meriberi

Thank you for the updated info on megatrain no longer servicing Southampton - I was wondering why I couldn't get that link to work.

Two questions about our upcoming embarkation from Southampton:

1. Somewhere online said there's a public bus (U1) from Southampton Central Train Station to Dock Gate 4 (from which we'd have to walk the rest of the way to QE2) - is that still operating? The other online port info seems to indicate taxi is the only option from the train station.

2. We were planning to take the South Western Rail from London Waterloo since it's faster and more convenient to our hotel than Victoria Coach station (for the National Express bus), but there's a notice that RMT is planning a strike from June 21-23 (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/192991.aspx). How likely is it that the trains won't be running on June 23?

You're welcome. Anyway, this is how you can tell if you are almost arrive at Sunnmore when taking the bus. Although the bus ride is about 10 to 15 mins from the pier and when you see the University campus on your left when riding the bus then the bus cross the very short length bridge and you'll be arriving at Sunnmore in seconds. The bus stop is right in front at Sunnmore and when we were there last week, only a few people there so you'll have the whole place by yourself. Bring a hat if you plan to walk back to the ship because no shady areas to walk and the sun is very strong. As I said earlier, we start walking from the ship around 1 PM for about 40 mins and my wife said lets take the bus and we hop on any bus and only took 5 mins to get there. We spent about an hour there and start walking back about 2:30 or 2:45 pm and back to the pier around 4 PM. It's a long walk but you get to see the neighborhood and with all the food we ate from the ship, it balances out perfectly. Have fun....

Thank you so much for all the helpful information - now we're all set!

Our ship docks in Alesund this July, and we're thinking of either hiking Sugartop Mountain (Sukkertoppen) or going to the Sunnmore open air museum. We found a lot of info from @I-Cruiser and others online suggesting public buses 618 and 624 can take us there, but the links no longer work, and google searches do not pull anything up for Alesund public bus routes. Are there still public buses in Alesund? How do I find the routes and timetables?

Thanks for your help!

It sounds like you're going for a talk/text-only plan, but in case anyone's considering a plan that includes data: be advised that they will charge you hefty "data roaming" fees if you use your cellphone data connection (not wifi) while on the ship, EVEN when you're in port. (We knew about this while at sea, but not in port - if you walk off the ship and use your cellphone data, it will be included in your package data plan, but if you walk back onto the ship with your data still turned on, it switches to roaming).

We learned this the hard way, so would like to save others the unexpected charges...

We enjoyed watching the 'pageant' on each formal night. Most men wore dark suits and tie, and most women were in dark cocktail dresses. I wore a LBD and my husband wore his navy linen suit and we fit in fine. We did see some tie-less or coat-less men. I only saw 1 or 2 men in tuxedos; there were a fair amount of women in floor-length dresses (perhaps recycled bridesmaid gowns?), and the teens tended to dress down more (sundresses and cowboy boots were spotted a few times).

When we first got there it was a bit warm in Copenhagen - in the 80s (fahrenheit), which of course felt much better than the 100F temp we'd had in Paris the previous day! I'm from sweltering Texas so 80s is cool to me, but still too warm if you're outside sightseeing all day - plus the whole point of this trip was to escape hot weather, so I wasn't pleased! Luckily CPH cooled down to the 70s by the last day.

Then some rainy weather started, so we were in a bit of a downpour in Oslo - enough that we had to buy another umbrella and decided not to stay in town as long as we'd planned. It was overcast and cool (60s) in Aarhus. Kiel/Hamburg (weather kept us away from Warnemunde) was a beautiful sunny day, which I heard is rare for that area! It rained off and on in Tallinn, but not enough to thwart our fun. St. Petersburg was mostly sunny and cool; just some rain one afternoon. Helsinki was a beautiful sunny day, and Stockholm just got some light showers on/off.

Overall, temps never got above 70F, which was exactly what I wanted! I just dressed in layers (t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, light jacket) that I shed when it warmed up. I was wearing zip-off pants but never got warm enough to zip the legs off. It was warm enough a couple afternoons to soak in the pool a bit (our legs were very tired from all the walking). The decks were fairly cool and windy in the evenings, but that didn't stop us from going out there to watch the sunset or the view!

Just got off the July 7 sailing a week ago; formal nights were the first sea day and the Helsinki day, just as you said.

Just to chime in with another recent experience -

We just got back from a Baltic cruise as well. We travel to Europe every summer, and this is the first time we've ever had a problem with European CC machines not taking our old American mag-stripes (well, it has a chip but no pin, which is useless for this purpose).

