Pre-cruise

[xena13]

We will be cruising on the Celebrity Constellation from July 19-31, 2012. We need advice on the following:

 

Where to stay in Amsterdam overnight on the 18th - something central and not too far from the port.

 

Also any suggested tour operators in Berlin & St. Petersberg. We were considering The Insider Tour Group (#1 on Trip Advisor).

 

Any and all comments welcome.

 

Thank you.

[sddsddean]

You could try joining your roll call http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1468730 and see if anyone is looking for feelow otur participants.

Can't help with Amsterdam and personally I wouldn't go to Berlin from Warnemunde...too much to see in too little time, but just my opinion. We used Denrus in St P, but all the big tour firms there (Alla, Red October etc) have good reputations and do more or less the same thing. You pays your money and makes your choice!! I think most of the St P companies do tours to Berlin as well, so perhaps you can get a discount for 2 tours or something.

 

Simon

[LadyCruisers]

In Amsterdam, right at the cruise terminal is the Movenpick Hotel - highly recommended by quite a few people. Check it out on-line. We did the Baltic Cruise last year and used STP Tours (Viktoria is the owner) in both St. Pete and for Berlin (her husband runs the operation in Berlin) and we got a discount for using them in both cities. They were great. Do not miss Berlin. We personally did not feel that the ride from Warnamunde to Berlin was all that bad. It was an easy, straight drive on a nice highway from the port to the center of Berlin. They meet you at the port with a large bus (there were only about 15 of us on it) and transport all their guests to Berlin central where you branch off into minivans with your guide for the respective tour that you book with them. I believe we spent about six hours - very efficiently run and full of everything we wanted to see (there were 8 of us which we assembled through the roll call on Cruise Critic for our cruise) in Berlin itself. We were back to the ship about 6:30PM and sailaway was not until 11PM. I'll answer any questions if I can. I don't plan to be in Berlin again, so we did not want to at least get the highlights. I'm glad we did. It was well worth it.