What a great topic! Thanks to OP for starting it.
We will be on a 2022-Aug sailing so very-slightly different ports, have a 13 year old boy (an evolved bookworm - always hungry for any trivia, a competitive water sports athlete), and a 10 year old girl (more fit than she'd like to admit, she hates walking and hiking but she figure-skates... so she actually has strong legs ... loves visually-interesting places - photo spots). Both love history and culture, even art / art history. Both are musicians (but other than Sibelius i don't think there's any big "music" things on this itinerary?).
I haven't really designed our port days surrounding "their" interests... but also don't want them to get too bored. I'm a bit worried that all the cobblestone walking on our very busy 9-ports-in-11-days itinerary will be too much for DD (well, too much of "what? more walkiiiiiing??? why are we stillllll walkiiiiing" from DD).
We haven't booked too many paid tours as the cost really add up when multiplied by 4 ... and there are soooo many ports on this itinerary (DS, who turned 13 two months ago, will from hereon forever be counted as an ADULT by cruiselines.... !!).
Our itinerary:
- Copenhagen (plane lands late night prior to embarkation, so, no pre-cruise tour)
- Aarhus, Denmark (i've done basic research, planning to DIY-walk) Hoping for your collective input TIA!
- Gdansk, Poland (i've booked a placeholder official ShoreEx walking tour that will leave us time to explore and return to ship on our own in the end ... didn't really want to make DD walk the mile to catch the shuttle and the train into town etc esp so early in our trip... the cost of the shuttle isn't that much cheaper than the ShoreEx).
- Klaipeda, Lithuania - debating the Amber museum + Klaipeda old town ShoreEx, vs private tour, vs DIY ferry to Curonian split and then time in town. @alwayscruisetime i might contact the tour operator you mentioned and price out to see if it's worth saving energy and research time.
- Helsinki - booked a private guy who would take us to Porvoo then Helsinki - not sure if we really need to spend time in Porvoo or should we just skip Porvoo and do Helsinki HoHo bus ? Cutting Porvoo will cut at least 250 euros of cost .... but then who knows when will we ever get to be in the Helsinki area again... and regret missing Porvoo? Is Porvoo not to be missed? Rick Steves thinks it's skippable if it's one-day-in-port,
- Tallinn - definitely DIY. Probably take your suggestions above and taxi to the top + walk downhill. Wanted to do the KGB museum but I missed the boat in planning and it's already all sold out for the day we're there
- Riga - booked two "Free" walking tours back to back (10 am, 12 noon), hope our shuttle make it in time to 10 am, and that 4.5 to 5h of walking isn't too deadly for DD.
- Stockholm - Vasa + ice bar (for me!) + Gamla Stan walking tour. in that order,
or, Gamla Stan walking tour + Ice bar + Vasa. Wondering which order to go. Depends on whether we manage to not get trampled when trying to get off the ship first thing....
- Visby - booked an official ShoreEx **look from the bus** tour for 1.5h, figured we'll at least get to have a visual on all the sights and let DD and DS decide if they want to "walk it" in the afternoon. I'm **sure** DD would love that alley that has roses. I suppose a bike tour would be nice, but i don't think DD is tall enough to go onto an adult sized bicycle .... unless they have junior sizes for rental??
- back to Copenhagen, where we'll stay for 4 nights. LOTS of time there so i can plan casually and "on the fly" (**ahem** procrastinate some more **ahem**), so, i'm not thinking about that now!!