses we were seeing. The most interesting things we saw were original runes that had been found in Sweden and brought to the village. They were in really good condition and some of them still had the original coloring in the designs.

We left City Hall and made our way to the Ice Bar. This was the first Ice Bar and then other cities started opening them. This was a blast! After you paid your entry fee, you were helped to get into a large, fur padded cape with a hood, with gloves on a string that ran across the back of the cape and down, outside the sleeves.

We went into an air lock, so we had to close the door to the lobby, before we could open the door into the bar. Once inside, the lighting is blue and there is ice everywhere. The floor was slick and you had to be careful when walking. There were several places to stand or sit that had been cut in ice.

There was a small hallway to the left or right of the entry that led to the bar. Your entry ticket entitled you to one drink and DH and I ordered something with vodka and lignonberries. The glasses were rectangular blocks of ice that had test tube shaped holes in them and that’s where they poured the drinks.

We were warned to use our gloves before reaching for our drinks. There was a small sitting area where you could sit to drink your drink. The tickets were timed as the area was very small and there were people coming in almost right behind us.

We drank our drinks, took several pictures and then left. We were only inside about 15-20 minutes and it was enough as we were beginning to get cold. The area is kept at 20 degrees.

We were told that the bartenders stay for 30 minutes and then they trade off, so they can warm up.

Thanks for the kind words tompeter!

Wednesday, May 31 Stockholm

We got up this morning about 8:30, got dressed and had breakfast.

We didn’t arrive in Stockholm until 10 and the ship was quickly cleared. We met our group of 6 at the Martini Bar at 10 and we all left the ship together.

As we got off the ship this morning and they scanned our cards, there was this loud honking sound. It was alerting them that we would be getting off the ship today. They just wanted to know what time we would be leaving and when we told them that evening, they nodded and off we went.

We got off the ship and met our guide Thomas , with Stockholm Guiding Tours, right outside of the port gate. We had a van for 6 and off we went. Thomas took us on a short driving tour and pointed out some of the landmarks on the way.

Thomas took us along the waterfront, overlooking City Hall, where we stopped at a small park with a monument.

We saw the President’s residence and Parliament building on our way to City Hall.

Stockholm is several islands bridged together, and Thomas drove us round 2 or 3 of them. We would stop to take a look at some scenery and would find that we were on the other side of a body of water from where we had just been.

The visit to City Hall was very nice and we got to see where the Nobel Prizes are awarded as well as where city business is conducted. The grounds were very pretty as well and there were people everywhere although we didn’t feel crowded.

Blue Hall, where the Nobel Prize dinner is held

Council Chambers

Golden Hall

We met back up and were taken to Toompea Hill. It was very crowded here and we had to work our way slowly to the front so we could take some pictures. The view was really very pretty.

We grouped back together and were taken back to the ship. We boarded about 2:45 and went to have a light lunch at the buffet.

We came back to the room and began to pack up. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the room and on the balcony.

We got cleaned up and met our group for drinks at 5:00. We went to dinner at 6:15 and then back to the room to finish packing and just rest. We are exhausted!

Tallinn was a very pretty city with a vibrant medieval old town area that tourists are interested to see. If we hadn’t just come from Russia, we probably would have been enchanted with the port. As it was, there were 5 cruise ships in port that day, so the town was absolutely over run with tourists. There were crowds everywhere, making it difficult to see what sights are there. The town itself if pretty small, and there aren’t really any fantastic historical sights like those we’d just been visiting which kind of made this port anti climatic.

We were glad to have been able to stop here and if I ever stop here again, I think I would just wander the streets and really wish that’s what we’d done.

Thanks Bob and Teanne!

Tuesday, May 30 Tallinn, Estonia

Today was sunny and a high of 65.

We got up at 7:15 this morning and were at breakfast by 8:00am. We were outside at the port gate by 9:00 and met our Alla tour guide.

We took the Enchanting Tallinn tour with Julia as our guide. It was a driving and walking tour. We were dropped off by the home where the president lives and we walked around the gardens and the park area surrounding it.

We were driven to an ampitheatre with historic significance.

We walked from Old Town to New Town, visiting a couple of very pretty churches.

The cobblestones that we walked on were from the 13th century.

We stopped at a Marzipan store where they hand painted the marzipan. It was beautiful and we bought several pieces to take home.

We were given about 45 minutes to wonder around Old Town and we walked a bit and then decided to go to a restaurant called Peppersack where we could get wifi. We sat at a table outside and watched the crowds go by. DH had a beer and thought it was delicious.