Every time I paid I told them "this has no chip or PIN" as I presented the card, because often they have to select a special option before they run the card. Most of the time, though, they'd run it like it had a PIN, the machine would ask for the PIN, and I'd have to say "this card has no PIN", and they'd start the process over. (Very frustrating, but it's the backwards US banks that are the problem, not the cashiers).

This worked fine in every country we visited (Luxembourg, France, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Estonia, and Russia) EXCEPT in Copenhagen. For some reason, we kept encountering tellers who couldn't take mag-stripes (or didn't know how to do it). So we had to pay with cash at a grocery store and several restaurants; we had DKK with us since we were there for several days, but it really annoyed the patrons behind us since we held up the line.

The only other problems we had were when buying bus tickets from a machine in Luxembourg City and buying ride tickets from the machines in Tivoli (Copenhagen). Luckily we had a few Euro coins to cover the Lux bus; Tivoli was a lot more annoying because we had to go back to the customer service booth at the entrance, wait in a slow line, then pre-purchase all the tickets we needed. But luckily we knew that the 2nd day we went so we took care of it as soon as we came inside.

Anyway, just one traveler's recent experience. Come on, US banks, catch up with the rest of the world!!

Is it weird that I'm excited that we can get ammonium chloride in Finland? My great-grandpa was a Swiss baker and his famous Christmas cookies don't taste the same with baking soda (he used ammonium chloride but we can't get it here in the US any more). Do you think I could find ammonium chloride in a grocery store and legally bring it back with me for personal use?

DV,

Thanks again for your help! I'm re-reading your first "wonderful Copenhagen" post :)

We plan to take a day out of Copenhagen to visit Frederiksborg and Rosenborg castles; while looking up train schedules to these two, I noticed that Fredensborg is right in-between and open to the public while we're there in July. It looks fairly easy to stop by there on our way from Helsingor to Hillerod, but in your first post you suggested it's really only feasible with a car. If we're active, fit, faily young people do you think we could handle all 3 castles in one day by public transport? We bought Copenhagen cards so we can use all the trains/buses we want.

Thanks!

Thanks, sauerkraut and anni! Looks like we're scheduled to be in Berth p8, so we can easily do the train to Shwerin on our own. That's a relief!

Anni,

I just read somewhere that the Princess ships have been docking in the "industrial" port rather than the Warnemunde passenger port, which is quite a distance from the Warnemunde train station. How do I verify this is true? If it is, do you recommend taking a taxi to the train station or is there some other means of getting into Warnemunde?

Thanks again for all your information! We're looking forward to seeing Schwerin and catching some of the Warnemunde Week festivities!

nreeder, thanks for this thread! We're really looking forward to taking the Baltic cruise in July, so it's great to read about your experiences!

A question about Nynashamn: how early were you able to get off? Did you have to wait for the Princess excursions before they let the DIYers off?

Hope France was just as wonderful!

Thanks again, DV!

If we get to Frederikssund 2,5hrs early to get our tickets for the 20:00 show, are there things to do in the town for 2 hours while we wait? (From the website it looks like the 'viking market' isn't running the weekend of 7/4).

Thanks for all this great info, DV!

We will plan to visit Roskilde after the festival ends, to avoid the crowds. I'm a little confused about all the viking "opportunities" nearby - my husband wants to see everything with the word "viking" attached, but I would rather just have one or two quality experiences - can you help me narrow down from the following?

1. Roskilde Vikingeskibsmuseet (see 5 Viking ships, sail on a reconstructed longboat (upcharge) - is this different from the "Roskilde Museum" included on the Copenhagen Card? they have different addresses)

2. Frederikssund Vikingespil (http://www.vikingespillet.dk "viking plays" going on through July 12 - is this a popular event that requires advance tickets, or can we buy them at the gate? Would it be feasible to go there in the evening after visiting the castles in Hillerod and Helsingor?)

3. Foteviken Viking open-air museum (viking village reconstruction outside Malmo; is train/bus travel between Copenhagen and Sweden difficult?)

Thanks for your help!

Hi Anni -

Thanks so much for the wealth of information on this thread and your website! I haven't found much about the Warnemunde area other than your information, so I really appreciate you putting it out there.

We dock in Warnemunde on Fri., July 10 from 7:00-21:00. Thanks to your info, we've decided to stay in the area and not take the long trip to Berlin. We're debating two options: stay in Warnemunde and enjoy Regatta Week, or take trains to see the castle in Schwerin and the villages of Wismar and Bad Doberan. So I have two questions:

1. Warnemunde Week - are there any events or festivities open to the public? We enjoy catching local festivals, so that would be a great way to spend the day! I've looked through the website (http://www.warnemuender-woche.com/Programm) but it's unclear when and where the activities are, and how much it costs.

2. If we decide to check out Schwerin, Wismar, and Bad Doberan, do you think it's feasible to connect them all by train, something like this?

1-ticket to Rostock (because we're heading out before 9:00)

+1-Lander ticket, use for 9:07 train to Schwerin (1hr)

use Lander ticket to Wismar (30min; 11:46, 12:46)

use Lander ticket to Bad Doberan (45min; 13:42, 14:42, 15:42)

use Lander ticket to Warnemunde (1hr; 16:30, 16:45, 17:00, 17:30 etc.)

(I'm looking at the bahn.de website for these routes)

We're comfortable navigating public transportation in other countries and we're fairly "fast-paced" tourists. According to the train schedules, it looks like we could even squeeze in Lubeck, but I think I saw somewhere on this thread that's too much?

Let me know what you think of those two options. Thanks again for your help!

Thanks for all the great info on this thread! We're really looking forward to our Baltic adventure in less than 2 months (woohoo!).

We will be in Copenhagen for a little pre-cruise stay July 3-7. We want to take a day tour to visit the Kronborg and Frederiksborg castles and Viking museum in Roskilde, but I see that the big Roskilde Festival is going on while we're there. We enjoy a good summer festival, but will it be impossibly crowded in the area due to the festival? Should we buy train tickets in advance or will we be able to buy them at the station on the day of travel?

Also, Elton John will be at Tivoli while we're there; we don't want to pay extra for entrance to the stage area, but it might be fun to hear it from the surrounding park - will Tivoli be likewise overrun with concert-goers?

Thanks again for all the great info!

What a wealth of information on this thread! I've only gone through 10 pages so far; thank god for the 'search' button!

We are planning a post-cruise 4-night stay in Stockholm in July, and struggling to select a hotel. We want to see the typical tourist attractions, but be close to a variety of restaurants for breakfast and dinner. We prefer to walk and take public transportation everywhere.

We found 4 well-reviewed hotels with comparable-sized rooms (~25 sq meters) at comparable, reasonable prices (~$175), but there all in different neighborhoods. Where do you think is the best place to stay? Here's what we're debating:

Miss Clara, in Vasastaden

Radisson Blu Waterfront, Norrmalm

Mornington Stockholm City, Ostermalm

Rival Hotel, Sodermalm

Thanks so much for your help!

Hello CCers -

Our extended family (ages 30s-60s) is doing a land+cruise trip to Greece and Turkey in late June/early July. I have been lurking on these boards, gleaning great info on some of the places we plan to visit (Athens, Milos, Mykonos, Ephesus, Istanbul). However, I'm not finding much information about some of our stops: Marmaris, Turkey and Myrina, Lemnos (Limnos). We are in port 8-6, so roughly 9-5 on land.

As you can see from the other places we're visiting, we'll have ample opportunities for beaches, ruins, churches, mosques, city life and village life. We'd really like to find some kind of 'active' activity in Marmaris and Myrina, like hiking, snorkeling, biking, kayaking. Does anyone have recommendations on a good hiking/biking/kayaking/snorkeling tour guide (or map), or other ideas for these places?

Thanks so much for your help already!

- m

(cross-posted in "other mediterranean" ports of call)

Hello CCers -

Our extended family (ages 30s-60s) is doing a land+cruise trip to Greece and Turkey in late June/early July. I have been lurking on these boards, gleaning great info on some of the places we plan to visit (Athens, Milos, Mykonos, Ephesus, Istanbul). However, I'm not finding much information about some of our stops: Marmaris, Turkey and Myrina, Lemnos (Limnos). We are in port 8-6, so roughly 9-5 on land.

As you can see from the other places we're visiting, we'll have ample opportunities for beaches, ruins, churches, mosques, city life and village life. We'd really like to find some kind of 'active' activity in Marmaris and Myrina, like hiking, snorkeling, biking, kayaking. Does anyone have recommendations on a good hiking/biking/kayaking/snorkeling tour guide (or map), or other ideas for these places?

Thanks so much for your help already!

- m

(cross-posted in Greece ports of call)